Rainbow Ruckus 1/14: Lily Rose, Katie Pruitt, Holly Lerski, and More!
Every week, Rainbow Rodeo brings you the best new queer country music! Listen to this playlist on Spotify and Tidal! Thanks to Elliott for making a parallel list on Apple Music! Listen to the parallel list on Tidal. Missed a week? TA Inskeep is generously keeping an archive of all music featured on this Spotify playlist.
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- Holly Lerski's post-breakup American roadtrip yielded a trove of songs. Her revisitation of her song "Girl in A High Castle" takes on a classic Laurel Canyon sound with gentle finger-picking and soulful backing vocals.
- Lily Rose has had an exciting 2024, opening for heroes like Shaniah Twain and contemporaries and Sam Hunt. While a good deal of her songs are barn burners, "Let You Know When I Get There" is a gentle pop country ballad of home-coming in all senses.
- On "Worst Case Scenario (Acoustic Version)," Katie Pruitt revisits her powerful statement about catastrophizing – and avoiding it. (Like a lot of us this week, I'm living in that space right now.) The version on her wonderful album Mantras is a foreboding, muscular indie rock song that channels crushing anxiety. Here, the song is a lullaby for the anxious.
- For a further pick-me-up, consider Heather Mae's meditation on queer divinity with "Fearfully Wonderfully Made." This ballad is a gift to anyone who has felt shame or self-loathing – bonus points if you have religious trauma. But either way, we could all use the reminder that we are holy, in whatever ways that resonates with us.
- Johanna Rose is a fearless musical explorer, from punk to country and back again, and their team-up with country stalwart Nick Gamer is just perfection. "Royal St" is a blissful duet of unrequited love – just what country music was made for.
