Let me tell you a story. It’s 2016, the world is at the precipice of a new era of political instability, summers are getting hotter, and Beyoncé dropped her magnum opus Lemonade. On Lemonade, Beyoncé dug deep into her Texan routes with the song Daddy Lessons and the country music industry has been clutching its pearls ever since. She would later perform a remix of the song with The Chicks (formerly The Dixie Chicks) at the Country Music Awards in what is one of the most controversial moves in Beyoncé’s entire career. Most of the criticism she faced was something along the lines of saying that she didn’t belong in country music. Colour me surprised, but it’s hardly shocking that a genre that famously has massive problems with how it treats women and people of colour would be the one to try and gatekeep from Beyoncé. Not to mention that since they criticised George Bush and the Iraq War back in the early 2000s, The Chicks have been pariahs in much of the conservative landscape of Nashville.
Country music at large is at a very interesting yet largely stagnant point in its history. Country songs and artists are consistently dominating mainstream charts in the US but creatively have suffered heavy sanitation and staleness for the best part of a decade. Country music has also had some seriously bad press in the last few years. In a time when America is more socially divided than ever, country music has become a refuge for some of music’s most conservative material. Songs like Try That In a Small Town by Jason Aldean, a song that is nothing short of a rallying cry for racists, charting wildly high on the Billboard Hot 100. Even country songs with inoffensive lyrics are often sung by men with less-than-ideal personal press. For example, Morgan Wallen, who gave us Last Night, which to this day over a year after its release is still charting highly, had his own brush with controversy after getting drunk and using the N-word.
Her personal experience and the wider issues in the genre didn’t put Beyoncé off exploring country, instead it made her more determined to pursue the genre in her music. That brings us to her new album, COWBOY CARTER, the second in her planned three-album collection. First came RENAISSANCE, an album that, for me, had a middling impact despite a polished composition and concept. The ethos behind both albums is Beyoncé reinventing the primary genre of the project in question and subverting narratives about either her or, more generally, black women in the spaces she explores. It is safe to say that this aim translates far more strongly on COWBOY CARTER as it feels like a riskier album for a pop artist like Beyoncé. Going into the album I was actually far more curious than I was for RENAISSANCE, knowing that if this album worked it was going to really WORK.
So, has COWBOY CARTER achieved its goals of reinventing country in a new Beyoncé-ified image? Tentatively, I think that it has. The album’s first section of songs establish that Beyoncé knows her references; this was an album that comes from a place of deep knowledge and respect for classic country. Songs like the lead singles TEXAS HOLD ‘EM and 16 CARRIAGES show off Bey’s ability to adapt to classical country sounds without losing her distinctive point of view. This is only further supported by BLACKBIIRD, BODYGUARD, and PROTECTOR that weave in different influences together to create a tapestry of rich southern musical heritage and influence.
Her reverence for the history of country music is even further developed when she takes her spin at Dolly Parton’s classic Jolene. With Beyoncé’s JOLENE the narrative is flipped, instead of pleading with Jolene in Beyoncé’s tale Jolene is being scolded to an inch of her life. The tone of the song is still reminiscent of the original, and the iconic guitar riff remains, but in this version, the extra venom transforms the song enough to feel distinct. Jolene is one of the most covered songs in country history, so this new direction was needed to add to the dialogue.
Beyoncé builds on the country foundations of this album a lot throughout its one-hour and 18-minute run, touching on influences in opera, rock, and funk. The song SPAGHETTII lays this out the most strikingly. After the delicate ballad DAUGHTER we are hit by one of the most experimental songs of Beyoncé’s entire career as it oscillates between a selection of genres as she raps over the base beat. SPAGHETTII is a true shock to the system that, while I can’t see myself returning to it soon, serves as Beyoncé’s assertion that this album is here to challenge what you think country music is. The aim is not to merely blend into the fabric of the genre but tear through it and tie it back together in her own way.
