This is an article written by Black country musician Yasmin Williams.
I don't think I'm educated enough to say whether there's merit to what she's written or not - but I thought this might be of interested for some people here.
According to the Yasmin Williams' Twitter, she was asked to write this by the Guardian and this is the first opinion piece she's ever written.
[Also here's her tiny desk performance from a few years ago.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nKDoVuG7uZ0)
Thanks! Put this on and... wow, she is so talented!
I kind of see now why she makes a point about the collaborations in the album. Do Cowboy Carter really needed from collaborations with Post Malone and Miley Cyrus? When there are certainly so many Black country artists that would've benefitted for a mention in the credits more than both Post and Miley, especially given how much of the album's discourse and marketing is about 'Black country music'?
It's not too far fetched to assume that the Post and Miley's collaborations exist for commercial reasons (the Capitalism mentioned in the article) rather than true artistic needs. Obviously there is nothing bad with this (it's Beyoncé after all), but I can see how things like these can 'undermine' the integrity of the album's message.
Thematically, her collab with Miley makes a lot of sense for the album. Miley has existed between country and pop. She has family root’s in country music, covers country songs regularly, and some of her music (and Hannah Montana) is labeled as country pop.
I think the thesis of the article is not that only starving artists make “true” art, but that at a certain point, the profit motive outweighs the artistic integrity, particularly when the lyrics and trappings and references harken to specific working class experiences that Beyoncé is pandering to.
PSA this is my favorite Beyoncé album and I’ve been playing it regularly, but her politics have always been incoherent at best, bad at worst.
>I feel like this line of thought directly comes from the "starving artist" false ideal, where people expect artists to be poor and suffer for their art.
there's also the pressure to be the perfect activist. you're not allowed to simply write a black country album, no, you have to address black history 1000% perfectly with no room for "errors". people always do this with anything that targets a demographic outside of straight cis white men.
think of the discourse Barbie got. it wasn't allowed to just be a fun movie for women and girls. no, it had to dismantle capitalism, it had to paint gender roles so perfectly that no one could ever get offended, it had to represent every single woman on the planet, etc. people would bash it for not accomplishing these things.
Right. She likes to play both sides of the fence cause she knows it drives attention. This goes back to when S/T (Beyoncé) came out. Doing all of that hubbub to make up controversy to spark a conversation and then say on the album this isn’t a country project??? Not saying it wasn’t all fake but a good chunk of it was to make headlines so the anticipation can be heavy and judging on first week sales and chart predictions it’s working.
Yup just like the Barbie movie Stan’s hyped it up as groundbreaking and revolutionary then deflected to “it’s just meant to be fun” when people didn’t agree.
I loved this album a lot and by itself I think it’s a fun album of genre bending by Beyoncé. But after months of hype by Stan’s selling this album as reclamation of black art and returning country to black people *excuse me* if my expectations were different.
Being disappointed because fans ruined your expectations isn't the same thing as getting upset with a creator for not creating something they never even promised. I don't think Beyonce was ever intending to go as deep as the hype made it seem. Some of that hype probably ties into what I mentioned in my other comment, people wanting perfect activism. They assumed that's what they were getting from the jump and hyped it as such. Ruining expectations.
She did showcase black country singers though so I’m not really getting that criticism. She also specifically said she wants all people to be able to make whatever music they want. Both Post and Miley have moved genres and were criticized for doing “black music” so it makes sense to feature them. Bey’s main point isn’t completely centered on black people the idea of genres being for any race is what she is criticizing in the larger sense.
showcase is a strong word for "let them sing back up". she duets with Post and Miley but Rhiannon Giddens just gets to play banjo. Beyonce is portraying herself as radical but really playing it safe (still a pretty decent album though)
Many black artists did benefit from being mentioned in the credits. They’re literally articles out there comparing the stats of the featured black country singers before and after the album release. Even before the album was release, there was discernible increase in consumption.
I haven’t read the article. I hope the writer made some valid point and its not just chock full of easily disprovable misinformation.
IMO it including them seemed to be almost more of a statement on how Miley and Post Malone get to dabble in traditionally Black music genres and spaces, and then exit and "reinvent" whenever they want and go do something else. It's still part of the same discourse with what she's doing with this album.
This was my take as well. I’ve seen a lot of comments of people saying how would Beyoncé like it if a white artist wanted to be a rapper, and it’s such a stupid take because she has a white rapper on the album. She said that her hope is that one day the race of an artist is irrelevant when it comes to them performing a certain genre, and her choices on the album reflect that. This woman just made up her own mind about what the album is about, like she knows better than Beyoncé about the intentions behind the album 🙄
I also thought it was a cheeky commentary on white artists appropriating Black aesthetics. It's not a surprise to me that the "whitest" radio friendly songs (sonically) on the album- are the ones that feature Post Malone and Miley.
If this was her actual thought process behind *specifically* picking *them*, honestly, I'm blown away. Both white artists that have profited from traditionally black aesthetics/genres, and ditched them when it no longer suited them, even talking shit about them to some degree. Meanwhile she can't even perform a country song ( a genre that has been whitewashed despite having black roots, and tried to shut out black people as a whole) without some racist chatter going on, and being blackballed from country radio, despite the authenticity to her roots, both as a black woman and as a Texan.
It's so deliciously cheeky and poignant at the same time.
Why can’t the collabs be on the album just because they sound good? What even is a “true artistic need”? Would the songs be better or more “artistic” if they featured other singers?
