Score: 4.5/5
The long-standing titan of the music industry masterfully sculpts the American genre from the ground-up on her ambitious opus.
Beyoncé, Queen Bey, Sasha Fierce, or whichever other title you choose to use does not change the momentous weight Beyoncé Knowles-Carter has on pop culture and contemporary music. Her name alone carries immense connotations to the scope of her cultural influence.
And yet, despite her groundbreaking influence on the music industry, such as changing the international release date of records from Tuesday to Friday, Beyoncé continues to evolve artistically in unprecedented ways, shaking up the industry and beyond with every release.
This phenomenon is on full display with the release of the country-inspired Cowboy Carter, her eighth studio album released on March 29.
The album serves as “act II” of a three-act trilogy project, beginning with its predecessor Renaissance, which is loaded front to back with pounding dance music echoing the opulent underground vogue balls of the 1990s.
While undoubtedly a flex of Beyoncé’s musical knowledge, collaborative efforts, vocal mastery and all-around swagger, the triumphant voice of Renaissance is best likened to a choir composed of the various Black and queer pioneers that gave life to house music and queer culture iconography. Its title alone makes clear its mission: to inspire a renaissance in queer culture and give flowers to those that inspired the music making up the album’s flesh and bones.
Renaissance’s intentions are presented in its structural elements, but Cowboy Carter takes a more comprehensive approach to realizing its mission. Instead of framing Beyoncé as a vessel for queer and Black pioneers outside herself, she fully recognizes her identity within genres and uses it to reclaim her right as a storyteller.
While it may not be as sonically cohesive as the nonstop throbbing house beats of Renaissance, Cowboy Carter is, for the most part, a thematically exacting album held together by an ambitious vision of reshaping genre in a way only an artist with her cultural significance could.
With such deep roots in R&B, Beyoncé’s decision to venture into country on her ninth studio album Cowboy Carter is rather unexpected, but why?
The ugly truth is the genre’s unfortunate ties to the American right wing and the discrimination that frequently comes with it.
Born and raised as a Houston native, Beyoncé has often celebrated her Texas roots throughout her career. On her 2016 album Lemonade, she released the song “Daddy Lessons” which incorporated country and Louisiana Creole zydeco music. Her father, Mathew Knowles, has noted in interviews that country music played a significant role in her upbringing, where she grew up attending the Houston Rodeo and went on to make several appearances at the rodeo throughout the early 2000s.
If one’s right to engage with country music is dependent on their regional upbringing, Beyoncé fits the bill perfectly, certainly better than Grammy-winning country artist Keith Urban, who was born and raised in Australia. The fact that this leaves no dent in Beyoncé’s perceived right to explore the genre proves that more sinister beliefs are at play.
In 2016, Beyoncé performed “Daddy Lessons” at the Country Music Awards alongside the Chicks (formerly known as The Dixie Chicks). Despite widespread praise from fans and critics alike, she received criticism from country music fans over her attempt to integrate into the genre, as well as her left-leaning politics and activism against police brutality.
It’s unsurprising that as a genre influenced by the American South, country music is heavily politicized by the right wing. In 2023, country artist Jason Aldean released the single “Try That in a Small Town” in response to progressive movements in urban areas across America, threateningly defending gun ownership and ridiculing protests against police brutality in the song.
The track’s distasteful stench was picked up by other country artists, notably Sheryl Crow, who accused the song of promoting violence, going on to state that “even people in small towns are sick of violence.”
Regardless of the widespread backlash Aldean received, the single still climbed to the number one spot on the US Billboard Top 100.
The influence of right-wing politics in country music is undeniable, but the genre should not simply be reduced to those who use it as a masturbatory tool for their reactionary beliefs.
Country music legend Dolly Parton has long been recognized for her proud support of LGBTQ+ rights, openly supporting gay marriage prior to its legalization and acknowledging the diversity of families in her 1991 song “Family.”
Beyoncé synthesizes these current political conflicts within country music to lay the groundwork for the album, kicking it off with the anthemic “Ameriican Requiem,” a declaration of her position in the genre and American music at large. Over the track’s five-minute duration, she takes a confrontational stance against the politicization of country music. In the first lines she declares “Nothing really ends / For things to stay the same they have to change again,” referring to America’s long history of racism and its continuous threat despite the revolutionary efforts of generations before; an evil that persistently takes new forms.
Beyoncé takes the meaning of a requiem – a ceremony for the dead – and recontextualizes it as a funeral for traditional American ideas once believed to be the ingredients to freedom. She buries these “big ideas” alongside the exclusionary conventions of country music, openly challenging herself, listeners and the industry to reevaluate their current understanding of country music’s American mythos.
As Beyoncé stated prior to Cowboy Carter’s release, “this isn’t a country album, this is a Beyoncé album.” In a more literal sense, Beyoncé has made a country-adjacent album by taking inspiration from the American iconography and musical styles present in the genre. However, the crux of this statement is her refusal to conform to the standards of country music held up by the discriminatory right-wing politics of the powerful few, bending the genre to herself to create a melting pot of country, psychedelic rock, rap and R&B.
The track serves a similar purpose to Renaissance’s opener “I’m That Girl” in its declarative nature. Both emphasize the mystique of Beyoncé as a musician and cultural figure, but where “I’m That Girl” places Beyoncé in possession of an abstract ideal of what it means to just be “that girl,” “Ameriican Requiem” grounds her in the American storytelling outside herself.
The track concludes by returning to its opening melody, likening America to a “pretty house that we never settled in.” Behind its dazzling red, white and blue curtain, America has been and continues to be a place of civil unrest, this constant struggle becoming an unfortunate part of America’s identity.
After a colossal opening, the album pulls back into a cover of The Beatles’ “Blackbird,” from their 1968 self-titled release. The track will likely be overshadowed by Beyoncé’s take on Parton’s “Jolene,” but her decision to cover “Blackbird” is perhaps one of the most poignant and encompassing of Cowboy Carter and the trilogy project overall.
Paul McCartney, the song’s original writer and performer, has noted that he took inspiration from the resilience of black women during the civil rights movement. Beyoncé’s version utilizes the identical guitar melody from the original but adds backing vocals Black country artists from Tanner Adell, Britney Spencer and Tiera Kennedy, adding a refreshing take on the original that feels timely and applicable to the album’s mission.
The cover transitions into the third track, “16 Carriages,” which served as a single alongside the widely popular “Texas Hold Em’.” Whereas the latter adopts the stereotypical kitschy twang of country music, “16 Carriages” emphasizes the genre’s storytelling capabilities as Beyoncé speaks about the impact starting her career early had on her coming-of-age journey.
In a broad sense, the song speaks of a turning point in one’s life where they recognize the growing distance of youth. While it goes without question that Beyoncé’s circumstances were different from the average person, her vulnerable acknowledgement of innocence lost feels entirely earnest. The analogy of sixteen carriages represents those sixteen years of youth before her life began to permanently shift directions. The juxtaposition between a steady acoustic guitar in the verses and the swelling, expansive synths in the chorus feels like a parallel to standing on a precipice at the end of youth. Such a change may feel freeing and confining all at once, and the song’s lyrics and production reflect this conflict of emotions exquisitely.
While she expresses gratitude for overcoming her childhood fears, there is a sombre hesitancy to the lyrics; an echo of “what if?” If you ask anyone what their childhood dream was, the answer will likely be a stark deviation from the current path they’ve set themselves on. At some point, there comes a fearful realization that it is too late to achieve those dreams – that ultimately, they require more work than was initially believed when looked at through the hopeful eyes of a child. The grief that follows this realization is frequently a long, slow burn.
Throughout Cowboy Carter’s nearly 90-minute runtime Beyoncé embarks on an odyssey of the American genre; to limit this album to the title of one genre would be a disservice to several other tracks that starkly deviate from conventions. After the near pastiche sound of “Texas Hold Em’,” she delves into a slick ‘70s classic rock sound on the immediately catchy “Bodyguard.” Shortly after she moves into a darker, melancholy sound on “Daughter,” ending the track with a passage from the Italian opera song “Caro Mio Ben.”
If this rapid cycling of musical styles wasn’t enough, Beyoncé moves into rap on “Spaghettii” after country legend Linda Martell introduces the concept of breaking genres. Martell returns to introduce the track “Ya Ya,” a theatrical, almost campy display of American live music where Beyoncé interpolates Nancy Sinatra’s “These Boots Were Made for Walking” and The Beach Boys’ “Good Vibrations.”
While the album’s extensive runtime mostly feels justified, there are a few tracks that could be cut without impacting the overall mission of Cowboy Carter. “II Most Wanted” featuring Miley Cyrus is bound to become an anthem for crying in the club and a prime contender for duo awards at the Grammys, but its lyrics and Cyrus’ presence break the flow of Cowboy Carter’s fitting Beyoncé-centrism. The following track, “Levii’s Jeans” featuring Post Malone, is arguably the album’s weakest cut and certainly one of the most forgettable, having little selling points other than the novelty of Post being featured on a Queen Bey track. Ideally, the song would be complete with a “skip-advertisement” button, as it certainly feels like one.
Cowboy Carter’s final act is considerably strong, kicking off with the repetitive but nonetheless catchy “Riiverdance.” The twangy guitar, thumping bass drum and Beyoncé repeatedly saying “bounce on that shit (no hands)” between her silky vocal runs on the verses creates a momentum that makes the transition into “II Hands II Heaven” feel even more seamless.
After an album full of acoustic guitar, “II Hands II Heaven” showcases Beyoncé’s well-established ability to coast over electronic R&B beats. Standing at five minutes and 41 seconds, it’s the longest track on the album and demands more patience than the album’s catchier cuts. The reward is some of the album’s most delicately intricate production, superb vocals and tender subject matter as Beyoncé sings to the love of her life before rocketing into the energetic trap-sound of the following track, “Tyrant.”
The penultimate track, “Sweet / Honey / Buckiin’,” serves as a satisfying conclusion to the album’s cocktail of genres, acting as an unhinged three-in-one track of country, blues and hip-hop. At this point in the album, it feels impossible to categorize “Sweet / Honey / Buckiin’” as any genre but, well, Beyoncé herself.
Following a stellar run of tracks, the album concludes with the bittersweet, triumphant “Amen,” a reprise of “Ameriican Requiem.” Here she makes several lyrical alterations to the opening track. In the latter’s line “Them big ideas (yeah) are buried here (yeah),” Beyonce swaps “big” with “old,” recontextualizing the line’s meaning to indicate a passage of time. In acknowledging the traditional “big” American ideas as now “old,” she has situated Cowboy Carter as a timely declaration of lasting change; a reclamation of Black narrative in music.
Perhaps at the end of the day, when the crowd leaves the rodeo, Cowboy Carter is not so different from Renaissance in the role its title plays in its mission. Apart from coincidentally sharing a name with the singer’s married name Carter, the title is a reference to The Carter Family, an American music group in the early 1900s that became known as “the first family of country music.”
While Beyoncé is not seeking to stomp her (cowboy) boots over the legacy of The Carter Family, she has positioned herself in the genre as a catalyst for change; a new beginning. Through all the backlash, she stands alongside the ambitious opus that is Cowboy Carter as proof that the musical confines of American genres are as malleable as the social constructs walling them in. She’s crafted a legacy that is no one’s but her own and is inviting others to do the same.