Miranda Lambert's 11th studio album, "Crisco," is out now, and the Associated Press reports it is a collection of boogie-forward tracks buoyed by sweeping strings — cowboy hats paired with roller skates. "I've spent a lot of my career with fiery songs and heartbreak songs and this record just has a lot of joy on it," she tells the AP. The title track spells out the mission: "Ain't we mixin' country and disco / Stir it around, give it a spin."

The release caps months the AP describes as career-defining: seven CMA Awards nominations, a disco ball-filled ACM performance that got attendees boogying, and co-writing Ella Langley's "Choosin' Texas." That song has gone six times platinum, was named Billboard's 2026 Song of the Summer, made Langley the only woman to simultaneously top the Hot 100, Hot Country Songs and Country Airplay charts, and was just named the longest-running No. 1 hit in the U.S. Lambert co-produced Langley's "Dandelion" and features her on the opener "Snakeskin Boots."

The Grand Junction Daily Sentinel highlights another surprising development: Lambert and Kacey Musgraves have squashed their long-rumored beef, collaborating on "Horses and Divorces" for Musgraves' new "Middle of Nowhere" album. "Maybe we're more alike than we think," they sing. Lambert attributes the past friction to "the crazy grind of this business" and early-career competition among female artists, telling the AP it is "whiskey under the bridge now."

A detail country fans will savor, reported by the AP: the "A Song To Sing" video features Lambert and Stapleton in matching red suits at a roller rink, with Lambert wearing hoop earrings lent by the late Dolly Parton and Stapleton in a Kenny Rogers necklace. "Having a little piece of her around me all day definitely inspired me for this whole project," Lambert says. Longtime co-writer Natalie Hemby, who co-wrote five tracks including "Snakeskin Boots," calls this "the most fun era" of writing for Lambert yet.

Lambert tells the AP that country music is in a spot reminiscent of the 1990s, with "finally room for everyone" and artists no longer "fighting for like only 30 spots on the chart." With "Crisco" out and her producing and co-writing collaborations expanding — from Langley to Musgraves — the record positions her as both a genre veteran and an experimenter. Longtime collaborator Natalie Hemby puts it simply: "Her star is just shining so bright, as big as Texas."