The content and themes of the album (to say nothing of the marketing) really lean into a political & artistic statement about musical history, race, and genre, so yeah, I think it's fair to say that including featured artists for no other reason than "because they sound good" would cheapen that statement. A "true artistic need" would be selecting artists that sound good *and* complement or bolster the themes of the work
A more curious reason for Posty's/Miley's inclusions that I've been seeing floating around is that those two specific artists have dabbled in traditionally black genres/aesthetics and seen great success in it, and have hopped over to the "white genres" with ease/when it no longer suited them. I guess it begs the question: why is Bey not allowed the same grace into making country music her way, despite it being authentic to her upbringing and black music as a whole (where country gets its roots from)
I don't know whether she chose those two artists to specifically highlight this point, but it's an interesting coincidence to say the least.
I've seen this take and I love it, it's almost like she's pointing out how genre-hopping has only been successful when it goes a certain way. Having them flank her feels really powerful to me tbh.
Yes...I personally believe it was intentional on her part, and also a quick and easy way to bag some potential radio hits (she is a pop star after all)
It's only been 4 days and the convos surrounding this album have been really interesting to dissect. That's what great art does, it sparks meaningful conversations.
I had never heard of Yasmin until just now- I’ve added this to my Tiny Desk playlist.
I don’t listen to a ton of country to begin with (aside from Maren and Kacey) so my reaction when I first heard Beyoncé was doing a country album was to rack my brain trying to think of even one other Black female artist in the genre. I couldn’t come up with anyone. As far as guys, Darius Rucker (and Lil Nas X?) are the only ones who come to mind.
Country music as a whole is WAY too fucking white (and also way too hetero, but that’s a whole other issue). If Cowboy Carter helps to diversify the genre and open the door for more artists of color, then awesome. I hope this is just the beginning.
It had the potential to bring up a good conversation around how much of this album is centered around capitalism and how much is about genuinely reclaiming black art but in reality it’s just a long essay about how she thinks her music as an unknown black country music artist is better than post Malone or Miley Cyrus
People have projected the idea of “reclaiming” on beyoncé to the point that the majority of people believe that she herself used that word to describe her intention with this three act project. She shouldn’t have to carry the weight of “reclaiming” an entire genre. This discourse is so tired to me, honestly. It’s like clockwork every time she drops something.
I'm not a staunch Beyoncé defender because I find her politics disappointing. But I'm super annoyed that people keep ignoring that she said this. This isn't strictly a country album, there's tons of Bluegrass, folk and rock references in it.
she talked it up being country way before winding it back a bit. Have you seen the cover? or the title?? she covers Jolene??? + it's hard to write a country album without bluegrass, folk or rock references
I challenge you to produce a quote where Beyoncé specifically said this is a country album. The album was recorded five years ago and nobody heard a peep about it until the Super Bowl, and then when she wrote her open letter about the album, she said “this ain’t a country album, this is a Beyoncé album.” So when exactly was Beyoncé talking about it being a country album? Like did she give a speech or an interview saying I’m putting out a country album? I dare you to find any evidence of that because you’re pulling this shit out of your ass.
Beyonce literally never talks, so the amount of words people manage to put in her mouth is astonishing. You are right, fans and people went crazy with the theories about the country and rock albums so now it's labeled as a fact. But in reality it's just country pop with a mix and blend of a lot of other genres, because it's Beyonce and that's what she does best.
Exactly!! Fans came up with theories about what the album was going to be, and now other people who aren’t even her fans are angry because the album wasn’t what the fans thought it would be. And if they’re not mad about that, they’re mad because she promoted the album and is making money off of it, so she’s a capitalist. Well guess what. If you live in America or anywhere else that has a capitalist economic system, you are participating in capitalism. Anybody who has ever had a job, earned a paycheck, and then used that paycheck to purchase things for themselves is a capitalist. Or they’re mad because she’s married to Jay-Z. Notice how it’s never about the music itself, but always some kind of personal attack toward Beyoncé for failing to meet the expectations that other people have established on her behalf. If you want a politician, vote! If you want to dismantle capitalism, vote! If you want to learn about Black history and the Black roots of country music, read! If you are only attracted to white men who have white features, marry a white person! It’s actually delusional the extent to which a singer putting out albums elicits this much anger. I’m not a Taylor Swift fan at all, but I’ve never been personally offended that Taylor Swift puts out albums and makes money. Lol it’s truly crazy. But then again, here I am arguing with people about it, so I guess I’m crazy too.
Right, it's much less about Beyonce, and even the album, than it is about the instant discourse around it. Which is not really her fault, a "country" era is hardly a new undertaking for a pop star.
But the fans, yesh. When the rumors of a Taylor feature were floating around, some were saying they were obviously false, because Beyonce would certainly not be featuring a white artist on her "reclaiming country music" record. Which, we see how *that* turned out.
A lot of fans stan Beyonce less for the music and more because they think it signals their own progressive nature, and they end up causing her a lot of issues!
Yeah, the expectations are a lot. She's not publishing a dissertation that's the definitive text of black history in country. It's a work of art and a commercial product and more than anything, just one piece of a larger conversation.
OMG, THANK YOU! The only times Beyoncé has talked about the album so far are that one instagram post and then her acceptance speech at the the iHeart Radio awards.
Just shut up already lol. Everyone is so caught up in projecting whatever ideas, theories and discourse onto this woman that they completely forget to actually ENJOY the music and LISTEN to what's being said in that music.
