Everybody’s favourite country gals are back.
The Dixie Chicks have just announced their first album in 14 years and to go with it, they’ve released the title track, Gaslighter.
After the world turned its back on them all those years ago, the Dixie Chicks have finally made a triumphant return with Gaslighter.
Gaslighter was produced by Jack Antonoff (who has more recently worked with Lana Del Rey and Taylor Swift) and marks the group’s long-awaited comeback album, following 2006’s Taking the Long Way.
It’s been a sad tale for the trio who were infamously boycotted in 2003 after expressing their disapproval of the Iraq War (and advocating peace) during a concert in London. Following their remarks, the group were blacklisted from American radio and television networks, receiving death threats and criticism worldwide.
Whilst their 2006 album debuted at No. 1 on Billboard’s pop charts and won the Grammy for Album of the Year, country radio stations refused to play it, and the band struggled with ticket sales. The band have toured intermittently in the intervening years, but today marks the first time they have released music since their last album.
Gaslighter then heralds the band’s triumphant return from their long exile, and even more triumphantly, they appear not to be shying away from social commentary. The title, Gaslighter, originally comes from a 1944 film where a man tries to convince his wife that she’s crazy.
The track seems to address the archetypal bad man of country music, as lead singer Natalie Maines describes: “Hollywood welcomed you with open doors; no matter what they gave you, you still wanted more.” Gaslighting has now become a politically charged term, after Lauren Duca famously wrote, “Donald Trump is gaslighting America.”
Gaslighter is accompanied by a music video directed by Seanne Farmer. Check it out below.
Their album, Gaslighter, comes out May 1, via Columbia.
This country song written by artificial intelligence is a lyrical masterpiece.
