If there's an ethos to
Margo Price
's fifth album, 2025's
Hard Headed Woman
, it's her opening line, "I'm a hard headed woman and I don't owe you sh**." It's a stubbornly independent-minded attitude she embodies throughout the album; one which feels like the third in a trilogy that began with her first two albums, 2016's
Midwest Farmer's Daughter
and 2017's
All American Made
. Those albums garnered widespread acclaim for
Price
, who brought an unassuming Illinois farmgirl charm to her lean country rock. Of course, her early success belied her craftsmanship as a songwriter, as well as a decade of struggle living in Nashville. With
,
reunites with producer
Matt Ross-Spang
(who helmed her first two albums) and returns to her '70s-style outlaw country-inspired sound, shifting away from the genre-crossing Americana and alt-rock of 2020's
That's How Rumors Get Started
and 2023's
Strays
. She frames herself with twangy electric guitar and pedal steel accents, earthy organ, and, as on her cover of the
George Jones
classic "I Just Don't Give a Damn," a funky, soul-infused horn section. Indicative of this shift is the single "Don't Let the Bastards Get You Down," an old-school anthem in the
Loretta Lynn
-tradition in which
sings about sticking to her creative guns while ignoring self-righteous bros and corporate suits. The song also takes direct inspiration from outlaw country icon
Kris Kristofferson
and his words of support to
Sinead O'Connor
after she was booed at a 1992
Bob Dylan
concert. One gets the feeling that
, a woman working against the grain of slick, corporate Nashville, identifies both with
Kristofferson
and
O'Connor
, outspoken, individualistic artists who garnered as much criticism as they did praise in their lifetimes. That said, she never gets too overtly political, rather couching bigger societal issues from an intimate perspective, as in "Close to You," where a bar offers warm solace while the country is in crisis. She sings "We talked about Heaven and we talked about Hell/We played the jukebox while democracy fell/Waltzed across the floor/I had to be close to you." Similarly, on the
Jesse Welles
duet "Don't Wake Up," she coos defiantly about her ability to ignore problems in the world, singing "Dream in a cow pasture, cemetery, dollar store/I can dream in a big city/Dream in a civil war/In the middle of the day, I can go all night." Of course, all of this daydreaming feels like the defense mechanism of someone who worries and feels deeply about the state of the world and her place in it. It's a feeling she underscores throughout the album, contrasting the lean, hard-partying energy of her early years with the wisdom and vulnerability she's gained as an artist, wife, and mother. On
might be a stubborn artist who doesn't feel like she owes "the bastards" anything, but she feels like she's keeping a promise, both to her fans and to herself. ~ Matt Collar