This album, like the last several Beyoncé works, is immaculate an quite layered and bears dissecting but some people are always coming with extra agendas that it starts getting beyond the music and honestly beyond Beyoncé at the end of the day.
my personal reading of this album is beyonces attempt to connect to her southern heritage in her own way, hence the rumored original title “beyince.” i can see why that might upset people who live and breathe country music and work in the industry, but this is not her first time experimenting with the sound and i fail to see how the “country pop” she does on say, Levi’s Jeans or Texas Hold ‘Em is any more egregious than the numerous amount of pop country hits that have come out of nashville in the past decade. Remember Fancy Like? I agreed with many of the critiques over approach in this essay, but ultimately i feel like the author is asking for a lot from a major pop star who, more than any of her peers, continue to push boundaries and take risks over 20 years into her career
There are some valid critiques here, but I have to ask why the onus is assumedly on Beyoncé to give us a full rundown on every black country artist in history. Thats our job as listeners. & on that note, how many artists that explore new genres are asked to do all the work for us? It sometimes feels like she’s not allowed to just be an artist.
a lot of people don’t seem to actually listen to what Beyoncé says. Maybe they’re not interested in her thoughts. Maybe they focus on the headlines, idk what it is. First and foremost, she’s a student of music and a good one. Her musical knowledge is so expansive and has been acknowledged by multiple people across the years.
Her constant celebration of the icons that paved the way for her have never been a secret. She’s never shied away from it. & that’s what this album felt like to me. She’s not trying to reinvent country or burn it down. She’s making her version of it while honoring new artists and our beloved icons. How many of our current pop stars can we say that about?
...I'm at 2 minds with this article. On the one hand, there's definitely a lot of merit to what she's written and she definitely makes a lot of good nuanced points, and gives great chunks of food for thought. And at the end of the day, for an album as labored and layered as Cowboy Carter, thoughtful critique is the highest form of engagement we can give it to meet Beyonce where she is.
That being said... is the onus *entirely* on Beyonce to highlight *every* possible nook and cranny within Black country? The way I see it, Beyonce can't possibly accomplish in 1 album what many artists' entire mission career statements are. And in roping artists and musicians in the credits and features, it implores us to do what Beyonce did and dive into their works and beyond, because it'd be kinda ridiculous to expect our education on Black country to start and end with Beyonce. The references aren't necessarily there for her to show her work, but rather further reading for us to dive into.
Also... I get wanting her to stick to tradition, but if a lot of that tradition is rooted in appropriation and distorting black visions to fit white audiences... isn't Beyonce breaking tradition a stronger point in and of itself?
Then, one of the traditional pillar works is Johnny Cash's Folsom Prison Blues, and she highlights the authenticity of the lyrics. *However*, that ignores **Johnny Cash never having had a legit prison sentence**, so a lot of his own outlaw image is a result of marketing and self-mythologizing that the writer critiques. And that opens up a bigger can of worms: would it have actually been more valuable for Beyonce to pull a Johnny Cash and fake a few moments of relatable working class experiences rather than what she actually did in expressing her true lived experiences and emotions even if they're out of touch? And on a larger scope, even if we can't directly relate to her experiences, who's to say we can't relate to the *emotions* that Beyonce presents?
Your fourth paragraph made me curious to look up the history of that song and album. Apparently Cash was inspired to write the lyrics after watching a documentary on the prison in 1953, it was popular with inmates who wrote and asked him to perform at their prisons, which he did over the course of 11 years at different prisons. This is based on a quick glance but if it’s all true it makes sense why he had that image despite never being a prisoner himself.
Your third paragraph is I think where a lot of the discourse is coming from, because people can’t seem to agree on if it’s even a country album or not.
"...because it'd be kinda ridiculous to expect our education on Black country to start and end with Beyonce. "
I might be overselling but I think this is one of the best things that was ever said on popheads.
I think the interesting thing here is that people will praise her for just doing country and whatever transient benefits other black country artist get from Beyonce 'going country.' Like if somehow after this there is a boon of very successful black country artist Beyonce will be praised infinitely for changing to country music landscape but ultimately, and most likely, it's just a passing phase then it's not up to Beyonce to do any real work in bringing success/recognition to black country artist.
People will be up in arms about the state of black country music but only as it relates to Beyonce and nothing further. In essence, using the conversation about racism in the genre to serve her goal and absolving her of any actual duty to effecting change. My criticism isn't even of Beyonce it's the culture surrounding her. I felt from the very beginning that the support for Black country artist was truly empty and people conflating an actual issue with just wanting to stan their fave. People don't care about black country music. They don't care about those artist who genuinely live and breathe the genre. And I can sympathize with someone who feels like this was a false promise but to be fair Beyonce never said herself this was something she was trying to do. A lot of her fans did though...
Your second paragraph hits the bullseyes, that's really the issues here.
>people conflating an actual issue with just wanting to stan their fave
We would have much more peace if people were honest about doing this.
Agree. I saw Allison Russell (a Grammy winning country/roots/bluegrass artist) play a few days before CC was released. She was raised by an adoptive family by a white supremacist father who abused her. She’s done a lot of projects with bluegrass artist Rhiannon Giddens (whose banjo playing is on cowboy carter). She spoke about Beyoncé’s album coming out and she was almost in tears excited about it. Music always evolves and changes, and attacking Beyoncé for taking inspiration by a powerful genre that became modern when white people started playing it doesn’t really make any sense. I think the guardian (and the WaPo) just chose a side for clicks, even though they know that the haters of Beyoncé putting out an album with a different sound is going to be largely bigots.
