2000–2003: Career beginnings, self-titled debut album, and Nashville Star At 16, Lambert appeared on the Johnnie High Country Music Revue in
Arlington, Texas, the same talent show that had helped launch the career of
LeAnn Rimes. Lambert then acquired a recording session in
Nashville, Tennessee, but left the studio after she became frustrated with the "pop" type of music presented to her. She went back to Texas in 2000 and asked her father to teach her how to play guitar, so she could write her own songs. In 2001, she released her self-titled debut album which consisted of 10 tracks. In 2002, Dusty Meador hired Lambert to perform at Tye Phelps' country music restaurant and venue Love and War in Texas. Lambert continued to perform around the Texas Music Scene opening for
Cooder Graw,
Kevin Fowler, and
Jack Ingram. In 2003, she auditioned for the talent competition
Nashville Star, where she earned a third-place finish behind
Buddy Jewell and John Arthur Martinez. During her 9-week stay on
Nashville Star, Lambert caught the attention of the show's judge and Sony Music executive, Tracy Gershon, who later convinced the label to sign her.
2004–2008: Kerosene and Crazy Ex- Girlfriend On September 15, 2003, she signed with
Epic Records. Her debut single, "Me and Charlie Talking", co-written by her father and Heather Little, was released in summer of 2004 as the lead single to her first Epic album, titled
Kerosene. This album was also her first to be produced by
Frank Liddell, best known for his work with his wife
Lee Ann Womack and
David Nail. Lambert wrote 11 of the album's 12 songs. The album debuted at number one on the
Billboard Top Country Albums charts, and eventually gained a Platinum certification by the RIAA for shipments of over one million copies, selling more than 930,000 copies up to July 2008. Overall, the album produced four Top 40 singles on the
Billboard country charts, including the title track which was a Top 20 hit. Lambert also toured with
Keith Urban and
George Strait in early 2006. In 2007, she toured with
Dierks Bentley and
Toby Keith. On Thursday, August 7, 2007 Miranda played at the famous Sikeston Jaycee Bootheel Rodeo in Sikeston, Missouri. , March 31, 2007 Lambert's second album,
Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, was released on May 1, 2007. She wrote eight of the album's 11 tracks, including its four singles. Much of the track "Gunpowder & Lead", the album's third single and her highest-charting single, was written while she was taking a concealed-carry handgun class in her home town. Fady Joudah of
The New Yorker said the album proved "she has talent and charisma on a par with
Dolly Parton, another blond beauty who was once underestimated." In 2005, at the 40th Annual
Academy of Country Music Awards in Las Vegas, Lambert won the
CoverGirl "Fresh Face of Country Music Award". She was also nominated for the
Country Music Association's Horizon Award in 2005; in 2007, Lambert also received a
Grammy Award nomination for Best Female Country Vocal Performance for her single "Kerosene". She also won the Top New Female Vocalist award at the 2007 ACM (Academy of Country Music) Awards. At the 2008 ACM (Academy of Country Music) Awards,
Crazy Ex-Girlfriend won Album of the Year.
2009–2011: Revolution Lambert released her third album,
Revolution, on September 29, 2009. She co-wrote 11 of the album's 15 tracks; the album also includes co-writes from
Dave Haywood and
Charles Kelley of
Lady Antebellum and Blake Shelton.
Revolution received significant critical praise on its release. At
Metacritic the album received an
average score of 85, based on 11 reviews, which indicates "universal acclaim". It was released on May 4, 2009, and was a minor Top 40 hit on the charts. The album's second single, "
White Liar", was released on August 17, 2009, and debuted at No. 50 on the U.S.
Billboard Hot Country Songs chart. In February 2010, "White Liar" became Lambert's first Top Five hit, reaching a peak of No. 2 on the U.S.
Billboard Hot Country Songs chart.
The House That Built Me, the album's third single, was released on March 8, 2010, and became a No. 1 on the U.S.
