Miranda Lambert would be easy to dismiss. She placed not first, but third on “Nashville Star,” the off-brand Country version of American Idol. There are plenty of contest winners strutting across the national stage, singing songs picked to cash in on a very specific music taste.

Lambert’s “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend” is different than almost all of the other used-to-be contestants’ offerings. First of all, the tiny Texan with the sweet-tea voice and prickly briar rose delivery wrote most of the songs on the album. Not everybody needs to write their own material. Everybody’s favorite, Carrie Underwood, did very well with her song about tearing up a cheating boyfriend’s vehicle in the parking lot of a bar. It was a fair trick given that the achingly wholesome Underwood doesn’t seem the type to date men who would even visit a bar — except maybe to ask for directions.

Lambert’s songwriting adds authenticity, the flavor of which is like real butter in country music and as rare as spotting a unicorn smoking cigarettes in a pop music world frequented by singing contest winners. She starts off hard with “Gunpowder & Lead,” a righteously pissed off song about waiting at home for a slap-happy boyfriend with a shotgun. “Drytown” is a light-hearted anthem about being stuck in the middle of nowhere without access to a beer. Aand “Famous in a Small Town” lovingly celebrates the joys of smalltown acclaim and being pretty ordinary. She moves from anger to sadness to guilty lust effortlessly. She rocks without giving up the twang and sings country without absolutely embracing the watered down, obscenely safe brand that is all too familiar. It all sounds very real.

Maybe it’s because Lambert finished third, but her second album is easily better than her first.

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