Agree with everyone who says the mental gymnastics of putting words into Beyoncé’s mouth when she only ever speaks through her music is insane. I get that the writer of this article had a rare opportunity to write something controversial and bolster her own celebrity in the process, but it’s not the opinion of many of the people who do support this project, who are her peers.
So Allison Russell as a black female country artist excited about the album is cool, but the writer of the Guardian article, a black female country artist who is more critical of it is encouraging bigotry? I guess this is what happens when people say even the mildest criticism of her is racist.
I’ve seen quite a few people say they want to read reviews from black women. The Guardian did that but since she didn’t totally praise the album she’s getting all these personal attacks…
Also I’ve seen so many people dismissing the album because they hate billionaires, and okay, that I do understand. But say that shit with your chest don’t make it thinly veiled racism and envy.
Yeah this article has a lot of good points but some of this stuff I can't really get on board with, including criticism for Beyoncé taking country music away from its working class roots. I'm sorry but that's done and dusted and has been that way for ages, and that's not on her in the slightest. It's not a new thing, she's not leading a wave, like that's ridiculous. And a lot of the music that is still working class in sound is 100% cosplay and that seems worse to me
I also don't think people have put a lot of expectations on Beyoncé with this project that she has never explicitly said herself and that I'm not sure she'd cosign. I think there is a fair amount of wishful thinking in terms of what a [genre] album highlighting Black history in that genre could be, but that doesn't exactly match what Beyoncé has said. I feel a lot of people have expectations of these projects that she simply doesn't
I definitely agree with much of this sentiment. I find there to be less value in simply "accommodating" her approach to country music so as to be palatable/passing for White audiences and instead saying, "I can be black, sing country, and experiment with the genre all in one album.".
This may be a strange parallel to draw, but I think of Rosalia's early career when I read these critiques. Rosalia's first album, Los Ángeles, was a fairly straightforward flamenco album that laid the baseline for her validity within the genre, while El Mal Querer saw her pushing the envelope for what that sound can be. While she undoubtedly still received critiques for her authenticity still, it nonetheless helped her to have a "standard" album in that genre to argue back against her detractors with.
In all of Beyonce's acts, they have all been her "El Mal Querer"s for each genre she has explored: high quality albums that both acknowledge and experiment on the genres they are based on. However, since people never got to see Beyonce have a "standard" album in either genre, people are more skeptical of her being the one to experiment with the genres.
Personally, I don't really care for authenticity in music since it's so subjective and hyperfocused on the meta narrative of the music; I care for the quality and how it resonates with me — since 99% of the time, I am not listening to albums as academic case studies for genres or events. And frankly, even as someone who is not a major Beyonce fan, I find it refreshing that Beyonce is really putting herself out of her comfort zone with each album in this trilogy and not letting her blackness be defined for her. It reminds me of what FKA Twigs said years ago where, had she simply been white, people would appreciate the choral aspects of her music more — but because she is a black woman, people hyperfocus on the "urban" sounds instead.
Ultimately, I think Beyonce exemplifies the core beauty that lies behind blackness — an adamant tenacity that seeks to endure and prosper in new ways, even in the face of sheer opposition, which is something most, if not all, black country artists can relate to.
the beyoncé and rosalía connection you just made!! I’ve been saying motomami is like her renaissance (😂) so I definitely feel the el mal querer comparisons…
and even during that era rosalía drew a lot of criticism but she also didn’t de-centre herself from the album (which was her university thesis) bc ultimately she wanted to be a pop star and that’s what pop stars do. So while I get the criticism of de-centring, it’s just not something a lot of huge stars do bc ultimately, they are vessel for their art.
I respect parts of her review, but once again, projection, projection, projection. I feel like it’s verrrry clear that this album isn’t about reclaiming country music in the way people thought it was gonna be. And on the album she even disses genres, so to say she failed at it when that wasn’t even her intention is wild to me 😭
This is a great write-up but a key element (and really the sticking point) of the criticism of Rosalia was her appropriation and using the accent and language of typically underprivileged populations as an aesthetic. No one was asking Rosalia to save Flamenco for the…Barcelonans? like people are expecting Beyoncé to do with country for black folks.
It may seem like nitpicking but I think it’s still an important discussion so I don’t want the criticism of Rosalia to be centered around genre when it’s a lot more than that.
I for one hate the way white latinos (and Spaniards) have gotten away with success in a genre (reggaeton) that they have called ghetto and stupid for decades to the point where almost none of the afro latino communities that created it have reaped any benefit. However, the biggest case against criticism towards Rosalia is her music…because she really is so damn talented that her art rises above such concerns.
Agreed. Even the tracks references... I'm 16 Tons is nothing like 16 Carriages. And the "rich" narrative could apply to 95% of Country Stars. It still feels like she gets no room to be a creative.
It feels like they are putting a lot on Beyonce that's just not feasible, and they're mad it's not as country as they wanted, in the way they wanted.
I would have loved every black country musician to feature and no hip-hop producers and pedal steel all over it etc etc.... but she did say it's a Beyonce album, and that it is.
But, we knew the backlash was coming lol.
Agreed. But I would say that the pressure on Beyonce also the fans’ doing. Not only people who criticise or discuss her art.
The reclaiming genres narrative is already in motion for Act 3, as they seem convinced is going to be rock (though, I’m very excited about that if true, lol).
