Us Ranks Miranda Lambert’s 10 Albums: From Her 2005 Debut to ‘Postcards From Texas’
Miranda Lambert has been on top of the country world for two decades, releasing 10 solo albums and four with her band, the Pistol Annies.
She got her start on the short-lived reality show Nashville Star, somehow finishing in third place on its first season in 2003. Two years later, however, she released her debut album, Kerosene, and it quickly became obvious that she was a superstar. She’s since won three Grammys, 14 CMA Awards and a whopping 25 ACM awards.
“Country fans, they're the kind that stay with you forever,” Lambert exclusively told Us Weekly ahead of the September 2024 release of her 10th album, Postcards From Texas. “We have the best fans in the world. I'm having girls that were my age when I first came onto the scene that are bringing their daughters [to my shows], and their daughters are 15 and 16 saying, ‘We grew up on your music.’ And it means so much to me that they would pass that on to their daughters because the messages are still the same, and it's still about being a powerful person and knowing who you are.”
Lambert still knows who she is on Postcards, which is an album-length ode to her home state. In honor of her latest project, keep scrolling for a ranking of Lambert’s 10 solo albums:
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10. ‘Crazy Ex-Girlfriend’ (2007)
There’s not a bad album in Lambert’s catalog, but this one just feels slightly less cohesive than some of her later work. Still, it’s clear that even this early in her career she had a unique point of view that she wouldn’t compromise for anyone — it opens with a song about her getting back at an abusive ex … by killing him.
Standout Tracks: “Gunpowder & Lead,” “Famous in a Small Town”
9. ‘Four the Record’ (2011)
While Lambert’s fourth album includes some of the best songs she’s ever done — “Mama’s Broken Heart” and “Fastest Girl in Town,” for example — it doesn’t have as many earworms overall as say, Platinum or Revolution. But there are a lot of great midtempo, folky songs here (“Same Old You” and “Easy Living”), and those become less common on later albums as Lambert starts incorporating more rock-influenced sounds.
Standout Tracks: “Mama’s Broken Heart,” “Dear Diamond,” “Over You”
8. ‘Wildcard’ (2019)
Lambert is by no means a crossover artist, but Wildcard includes some of the most pop-forward songs she’s done. “Mess With My Head” could be an Avril Lavigne outtake (complimentary), while “Pretty Bitchin’” would be right at home on pop radio if not for the twang in its guitars. But she reclaims her country bona fides on songs like “Tequila Does,” which pretty much instantly earned a spot in the jukebox of every dive bar in Nashville.
Standout Tracks: “Bluebird,” “Tequila Does,” “Holy Water”
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7. ‘Kerosene’ (2005)
Debut albums are rarely this incredible, especially in radio-dependent genres like country where a few good singles can make or break an artist, but Lambert did not slouch on Kerosene. She delivered the singles, but the deep cuts are just as riveting — and she already sounds exactly like herself. Her songwriting skills have of course grown since then, but her take-no-prisoners personality was fully formed even back then.
Standout Tracks: “Me and Charlie Talking,” “Mama, I’m Alright,” “New Strings”
6. ‘Platinum’ (2014)
It’s hard to separate Platinum from its visuals, which were notably bigger and more badass than most country music videos were at the time. Consider the Carrie Underwood duet “Somethin’ Bad” where they rob a bank before escaping in a helicopter, or the “Little Red Wagon” clip where Lambert relaxes poolside in a cherry red bathing suit as her tiny dog floats on its own canine-sized raft. Platinum is the album where Lambert upped her game, becoming the kind of star that even non-country fans started following.
Standout Tracks: “Little Red Wagon,” “Somethin’ Bad,” “Platinum”
5. ‘The Weight of These Wings’ (2016)
Lambert’s 24-track double album is arguably the most divisive entry in her discography, in part because it’s so long. It might seem messy, but that’s hardly an accident — it’s the first album she recorded after her divorce from ex-husband Blake Shelton. A lesser woman might have recorded 12 quippy kiss-off tracks and called it a day, but Lambert lets you in on the whole complicated aftermath of a breakup: staying at the bar till the “ugly lights” come on, driving down the highway in search of something new and numbing the pain with new partners who can’t quite kill the heartbreak.
Standout Tracks: “Tin Man,” “Vice,” “Highway Vagabond”
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4. ‘Postcards From Texas’ (2024)
It’s admittedly a little premature to decide where Lambert’s newest album will fit in her legacy, but early listens have convinced Us that it’s a classic. It’s a delight to hear Lambert sing so many love letters to her home state, which hasn’t always played such a prominent role in her music.
“It's just home to me. I feel like it's kind of a full circle record for me,” she exclusively told Us ahead of the album’s release. “I hadn't made a record in Texas since my little independent record when I was 18, and so to be 20 years later to finally make another record in Texas with my best friend Jon Randall … it just has this honky-tonk home sound to me.”
Standout Tracks: “Armadillo,” “Wranglers,” “No Man’s Land”
3. ‘The Marfa Tapes’ (2021)
Lambert recorded The Marfa Tapes with the aforementioned Randall and their pal Jack Ingram, but it still technically counts as one of her solo albums. Most of these songs appear elsewhere in her discography, but in many cases these stripped-down, acoustic versions are superior to the more “polished” takes that ended up on other records. It’s rare for stars as big as Lambert to release such unvarnished work, which makes The Marfa Tapes feel like peeking into her diary.
Standout Tracks: “Waxahacie,” “In His Arms,” “Ghost”
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2. ‘Revolution’ (2009)
From the first notes of opening banger “White Liar” to the final twangs of “Virginia Bluebell,” Revolution is an album showcasing an artist at the height of her powers. It truly has everything: heartbreaking metaphors (“Dead Flowers”), Texas sass (“Time to Get a Gun”), poignant ballads (“The House That Built Me”) and windows-down odes to the highway (“Airstream Song”). No skips!
Standout Tracks: “White Liar,” “Dead Flowers,” “The House That Built Me”
1. ‘Palomino’ (2022)
Palomino beats Revolution by a hair simply because it is so perfectly thematic — it’s all about wide open vistas, road-tripping and the characters you meet along the way. Lambert also manages to capture a full range of emotions and sounds even as she’s celebrating the joy of travel, from the gospel-inflected stomper “Wandering Spirit” to the downright heartbreaking slow burn of “In His Arms.”
Standout Tracks: “Strange,” “In His Arms,” “Actin’ Up”
