Miranda Lambert photo by Randee St. Nicholas, courtesy of Sony Music Nashville.

She may be comfortable embodying qualities at the far extremes of a particular divide, but don’t call her a centrist. "I just think it’s boring to be straight down the middle vanilla," Lambert says. "I have people that absolutely love me, and I’m sure I have people that absolutely hate everything that I ever stand for. But that’s good. At least people are passionate about something, and talking about you either way. But just down-the-middle plain, that’s never been my style, personally or professionally."

That may have come as a surprise a few years ago to anyone who expected a certain acquiescence out of a former reality show contestant. Lambert came in third in the first season of Nashville Star, which certainly set up preconceptions about just what kind of artist she’d turn out to be. Yet, with years of playing Texas nightclubs under her belt even as a teenager, she faced down Nashville executives with the same steely determination with which she’d stared down rowdy bar crowds. And despite Music Row’s rep for remaking impressionable artists in its own image, she says she’s never faced resistance on her vision from anyone at Sony Nashville, on up to the label chairman.

"Joe Galante is another person that absolutely let me be myself artistically. I don’t know why, but I’m incredibly thankful for it, and I don’t want to question it too much. I feel sorry for people that don’t have that. But I think a lot of it people might bring it on themselves, because if you don’t know who you are, then it’s a lot easier to be swayed one direction or the other. And I came into this business it with such strong convictions. of: ‘This is me. I can go back home to Texas and do what I do there playing in clubs, or I can try to become bigger. Anybody want to help me out here?’ And it’s worked, thankfully."

Her 2005 freshman effort, Kerosene, put her in an exclusive club, as one of only seven artists in the history of SoundScan to come out of the box at No. 1 on the country sales chart with a debut album. Critical support was immediately forthcoming: It was named one of the year’s 10 best albums by the New York Times and Rolling Stone, among many others. She picked up key nominations for the CMAs, Grammys and other honors, beating fellow newcomers Taylor Swift and Kellie Pickler to be named as the ACMs’ top new female vocalist.

In 2007, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend also debuted at No. 1 on the country chart. After a slew of top 20 singles, the sophomore album generated her first top 10 hit, "Gunpowder and Lead." It was named one of the top 10 albums of the year by Entertainment Weekly, Blender, and "dean of rock critics" Robert Christgau. In the Village Voice’s annual all-genre poll of America’s music critics, it placed No. 15, the highest showing ever by a country album amid the usually rock- and hip-hop-favoring survey. It fared even better—No. 1, to be exact—in the Nashville Scene’s annual poll of national critics who specialize in country. "This year, our 96 voters handed Texas singer Miranda Lambert one of the most dominating victories in the poll’s history," the Scene wrote in announcing the results. (The critics also named "Famous in a Small Town" the year’s best single, as well as naming Miranda female vocalist of the year, songwriter of the year, and artist of the year.) It wasn’t just journalists handing out the accolades, but the music industry, as Crazy Ex-Girlfriend won the coveted album of the year trophy at the 2008 Academy of Country Music Awards.

What to do for a three-peat?

To some degree, "we went with the school of ‘If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’," she says. "We worked with the same guys to do the record that did my last two—same musicians, same producers." In the latter category are Frank Liddell and Mike Wrucke. "Frank is such a great song guy? And Wrucke’s the total brain behind the way my records sound."

But there are crucial differences, too. For one thing, Revolution includes 15 tracks instead of the Nashville-standard 10 or 11. "To me, if there’s a story to tell in 15 songs, then people get 15 songs. I really wanted it to feel like a piece of art—a real body of work, a musical journey if you will. And it is an album. The whole album is this huge circle with a picture of my face at the end. If you don’t have the whole thing, then you don’t have the complete picture."