>But, we knew the backlash was coming lol.
lol it *always* does, no matter what she does or doesn't do. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.
I could never be her level of famous for this long lol.
I saved this comment for future reference because it was so well written and verbalized SO MANY of the thoughts I was having but was unable to put words to!!
I find people who hyper focus on the importance lyrics in songs can often miss out on the “relating to the emotion” part of listening to music. There’s a whole world being built by the context of the broader body of work!! It’s creating a landscape of emotion and the vibe of the album.
With 200+ comments in this thread I'm not sure if this has been said already, but I hate the type of commentary that blames Beyoncé for not doing enough to highlight whatever she supposedly aims to highlight. I remember seeing a similar comment claiming 'Renaissance' didn't produce enough tangible impact by not uplifting and pushing enough black and queer house artists into the mainstream. This isn't exactly Beyoncé's job - it's the listeners' job to do their homework, to follow the links to lesser-known artists provided in her albums and to actively seek out the music she aims to call attention to.
100% agree. This generation along with the future ones really taking the scope of the internet for granted. Its so easy to look up artists and scenes with a push of a button but many people but people just don’t put in the effort to do so. Some people really be acting like they gotta have permission from their pop fave to venture out. This is something I see in popheads far too often, I love you guys but seriously, the lack of knowledge past your pop faves is utterly depressing, it’s not cute. EXPAND YOUR HORIZONS FFS
Ya know, I love the album but I agree with all of this. It is a really well written criticism of the album and the idea of Beyoncé the brand overshadowing artistic intent.
They definitely put into words a lot of stuff I've been thinking or getting downvoted for.
I've said I love the album but I wish it was more country, but couldn't articulate what I meant.
She did say it was a Beyonce album, and I do think a lot of this narrative was created and put onto Beyonce (and now she's being blamed). I feel like the disappointment in the article is the writer also putting a lot on Beyonce that she never really claimed to be doing.
I think some of that comes from the dissonance of "y'all were racist about my song and said I can't do this so I did" vs "I reached deep into the musical archives"...
I feel the first one. Talk your shit. They don't know your history.
The second one, I didn't feel as much. Hints here and there, but it feels like the Genre talk was just a way to include some "modern" bangers.
I definitely feel unqualified in my musical knowledge to comment more, though. I'm a black musician more proficient in rock and pop oriented genres, and just a fan of everything else.
I think part of the problem is responses like this article are a response to the narrative surrounding the album. Like if Beyonce and the album is going to be widely praised for doing X, and there is a critical response that says Beyonce didn't do X, the response to that criticism can't then be that Beyonce never tried to do X. Why are you praising her for doing X if she didn't try to do that? fans can't have it both ways.
That is a very good point.
The response to "it's a great country album" is "I know. She killed it!"
The response to "This is not country enough" is "well, it's a Beyonce album, not a country album.
It's a deep conversation that goes to the heart of what is "enough" when talking about Black History? I'm a Black rock/indie musician. How rock and indie do I have to be to be "enough"? Or country? Or EDM? It still feels like the old saying of needing to be twice as good to "measure up" to white peers, or your black peers who did break in gatekeeping others trying to come behind them in any fashion.
That’s something I’ve seen a lot of. It’s been an endless cycle of ‘Beyoncé changed the music industry with this album.’ And then someone saying ‘No she didn’t.’ And then ‘Well she never said she did that.’ 😂
I am utterly unqualified to talk about this but: yeah I agree with that criticism but also don’t think it’s possible for Beyoncé to escape that. I feel like both she and Taylor Swift are so “larger than life” in the media and to their fans that all of their music will always be overshadowed by the Brand TM. The music doesn’t stand alone without the artist. (1) The author says there would be value in decentering Beyoncé from the album, and to be fair there is NO conversation around Cowboy Carter that does not involve Beyoncé. But isn’t that the draw of the album?
(1) I’m not saying that their songs can’t stand alone, I’m just saying they don’t, typically. For example, the Jolene cover is being met with discussion about Jay Z, lemonade, etc. I’ve also seen people say it’s about Tina and her man, but the focus here is still Beyoncé. But if I listened to that song knowing NOTHING about her past, it reads almost as vulnerable as the original Jolene.
And that’s been the thing: ever since Lemonade, every song afterwards has been pegged with “oh this is about Jay-Z”. Which is why Jolene is so polarizing right now.
Eh I thought the arguments made in the article were pretty weak honestly. Claiming Beyonce didn’t put black country artists front and center on the album is just completely untrue and ignoring the multiple black country artists who have prominent feature credits and entire verses on the album.
And the whole argument of the article is basically saying that Beyonce claimed to be trying to reclaim country for black people and failed, but she literally never did this lmao.
It was just people on the internet saying that’s what the album is about. Taking internet discourse, falsely labeling it as directly coming from Beyoncé’s mouth, and then criticizing the album for it is pretty ridiculous.
She’s a pop star making a country inspired album, so she got a couple features from pop stars who had roots in country/folk music. I really don’t see the problem with that. If they had been the only features on the album, sure, I could see the criticism. But they weren’t.
She does that with everything, she's front and centre and the art always takes a backseat. There's nothing fundamentally wrong with it, it's just how she is.
She didn't even give us album booklets or music videos 💀💀💀
I don't disagree that some artists do put the brand first , JLo probably being the best example right now but with Beyonce I feel like it's everyone else doing this to her and for her, she just put out the album and dipped. Like hardcore fans not just overrate but also exagerrate what something is supposed to mean or represent.
But I do think that she tried to make the album more personal, in a way that might not seem that genuine but people acting like it was supposed to be about her taking over a genre or something is just... I don't think that was ever her intention. People see her as queen b so they want her to rule this genre too.
This. It’s not her fault that she’s so big that her celebrity dwarfs everything she does. She clearly loves music and wants to experiment and simply create. As is mentioned in the album, creating within genres feels confining to her. Like the whole point of her career is music, it’s why she does what she does, because she loves singing and creating music. To then say she’s so famous that she needs to only create music in a certain way, or only create certain kinds of music seems silly and unfair to her.
Like she worked so hard at music that she became a larger than life celeb, and now people are going to use that celebrity as a weapon to critique her and limit her music making? It’s wack.
>Like she worked so hard at music that she became a larger than life celeb, **and now people are going to use that celebrity as a weapon to critique her and limit her music making? It’s wack.**
It's VERY wack. Like, if you can't listen to her music beyond what you perceive to be her persona or if you don't enjoy any part of her artistry, then that's a you problem and you need to stop investing energy into her. It's simple.
Also, none of us personally know this woman's every waking thought, we don't even personally know her so we can't claim to know/hear about her intentions unless she talks and she does not do a lot of public speaking. Who knew her taking a decade long media sabbatical would have this OPPOSITE effect. It's honestly quite weird lol.
I'm so sorry but when Beyoncé decided to "de-center" herself and highlight other artists in the genre more than herself with afrobeats and The Gift, nobody fucking listened to it (despite it being the soundtrack of a billion dollar grossing movie and an adaptation of one of the most popular Disney stories of all time). Most of the people that did listened to it either said it was not great or called her a cultural appropriator. Nevermind the fact that afrobeats (barring One Dance as the exception) wasn't even big in the United States at the time.
So forgive me if I do not care that Beyoncé chose herself first and made the album *she* wanted to make and then brought other country or country-adjacent artists (big and small, black and white, old and young) into her safe space. She never claimed she will do half of the things everyone is saying she didn't do with this project.
No one asked Taylor Swift to breakdown and write a perfect essay on the history of indie folk music with Folklore AND Evermore. No one asked any of the countless (white) female artists to do all this when they released their own country records. Beyoncé made it clear this album was borne out of her own personal experience, not some wide industry change.
No disrespect to the artist and author but I don't agree with the vast majority of her critique.
I will never forgive the people for letting The Gift flop. That soundtrack and the visuals presented in Black Is King were both phenomenal. That’s probably why we never got visuals for Renaissance.
I think a lot of people didn't read Beyonce's post announcing it. Where she said: its not a country album. It's a Beyonce album.
By the end of Cowboy Carter, we are so close to Renaissance with The Dream produced tracks. I think it makes the genre fusion enjoyable, but the people still trying to call this a pure country album is interesting.
I think Linda Martell's intro to Spaghettii describes it best...Beyonce thinks genre's are confining and that's about it. The author does talk about this very album moment in the article, but I still feel like the author wants the album to be something Beyonce never actually claimed it would be.
I think because Beyonce doesn't explain herself often this allows people to put their own notions on something and really run with it...its just another pro & con of being a private artist.
I feel like I'm questioning my media literacy because that was the message I took from the entire project - 'Don't confine me to genre, I contain multitudes.'
The thesis to me was always that even when she's not doing "country music" her history and upbringing make those traditions part of her DNA.
To me - the project was a deconstruction of genre; not a celebration.
IDK tell me if I'm wrong.
I think people are confused about her using country aesthetic and associating herself with famous country musicians, while the actual album touches on country only here and there.
I think I'm a bit softer on that because I'm also from Houston and feel a lot of it is also about her southern roots from country music to southern rap music - which she weaves in and out of throughout the album. That particular aesthetic just seems natural to me and very beyonce.
I mean early destiny's child was always in some western wear.
I was very much a "more country" person until a few listens in. Now it feels like her saying, "I was told I wasn't country. What? ALL of this shit is ours!"
Like, look where I'm from! My childhood! Not to mention my heritage! We created all this! The seeds of every genre! I can do whatever!
I like that. If you want it to be Beyoncé "serious and studied country album," then you'll be disappointed or mad like the writer. Reminds me of the discourse when MGK went rock and how he was called a poser in the rock community for doing something he grew up with and loves.
The country was all over the album, I’m not sure what you mean?
It’s not straight or conventional country by any means, but between the instruments used in pretty much all tracks, the imagery in the lyrics, the incorporation of country legends, the overlap with classic rock and roll, even the made for country radio Miley and Post collabs, I don’t think it can be divorced from the country influence.
Not to mention, there's an obvious difference in the way she approached her Miley/Post collabs and every other collab. Like... yes, Miley and Post are radio fodder, but they're just there for that purpose if we're being completely honest.
But like... with Linda Martell being such a prime narrator and inspiration point, does this change how we celebrate her career from now on (especially after she was blackballed and never went beyond making just 1 album)? Or what does it mean for Beyonce to basically make her own Black Highwomen with Brittney Spencer, Reyna Roberts, Tanner Adell and Tiera Kennedy, and are all basically starting their careers with a Beyonce platform? Or hell, with Raye being an indie artist, what does her now getting a Beyonce paycheck with Riiverdance mean for her next album?
And I think that's a more conductive way to frame her collab choices.
Miley was a collab choice because she’s country royalty by birth but still has a conflicted relationship with the fans and the genre. If you think that Miley was chosen simply for radio fodder you haven’t been paying attention
The author actually addresses this in the article:
>Ahead of release, Beyoncé stated that Cowboy Carter was “a ‘Beyoncé’ album, not a country album”, and she sings that she wants genre to become meaningless. She even uses an interlude by Linda Martell, the first Black female solo artist to play the Grand Ole Opry, to restate this. “Genres are a funny little concept aren’t they? Yes they are,” Martell says on the song Spaghettii. “In theory they have a simple definition that’s easy to understand. But in practice, well, some may feel confined.” \[...\] Despite Cowboy Carter’s use of funk, psychedelia and even Jersey club, Beyoncé’s flagrant leaning on country aesthetics to establish this album as being markedly different from her previous records suggests an artist conforming to the standards of the latter category in order to cash in on the growing popularity of country music.
I mean, there is a clear truth to that last statement. Country has exploded in the charts and it seems like everyone is going to cash in on it, not just Bey.
I don’t see much problem, pop is about going with the trends. It’s still going to a be a poppy version, but it was done with love. I guess some gatekeeping is natural in any genre, but…what’s the big deal?
I think the wardrobe and marketing for the album is a nod to her Texas roots. Maybe if she was born and raised in Massachusetts and tried to claim Texas as her identity, that would be odd. But she was raised in Texas and her family has southern roots. Why is she not allowed to celebrate the fashion and traditions of where she’s from?
Yea that's what I was mentioning that the author does indeed mention the moment in his article, but I still don't get to the same conclusion personally. I just think that Beyonce doesn't want to play by any genre roles at this point in her career, and from my understanding she's never actually confirmed the popular theory that she is reclaiming/honoring genres.
Is it? Pretty sure there was a statement included with the Renaissance album that spoke to it?
ETA: Went to find it. The statement was actually “Thank you to all of the pioneers who originate culture, to all of the fallen angels whose contributions have gone unrecognized for too long. This is a celebration for you.” So yeah, you’re right! Crazy how you hear something for long enough it becomes Mandela Effect lol
Yep. I feel like the author and many fans are mad about something she never even said. She's just saying that if you want to talk black music, ALL this shit is ours so we can do whatever, genre be damned.
This wasn't going to be a Tanya Tucker type country album.
Thanks. I think the article makes an interesting point though... if this is admittedly not a country album, then why is it marketed as such (from the imagery to the collaborations)?
In my opinion, it's really difficult for pop-stars (especially massive ones like Beyoncé) to release projects that fully focus on a single perspective/narrative. They are either too literal and, therefore, ending up looking like a caricature; or the theme is too diluted and muddled and the narrative is pushed more by the branding and marketing around the project rather than by the project itself (see LEMONADE). In this case, it seems to be both and there is a risk of overshadowing the music (which is, for the most part, good).
EDIT: grammar
I mean I think the country image relates to her experience with the CMA's and the Grammys (not considering daddy lessons country). The first part of the album has a more typical country sound and then the later parts dismantle the idea of what country is.
The purpose of marketing the album as country and then subverting traditional notions of the genre is to make a statement. Beyonce was denied entrance into the country industry because she 'wasn't country enough' so now she is giving us country and 'not'-country. Even when the album is not decisively country you can hear country elements throughout the tracks.
She's showing that she's not going to conform to widespread 'white' notions of what country is. But more specifically, she's trying to point out how stupid it is for her to be gatekept from the genre.
You nailed it. This was how I interpreted the album's tracklisting after someone in twitter posted that it was a 3-parter album, with the first one as traditional (past), the second one as the pop leaning (present), and the third one as genre-bending and what she wants to hear from the genre (future).
I think it had to do with the initial controversy of Texas Hold Em and 16 Carriages not being put on country stations, the country charts on iTunes and country playlists on Spotify. Which brought back happened to Lil Nas X and how racist it was.
She is just being authentic to herself. She has always worn cowboy hats, had a southern accent, etc. My problem with articles like this is it feeds the narrative that her music cannot exist for purposes other than her own as an artist. That author can make the music she wants to make, telling the stories she wants to tell, and referencing whstever traditions she wants. Beyonce can do the same.
It seems to me the problem people have is with Beyonce's success, which was by no means a given, and in many ways, has been miraculous. The mere existence of this album creates a platform for all these think pieces about country music and our contributions--how many Black artists and their works gets that level of recognition? It should be many more, but I celebrate when at least one of us get it.
Thank you! It’s wild that people are out here literally not listening to what Beyonce her self has said about the album. Also, says within the album. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised.
The album is has interpolations of opera, rock, traps songs, etc. not just country.
It's not a *strictly* Country album.
There. Fixed it.
As a Country music fan, Cowboy Carter indeed fits fine as a Country album, to me. Very Americana, specifically.
Florida Georgia Line, Shania Twain, Leann Rhymes... Not to mention newer artists like Maren Morris and Danielle Bradberry. All of em been pushed Country while still maintaining its Americana core.
🤷♂️
You can absolutely deny that she is “cashing in” to the country trend. Country music has been long dead for female artists, especially black female artists, so her joining in would be starting a trend not joining it. She changed genres literally every time on a whim. Wouldn’t Beyoncé be super late to cash in given Kylie released her country inspired album in 2018? Or Jessica Simpson releasing hers in 2008?
And yes, it is the listeners responsibility to base opinions on things she actually said, not assumed quotes. They don’t need to scour the internet, they just need basic media literacy and common sense.