Billboard Hot Country Songs chart. It stayed there for four weeks, and received platinum certification from the
RIAA on July 8, 2010. "
Only Prettier" followed as the album's fourth single in July 2010, and its accompanying music video went viral. The music video for "Only Prettier" featured cameo appearances by fellow country artists
Kellie Pickler,
Laura Bell Bundy, and
Hillary Scott of Lady Antebellum. In December 2010, "Only Prettier" reached a peak of number 12 on the U.S. Billboard Hot Country Songs chart, giving Lambert her seventh Top 20 hit. "Heart Like Mine" was released in January 2011 as the fifth and final single from
Revolution. It became Lambert's second number-one hit on the country charts for the chart dated May 28, 2011. In promotion of
Revolution, Lambert launched a headlining tour;
Roadside Bars & Pink Guitars in March 2010, with stops in 22 cities and a performance at the
Bonnaroo Music Festival. On September 1, 2010, it was announced that Lambert had received a record-setting 9 CMA award nominations. She performed at the 44th Annual Country Music Association Awards on November 10, 2010. She won the CMA Award for Female Vocalist of the Year, and her
Revolution won Album of the Year. Lambert and
Sheryl Crow performed "
Coal Miner's Daughter" as a tribute to country legend
Loretta Lynn who also entered the stage to join them and finished the song with Crow and Lambert as backup. Later that night, Lynn presented the Female Vocalist of the Year CMA award to Lambert. On February 13, 2011, Lambert won a Grammy Award in the
Best Female Country Vocal Performance category for "The House That Built Me".
2011–2013: Four the Record and the Pistol Annies , Texas, July 1, 2007 On April 4, 2011, during the taping of the Academy of Country Music's 'Girls' Night Out' television special in
Las Vegas, Lambert debuted her new project, girl group
Pistol Annies. The group consists of Lambert,
Ashley Monroe, and
Angaleena Presley. They released their single, "Hell on Heels", in May 2011, and released their debut album,
Hell on Heels, on August 23, 2011, which debuted at No. 1 on Billboard's country chart. Sasha Frere-Jones of
The New Yorker said the trio "is good enough to recall those transcendent moments of vocal harmony the Dixie Chicks used to hit every few months". Lambert's fourth studio album,
Four the Record, was released on November 1, 2011; her first album for
RCA Nashville, after Sony Music Nashville announced a corporate restructuring.
Four the Record produced five singles: "
Baggage Claim", "
Over You", "
Fastest Girl in Town", "
Mama's Broken Heart" and "
All Kinds of Kinds". "
Over You", which Lambert and Shelton co-wrote, reached number 1 in early 2012. On February 8, 2012, Lambert made her acting debut on
NBC's long-running
legal drama,
Law & Order: Special Victims Unit in an episode titled "
Father's Shadow". Lambert later told
CMT News she was a big fan of the show: "I never wanted to act. I still don't. I don't want to be an actress. I just wanted to be on that show mainly so I could be a groupie [for their autographs]." Late in 2012, Lambert appeared on Shelton's Christmas album ''
Cheers, It's Christmas'', to which she contributed guest vocals on a version of "
Jingle Bell Rock". The soundtrack was released on October 2, 2012. On October 23, 2012, Lambert and
Dierks Bentley announced the co-headlined 33-show Locked & Reloaded Tour, which began on January 17, 2013. On May 7, 2013, a second Pistol Annies album,
Annie Up, was released. This album produced the group's first country chart entry with "Hush Hush". The Pistol Annies are also one of many acts featured on Blake Shelton's 2013 single "
Boys 'Round Here", which went to number 1 on
Country Airplay. They had previously accompanied Shelton on a rendition of "
Blue Christmas" on ''Cheers, It's Christmas''.
2014–2015: Platinum "
Automatic", the
lead single from Lambert's fifth studio album,
Platinum, was released on February 5, 2014, to praise from music critics. The album, containing 16 songs, was released on June 3, 2014. In September, Lambert announced her sixth studio album,
The Weight of These Wings, which was released on November 18, 2016. She was selected as one of 30 artists to perform on "
Forever Country", a
mashup track of "
Take Me Home, Country Roads", "
On the Road Again" and "
I Will Always Love You" which celebrated 50 years of the
CMA Awards. Shortly after the release of
The Weight of These Wings, the
Highway Vagabond Tour was announced and began on January 24, 2017. These were Lambert's first live shows since she was put on mandatory
vocal rest and was forced to cancel her
Keeper of the Flame Tour in 2016. The tour visited the US, Canada and were her first solo shows in Europe, seeing her return to England, Ireland, Scotland and, for the first time, the Netherlands. After promotion and touring for
The Weight of These Wings ended, the Pistol Annies reformed and released their third studio album
Interstate Gospel on November 2, 2018, which subsequently reached number 1 on the Billboard Country Albums Chart.
