Dreamsicle by Maren Morris
'Dreamsicle' by Maren Morris
In 2023, Maren Morris told the world she was leaving the country-music industry, and that last word is key. Dreamsicle, her fourth album, keeps country sounds in the mix while it brings in more of the other sounds she was delving into before now.
Morris expands more overtly with her many collaborators, including Delacey (who’s co-written with the very pop Chainsmokers and Halsey) and Jack Antonoff (who’s been a producer for and co-writer with … everyone, it seems).
“People Still Show Up,” which came out at the first single last year, has the deceptively lazy backbeat of female-fronted 1970s funk, a resemblance Morris further enhances by speeding through refrains that lead into dizzy basslines and enough cowbell to satisfy Christopher Walken.
“Cry in the Car” keeps the bass but ditches just about every other non-vocal organic element in favor of dancefloor digitization that Morris slides into with the elan of a more neon-lit discotheque dweller like Kylie Minogue.
The pop attitude seeps into Americana songs, as well: “Bed No Breakfast” has the midtempo strumming and lightness of a neo-Nashville relaxant, upended by how unsentimentally, if sweetly, Morris encourages a zipless fuck to take the hint and find the door.
“Push Me Over,” a gorgeously slick partnership with the openly queer indie trio MUNA, doesn’t even attempt to lean toward “Redneck Woman”-style defiance. It is simply a woman’s admission that she needs another woman to be assertive enough to push her off the fence. Erotically speaking.
Morris lets the desire rest near tracks like “Grand Bouquet” and “This Is How a Woman Leaves,” which could earn heavy rotation on any radio station that plays Reba and Shania regularly.
She can juxtapose like that because she’s almost as savvy in her pop ways as Beyoncé and Taylor Swift are in theirs. And she’s a flexible singer who offers Dreamsicle as a treat of many flavors.
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Buy Dreamsicle on Amazon here.
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