Wynonna Judd Talks ‘Raw, Primal’ Upcoming Album

Wynonna Judd is preparing to release new music, a project that she says will be a departure from what fans have heard from her in the past.

"It's vintage yet modern. It's hard to explain," Judd tells Rolling Stone Country of the album's sound. "A lot of the things I did I'm drawing from, yet the new sound is so simple and so pure... This album is just going to be the highest of the high to the lowest of the valley-of-the-shadow-of-death sadness. Mournful, raw, primal sounds that come from the guts of music."

Her description of the new music doesn't seem to line up with what country fans have been hearing on the radio in recent years, but Judd isn't worried about her success at country radio.

"I could sing [these songs] to my cats and I would love every second of that," she says. "I don't want to make just another hit record. I don't want to be just another statistic. I want to be life-changing in that people go, 'Oh my God,' and they respond to it in a way that can be transforming; in that they quit what they're doing and go for something crazy."

As country music transforms, many artists are having trouble finding a place to be relevant in the changing landscape. Judd says that she's not worried about being irrelevant because that's not what music is about for her.

"I'm Wynonna Judd, I've earned a right to be here," she states. "I'm alive and I can sing from my toenails."