Track Listing

1. Gunpowder & Lead
2. Dry Town
3. Famous In A Small Town
4. Crazy Ex-Girlfriend
5. Love Letters
6. Desperation
7. More Like Her
8. Down
9. Guilty In Here
10. Getting Ready
11. Easy From Now On

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1574 in Music
• Released on: 2007-05-01
• Number of discs: 1

Amazon.com
There's no sophomore slump for Miranda Lambert, who follows her chart-topping debut, Kerosene, with a knockout punch. Both the title cut and the album-opening "Gunpowder & Lead" ("what little girls are made of") show that Lambert hasn't lost her edge or her appetite for revenge. Yet the quieter "Desperation," the more tuneful and tender "Love Letters," the wistful "More Like Her," and the primally intense "Down" show her emotional range and maturity. While her songwriting remains a strength, Lambert also displays superb taste in other people's material, with "Dry Town" (by Gillian Welch), "Getting Ready" (a new song from Patty Griffin), and "Easy from Now On" (with the lyric that provided the title to Emmylou Harris's classic Quarter Moon in a Ten-Cent Town) reinforcing the musical quality. There isn't a throwaway cut here. --Don McLeese

Customer Reviews

A superb follow-up record
Miranda Lambert promises to be the next Dolly Parton. Not that Dolly Parton could ever be replaced, but the country music world is in need of a new, feisty blond who can write and sing songs that no one else wants to. Miranda Lambert, with her blunt honesty and pure talent, is capable of doing so, and doing it better than any of her peers.

CRAZY EX-GIRLFRIEND is appropriately named; several of these tunes sizzle with bottled up hatred, from the opener "Gunpowder & Lead" ("his fist is big but my gun's bigger/he'll find out when I pull the trigger"), to the title track, even to the whistful "More Like Her" ("You don't look much like a man from where I'm at," she sings mournfully). Other tunes are simply insights into darker lifestyles; "Down" and "Desperation" will depress the hell out of you, while "Guilty In Here" tackles a woman who uses the men in her life, and can't stop ("Is it guilty in here, or is it just me?"). Other songs are a bit more light-hearted, including Gillian Welch's whimsical "Dry Town" and Lambert's superb "Famous in a Small Town."

This album stands as one of the best yet this year. Miranda Lambert is one of the best songwriters on the scene. She wrote or co-wrote all but three of these tracks, and those she didn't write ("Dry Town" by Welch, "Getting Ready" by Patti Griffin, and "Easy From Now On" by Carlene Carter) fit right into the flow of the album. Her voice can be sharp as a razor or smooth as butter; her delivery is always top-notch. All of these songs shine with personality and grit; it takes pure talent to deliver every one of these songs, and Miranda Lambert is the best woman for the job.

Gunpowder Lead and TALENT
Listen to the first two tracks on this cd to hear how diverse Miranda can be.
Gunpowder and Lead is leather and electric and the very next track Dry Town is blue jeans and root beer. I love it.
There aren't any throwaways on this cd.
Desperation, a Miranda composition is a fine story song.
Same with Famous In A Small Town, a Miranda/Travis Howard song.
The whole cd has a great cohesive feel to it. Though the songs are all
very different in beat and intensity. Great lyrics throughout.

For the life of me I cannot understand why Miranda is not
everywhere on country radio and why she isn't winning the awards.
She writes her own stuff, she is a musician, she has a very unique vocal style in today's country, and she is naturally gorgeous.
Don't depend on the limited view of country radio play, get this cd for yourself.
You will be doing yourself a great favor.

I'm convinced that
she's one of the greatest talents this country has ever produced. I don't like most of what Nashville, and Sony especially, is presently putting out. Pop country is trite, immature, and targeted at rather low intellects. I buy a lot of country music, 90% indie, but Miranda Lambert is special. Her introductory album was a top 3 best release in the country all year (rivaled only by The Wreckers and The Meat Purveyors) and so far this year she has no equal. Crazy Ex-Girlfriend offers the same, if not better, maturity of writing, versatility, excellence and independence in style and total performance as her first album. She is by far the greatest female country solo artist presently, and perhaps in our nation's history. This album has no rejects, all keepers, and of my more than 600 country albums collected over 50 years, top 10. Stop reading the rants of this old fart and buy the damn album.