I wanted to get the middle slot on tours instead of the opening slot, and ultimately headline, and in country music, radio is that vehicle.' 'Like, 'Is she ever gonna have a hit or she just gonna be one of those other kinds of artists?' I was frustrated-at some point, I wanted to move up. 'The town was watching,' she says over a screen from her house in Nashville. Early on, Lambert was defined by wild-eyed revenge songs like 'Crazy Ex-Girlfriend' and 'Gunpowder and Lead'-'I was pigeonholed,” she says, 'like, 'Oh, she'll just burn your house down or shoot you.'' Then the sassy, simmering 'White Liar' started making a run, pushing its way into the Top Ten. It had been five years since her major label debut album, and though she had seen steady success, she had not yet had the breakthrough hit single that would establish her as a serious force in country music.Ĭountry radio (which, to this day, holds more power for its audience than in other genres) didn’t seem quite sure what to do with this fiery young woman who, unlike many of her peers, wrote most of her own tracks.
It was 2010, and Miranda Lambert was nervous.
