Kenny Chesney didn't particularly stand out when he strolled into a Malibu, Calif., cafe last week and plopped down at a corner table with a view of the water.

Chesney, 48, recently received the Pinnacle Award from the Country Music Association. Presented only twice before (to Garth Brooks and Taylor Swift), the prize is meant to recognize an artist “who has achieved global prominence through concert performances and record sales at levels unique in country music,” according to the CMA.

In addition to the type of party songs that have made him a reliable draw in stadiums across the U.S., his new album, “Cosmic Hallelujah,” offers deeper, more nuanced thoughts on the distractions of the Instagram era (in “Noise”), the small comforts of home (“Jesus and Elvis”) and even the stagnation of the American dream (“Rich and Miserable”).

“There are songs my audience is going to expect from me,” he said of the album, parts of which he recorded in Malibu at producer Rick Rubin's Shangri-La studio. “And there's a few where I'm taking them somewhere new.”

These are excerpts from our conversation.

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Q: You refer to Los Angeles more than once on this record.

A: It was such a creative atmosphere for me — such a needed atmosphere.

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Q: You also sing about trying to focus and be present, which strikes me as very LA.

A: We communicate at such a fast pace now, and if you don't, you're left behind. With all that, I felt I'd lost this certain sense of intimacy on every level of my life: I wasn't creative; I was a bad friend; I was a bad boyfriend. I wasn't communicating.

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Q: Tell me about these duets you've been recording. They have a different attitude toward women than many current country songs; you're not objectifying your partner or trying to contain her.

A: I grew up in a family of women. My mom and my grandmother were in the hospital at the same time having us. An aunt is my age. And my mom's a twin. I've got a sister.

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Q: Your last album had “Wild Child” with Grace Potter, about your appreciation for a woman with “a spirit that can't be tamed.”

A: I'm attracted to that free spirit who loves really hard and has this certain inner beauty. I mean, they can be gorgeous. But the way they walk through the world — I'm very attracted to these kind of women. There's not a lot of songs out there lifting them up instead of objectifying them. But I do think that trend's going away a bit.

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Q: The objectifying trend?

A: Yeah. But that comes with getting to a certain spot in your life. I mean, I couldn't have written “Wild Child” when I was 28. I'd be saying, “What up?/ Get in the truck,” just like everybody else.

mikael.wood@latimes.com