A few songs later in the album we get one of the most unexpected moments of the entire play through. If you told me a year ago that Beyoncé and Miley Cyrus would do a duet I would have found that hard to believe. Both women are very talented but they are also not a natural pairing for a duet. Despite that, on II MOST WANTED, their voices melt together like butter. The song opens with a gentle guitar riff that sounds slightly reminiscent of Miley’s own Butterfly Fly Away from The Hannah Montana Movie. Miley digs into her Tennessee roots to really capture lighting in a bottle on this song, holding her own against Beyoncé while adding a nice texture to the duet that helps separate the song from others on the album. The song also has lyrics that feel evocative of either a Thelma and Louise friendship or, dare I say, sapphic energy.
Beyoncé continues to play with country, pushing its limits, as she delivers FLAMENCO, which is certainly not a true flamenco song. The song has some hints of flamenco with faint sounds of palmas in the background but ultimately does not hit on the genre it professes to be inspired by. The song itself is very tender and pleasant to listen to, but it could have gone further by leaning into the layered sounds of flamenco. Maybe she should have dialled up Rosalía for an assist on this one.
FLAMENCO sets us up for the true apex of the album with YA YA. This song, introduced by Linda Martell, is evocative of Tina Turner while sampling Nancy Sinatra and the Beach Boys. It is a song that stretches across country, rock, funk, and countless other influences that mesh together to create one of the most dynamic songs not only of Beyoncé’s career but of the 2020s all together. YA YA was invented for a live performance a la Turner’s Proud Mary. Beyoncé growls over a constantly developing and shifting track that is infectious. The energy on YA YA stays at 100 the entire run. I would be seriously surprised if this song doesn’t become a staple of Beyoncé’s touring repertoire for the rest of her career, and I just know that it will be solidified as a fan favourite already.
The next song that particularly stands out to me is RIIVERDANCE, a song that was co-written by Raye. The song is fast-paced and danceable, maintaining the heavy guitar basis that the majority of this album is structured around. Further down in the album, we get the second Dolly Parton appearance with TYRANT, a song that blends Dolly and Bey’s sounds, leaning into the hip-hop sound that Bey has cultivated over her past few projects. The album closes with the song AMEN, which ties up the aims and direction of COWBOY CARTER with a degree of restraint that is refreshing after the body of the second half of the album being quite fast-paced. She sings tenderly and bookends the project with an earnest song that discusses faith, damaged relationships, and vulnerability.
COWBOY CARTER is, by a considerable stretch, the boldest album of Beyoncé’s career since Lemonade, where this journey with country music began. The genre shift of the album pairs with lyricism that is far stronger and layered than that on RENAISSANCE with personal songs that have a more defined narrative not present on the previous album. The question remains, though: did this album hit on all of the things Beyoncé was aspiring to? She has touched on country in a way only she can, with a gravitas that could not be delivered with the same ease and intensity from anyone else. With my only admittedly limited knowledge of country, it is very safe to say that Beyoncé was not interested in appealing to the current tastemakers in Nashville. Instead, she reaches for a version of country that feels both rooted in the past eras of country while grasping at a new frontier in the genre that challenges its internal perceptions. With cosigns from Dolly, Willie Nelson, and Miley Cyrus, she has the backing of some of the genre’s most influential artists while defining a lane of her own.
This album does have some misses for me; a handful of the songs feel either too similar to others on the album or somewhat half-baked when stacked up against the rest of the tracklist. For me the length of this album is where it potentially falls down, if maybe 3 tracks were cut to bring it closer to an hour in run time I think it would be stronger. I do feel that as it currently stands, I get the rationale behind each song on the album, though trimming the fat, so to speak, would produce a more balanced listening experience.
Overarchingly, COWBOY CARTER is an incredibly daring statement for Beyoncé to make. Sewing together a number of different influences, she is unapologetic in her manipulation of country and has produced a project that is one of a kind. I feel that for a genre that has been slowly dying a death through generic and stagnant content for at least the last 5 years, this was what country needed to revive itself. Do I think that the industry is going to heed to the power of Beyoncé? I wouldn’t anticipate it. The whole essence of this album is a defiance of a space where women of colour are massively ignored and marginalised, and even if the most famous woman of colour in the world is taking on the genre, I anticipate that the gatekeepers will still try to exclude Beyoncé from the country conversation. Though this may sound pessimistic, I think that just necessitates this album more. This album is a middle finger to everyone who said that Beyoncé wasn’t welcome in Nashville, and boy does it sound powerful.
Listen to COWBOY CARTER here: