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 trio announced that alongside the record, they would be released 'The Marfa Tapes' film on Lambert's Facebook page to be available for 24 hours from May 8, which would feature acoustic performances from the record alongside interviews and behind-the-scenes footage from the recording process of the album.
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". The album was well-received for its original content, and Billboard praised their cover of "If We Make It Through December" as "One of the most striking moments on Hell of a Holiday". 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 eighth 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".