2019–2020: Wildcard Lambert announced that the lead-off single from her seventh studio album would be "
It All Comes Out in the Wash", which was released on July 18, 2019. The song was co-written by Lambert with
Hillary Lindsey,
Lori McKenna, and
Liz Rose ("Love Junkies") and produced by
Jay Joyce, marking the first time she had worked with the producer. The song was released alongside "Locomotive", another track intended for the upcoming album that she had previously debuted on the
CMA Music Festival in June 2019. Two other tracks—"Mess with My Head" and "Bluebird"—were also previewed ahead of the album in August 2019. Lambert's seventh studio album,
Wildcard, was released on November 1, 2019. In promotion of the album, Lambert announced the 27-date
Wildcard Tour, which was set to begin on January 16, 2020, and run through May 9, 2020, but which had to be cancelled due to the
coronavirus pandemic. Several solo acoustic live performances of "Bluebird" premiered on her Instagram and YouTube channels during this time, and she performed the song at the belated and socially-distanced 2020
ACMs, at which she won an award for
Music Event of the Year for her collaboration with other female country artists, "
Fooled Around and Fell in Love". On the chart dated August 1, 2020, "Bluebird" became Lambert's first number 1 single on the
Billboard Country Airplay chart as a solo artist since 2012's "
Over You", and her fifth career number 1 on the chart. "Bluebird" was also a critical success, nominated for three
CMA awards, two
Grammy Awards, and three
ACM awards, winning the
CMA Award for Best Music Video. "
Settling Down" was released as the third official single from
Wildcard on September 21, 2020, and Lambert performed the song live at the 2020
CMAs with just two guitarists backing. As of May 10, 2021, the song had reached the top 10 of both the
Billboard Hot Country Songs Chart and the Billboard Country Airplay Chart, making it her 14th career top 10 hit on the Country Airplay Chart and her 16th on the Hot Country Songs Chart. The album
Wildcard went on to be nominated for both
ACM and
CMA Album of the Year, and won the 2021
Grammy for the Best Country Album on 15 March. She performed "Bluebird" at the awards ceremony.
2021–2022: The Marfa Tapes, Palomino, and Pistol Annies' Hell of a Holiday Lambert hinted at an upcoming project with longtime friends and collaborators
Jon Randall and
Jack Ingram via her social media accounts on March 2, 2021, before announcing their upcoming collaborative acoustic record
The Marfa Tapes in the following days, to be released on May 7. The tracklist was announced, with Lambert's previously recorded songs "
Tin Man" and "
Tequila Does" both set to be featured on the album, and the first new song
In His Arms was premiered with a video on March 5. The album was recorded in Marfa, Texas towards the end of 2020 with just two microphones and two acoustic guitars, and was said to have an unpolished feel, with one-take recordings retaining mistakes and snapshots of conversations between the three, and the sound of the campfire and the desert in the background. It would contain 15 songs the three singer-songwriters had written together over a period of six years, beginning in July 2015.
In His Arms was performed live by Lambert, Randall and Ingram at the 2021
ACM Awards, and at the awards show Lambert also performed "
Drunk (And I Don't Wanna Go Home)" with
Elle King, and she also stood in last-minute for
Chris Stapleton's wife
Morgane Stapleton to sing harmony on Stapleton's performance of ''Maggie's Song.'' The new recording of
"Tin Man", alongside previously unheard tracks "Am I Right or Amarillo" and "Geraldene" were also pre-released before the album's release on May 7, and the trio performed "Geraldene" live on
The Ellen Show later in the month. Around this time, Miranda Lambert replied to a comment regarding her band the
Pistol Annies in the comments section of her Instagram post, fuelling speculation that a new
Pistol Annies project might be in the works for 2021. Lambert subsequently revealed that she "didn't do much in the beginning of 2020. [She] just sort of enjoyed the break... And then in the last six months or so [she] kind of worked overtime to make up for lost time", and that an upcoming solo record was therefore in the works. She commented in the same article that she was considering re-recording several tracks from
The Marfa Tapes for this record, including "In His Arms" and "Geraldene", and potentially other personal favourites, such as "Waxahachie"
. The Marfa Tapes album was released to critical acclaim on May 7, with critics applauding Lambert's musical risk-taking and the simple but effective songwriting.
