In 2022, Beyonce released her seventh studio album Renaissance, an ode to dance music as seen through a Black lens. The singer referred to the critically- and commercially-acclaimed album as her Act I – the first of a planned three-album thematic trilogy all through a similar lens.
All that to say, Beyonce has just released a new album called Cowboy Carter (which she, naturally, calls Act II: Cowboy Carter) and boy, is it an all-encompassing ode to country music. There’s country legends aplenty – if off the very top of your head you thought of Willie Nelson and Dolly Parton, you’d be correct – and Beyonce runs through genres and sub-genres like no one’s business. The rollicking lead single, “Texas Hold Em”, which you’ve undoubtedly heard already through Spotify, radio, or wherever you get your music, topped country charts, making Beyonce the first Black woman (!) to do so.
If you find it impossible to not tap your feet to the real-life boogie and the real-life hoe-down on “Texas Hold Em”, rejoice – for the rest of the album packs a similar punch. The other single, “16 Carriages”, is a slower ballad that offers a perfect vehicle (no pun intended) for Beyonce’s gospel-tinged vocals – shining light on another important element of growing up in the South. And of course, there’s “Jolene” – her striking cover of the most iconic country song in the world, introduced by Dolly Parton herself on the short “Dolly P” interlude. Beyonce’s cover has proved to be a little controversial (although clearly blessed by Dolly), mostly for the way that she changes the lyrics to imply that she’d, well, fuck Jolene up if she actually came near her man.
Perhaps the most interesting choice on the album was to structure it as a playlist on the fictional country music radio station KNTRY Radio Texas. Willie Nelson himself “introduces” various tracks throughout the album through his “Smoke Hour” interludes, including once for his own tender duet with Beyonce called “Just for Fun”.
Of course, with the multitudes within Beyonce’s musical repertoire, this couldn’t just be a country album. “Blackbird” is a beautiful cover of the famous Beatles track, with Beyonce’s strong vocals supported by a gentle choir of up-and-coming Black artists. (It all fits so beautifully that Paul McCartney personally congratulated Beyonce on it, which is no surprise given he purportedly wrote the track about Black women during the Civil Rights movement.) “Protector”, which opens with a spoken snippet by her second daughter Rumi, is a lilting, hymn-like track about protecting your children; one side of a coin with “Daughter”, a speed-picked track about how she, Beyonce, is herself her father’s (potentially violent) daughter. That track ends with (why not?) Beyonce singing a chilling snippet of an Italian opera song. “Genres are a funny little concept, aren’t they?” says Black female country pioneer Linda Martell on “Spaghetti”, an on-the-nose comment considering that this tonal-shift track could fall right into Cardi B’s next album and you’d be none the wiser.
If there’s anything that takes away from the Cowboy Carter experience, it’s that the album is a touch too long. With 27 tracks (of course including the interludes), it’s clear that Beyonce has a lot to say, but a little editing could have gone a long way with taking this album from great to instant-classic. There’s too much on here, to the point where could-be-notable features with Miley Cyrus, Post Malone, and so many others just get lost in the mix.
It’s important to note throughout the entire album that Beyonce is country. Her roots are intermixed between the Southern strongholds of Houston and New Orleans, both of which she regularly mentions in her music. She’s literally performed at the Houston Rodeo multiple times, and spent her formative years listening to country music deep in Alabama. She’s not being pretentious or stealing culture by making a country album – this is who she really is. Perhaps that’s the reason that Cowboy Carter often feels like a more natural album for Beyonce than Renaissance was – which was good, undoubtedly, but often felt like her setting out trying to make a Club Album™. So, for all the petty haters who didn’t want Beyonce on country music stations: in the bless-your-heart words of Willie Nelson, “go to the good place your mind likes to wander off to / and if you don’t wanna go, go find yourself a jukebox”.
Rating: 9/10
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