Miranda Lambert

Miranda Lambert defied all conventional notions of how a credible country career should proceed. Following an adolescence where she alternated between singing and acting, she came to prominence not as the winner but as a runner-up on the 2003 American Idol knockoff Nashville Star, a dubious stepping stone to stardom if ever there was one, but Lambert's 2005 Kerosene obliterated any notion that she was a reality TV refugee. Filled with lithe, powerful, neo-traditional country songs, many penned by Lambert herself, Kerosene established the singer/songwriter as a commercial force to be reckoned with, while its 2007 sequel, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, pulled off the trick of turning her into a superstar while confirming she was a writer of considerable substance. From there, the hits piled up fast and furious -- most of them from her multi-platinum records Revolution, Four the Record and Platinum, but some coming from her side project Pistol Annies -- and tabloid headlines started to flow after she married fellow country star Blake Shelton in 2011. By that point, she could weather the gossip because there was no mistaking Miranda Lambert as anything but a major figure in country music.