Pitchfork commented, "Somewhere between a demo collection, a live album with no audience, and a lo-fi left turn, this music is a joy to hear, like a vacation on record", and
Variety questioned whether this might even be Lambert's best record so far, "And like her bigger, broader sounding albums, she gives as good as she gets, quietly, while sounding as grand as if she had a studio band's excess at work." The film premiered on Lambert's Facebook page on May 8, featuring original songs not previously seen and not included on
The Marfa Tapes, the first of which was "Tornado" — co-written by Lambert, Randall and Ingram — and also a Lambert solo-written piece, "They've Closed Down the Honky-Tonks". In the week following the album's release, the trio performed lead single "In His Arms" once more, on
The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. On October 15, she released the lead single from her upcoming studio album, "
If I Was A Cowboy", on October 15. The song's first video was uploaded to YouTube on October 15, and a later official video was uploaded to YouTube on January 12, 2022. The single has been a moderate hit on the country singles charts, so far reaching the top 20 of both the Country Airplay Chart and the Hot Country Songs Chart. The Pistol Annies announced the release of their first Christmas album,
Hell of a Holiday, which was released October 22, 2021. It contains 10 original songs, a cover of Merle Haggard's "If We Make It Through December", popular Christmas classic "Sleigh Ride", and traditional New Year's song "Auld Lang Syne". They performed many of the songs and discussed the album on December 15's "The Pistol Annies Hell of a Holiday Special", which was made available on Facebook. On December 30, 2021, Lambert released "Y'all Means All" in support of the LGBTQ community. The song was used in the trailer for the sixth season of
Queer Eye. In March 2022 she won Entertainer of the Year at the American Country Music Awards. Lambert and
Elle King's 2021 collaboration "
Drunk (And I Don't Wanna Go Home)" was certified platinum in February, and the two performed the song together at the Ryman Auditorium on Feb 28th to celebrate. The single has so far reached the top 10 of the country charts. Lambert released a teaser for a new song titled "Strange" ahead of the
ACM Awards, which were held on March 7 in
Vegas. She was nominated for 5 awards, marking her record-breaking 16th nomination for Female Vocalist of the Year, and she won Video of the Year for "Drunk (And I Don't Wanna Go Home)", and as well as the top prize of the night, Entertainer of the Year, for the first time in her career. This brings her tally of total ACM Awards won to 37, the most of all time, and also meant that she is eligible for the ACM's rare and coveted Triple Crown Award. On March 10, Lambert released "Strange" alongside a video on her YouTube channel, and announced her ninth solo studio album,
Palomino, which was released on April 29. The album includes "
If I Was a Cowboy" and "Strange", alongside three re-recorded tracks from her 2021
Marfa Tapes album with
Jon Randall and
Jack Ingram: "Geraldene", "In His Arms", and "Waxahachie". Lambert headlined Europe's largest country music festival,
C2C: Country 2 Country, from March 11–13, 2022, marking her first performances in the UK/Europe since her headlining tour there in 2017. She performed two songs from
Palomino live for the first time ever at her London show on March 11, her single "If I Was a Cowboy" and "Actin' Up".
2023–present: Label change and Postcards from Texas In March 2023, Lambert announced that she was leaving
Sony Music Nashville after nineteen years. In April 2024, Lambert announced that she had signed a joint deal with
Republic Records and
Big Loud, with the latter set to handle country radio promotion and marketing. She also announced the first single under the new contract, "
Wranglers", which was released on May 3, 2024. It serves as the lead single to her tenth studio album,
Postcards from Texas. Promotional single "Dammit Randy" was released on June 28, 2024, a song she co-wrote with her husband, Brendan McLoughlin. The album was released on September 13, 2024. Lambert co-wrote and sang backing vocals on
Ella Langley's 2026 No. 1
Billboard 100 hit, "
Choosin' Texas." The song's video, set in a Texas bar, features Lambert as a country performer who takes a heartbroken Langley back to Tennessee. ==Endorsements and business ventures==