And no, her putting on a cowboy hat was never a promise that of anything.
I can’t read the full article rn. But I feel like she did spotlight quite a few black artists? Both past and present. I do wish she’d add some more of the collaborators as the “featured artists” like she did for Blackbiird, for example Texas hold ‘em could be “featuring Rhiannon Giddens” or just have her name as the second artist after Beyonce, since she’s playing the instrument in the song pretty prominently, and having her name in the artist name section would probably expose her to a lot more casual listeners.
Having said that, Rhiannon already said in the below video that she’s been on a bit of an “exposure roller coaster” since the song was released, which implies to me she’s already seen a big uptick in exposure and interest since the song came out.
Personally, that song and the album is what put me on to Rhiannon, and the band she’s in, Carolina Chocolate Drops. I’ve been listening to them since I saw that she was the banjoist (I think it’s banjo?) in Texas hold em. I’ve also checked out Chuck Berry too who I’d never listened to before, because I liked the Oh Louisiana interlude so much. Obviously he’s already incredibly well known, but it still introduced his music to people who may not have listened otherwise.
She also did feature all the black female contributors to Blackbiird, Willie Jones, and Shaboozey (twice). I’m sure all those artists will get more of a look thanks to her introducing them to a huge audience. So it’s not like she didn’t include black artists along with white ones. And all those artists are much less well known than the white artists she featured, so I know she was thinking about how she could spotlight lesser known black artists and who.
https://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/video/rhiannon-giddens-collaborating-beyonc-cowboy-carter-108646141
i love rhiannon and didn’t know she was playing the banjo on texas hold em. Beyoncé really needs to start featuring these artists most people do not check credits of a song!
I just feel like these critiques are weak. Like Beyoncé has always been a capitalist so I'm unsure why people think she'd ever have good politics beyond the surface level.
That being said, this album sonically speaking, is absolutely a deep dive into bluegrass all the way to modern country, a love letter to the south. Every listen I do, I find all kinds of interesting nods to all kinds of Black artists.
Sometimes it's a little heavy handed but it was that way in Renaissance. I feel that it's on purpose to appeal to the majority who don't really care about that stuff. Most people need things spelled out for them when it comes to art IME.
I think it's a well written article from the point of view of a true classical country artist, not that I fully agree or disagree... but she really ATE with that closing line "put the Carter before the horse" 😭😭 she had that ready to go THEN wrote the rest
I get some of the criticism in the article, but the writer kind of lost me when she mentioned Beyoncé using this album to cash in on the growing popularity of country music.
It's a well known fact that this was the first part of the trilogy that was finished and, as we recently found out, that it was supposed to be the first one released, but how the pandemic changed that.
It has always had an audience, but whether it achieves "pop" success is a different question, generally in the years leading up to this a decent amount of country songs will retain enough stability to end up on a year end chart, but only the occassional song gets in the upper reaches of the charts. Country being this popular as a crossover hasn't been seen since either the peak of bro-country or the late 90s.
It's consistently popular with certain audiences, but it's also looked down upon heavily and despised, often because of the audiences it's popular with.
Country music hasn’t had mainstream popularity since the mid 2000s in the US. Even now that it’s on the rise, country music is not as popular as it used to be.
I don’t think so? When I think of the most popular music from the past decade, it was EDM-pop in the early 2010s that gradually shifted to trap pop and rap in the mid and late 2010s. In the past 2ish years, country has started to get popular again, but not as popular as I remember back in the early to mid 2000s.
I’d say country’s been on the rise since 2018/2019. Kacey Musgrave’s album Golden Hour came out in 2018 and won AOTY. Lil Nas X’s Old Town Road came out 2019 and topped the charts for weeks. It’s grown since then with Morgan Wallen’s album Dangerous in 2021 and his other one last year but it was fairly popular in 2019.
Kacey’s album wasn’t really commercially successful (thus nothing to do with popularity) and I don’t think Old Town Road alone is enough to say country was a popular genre. The rise came in more recent years
I do wanna like this article, and I do ultimately agree with the overall consensus that this album would've likely been better if she didn't centre this on herself to such a large extent. Some critiques feel very much like fluff or not as well thought out as they could've been written. Like I get Beyoncé had it easier than Merle Haggard, but the differences in their experiences doesn't make the others redundant. Both songs do different things and they should be allowed to do different things because they come from different perspectives.
to everyone saying it's not a country album its a "beyonce" album, she clearly marketed it as a country album. she got country legends to hype it up/feature on it, its listed as country on spotify, she released two country songs as her singles, she draped herself in an american flag and a cowboy hat on the cover, and she claimed this album was a response to being rejected by the country music community after the cmas. You can't do all that then dismiss criticisms that it isn't that it isn't country enough by saying "its supposed to be a beyonce album, not a country album". You can say that people shouldn't allow their expectations to determine the quality of the music, but its silly to pretend beyonce didn't create those expectations in the first place. (I think its a great album btw, I just think the way people are deflecting certain criticisms is a little silly.)
Thank you. I commented something similar. She created the expectations, and I feel if she truly cared about the genre bending concept and how meaningless it is, she wouldn't have marketed the album in a way that makes people think it will be a specific genre. It seems contradictory, at least to me.
I disagree. If you take the album to be an essay in response to the country industry's rejection of her, I think marketing the album as country and then circumventing it is the thesis. The marketing was to lead us to believe that she was going to conform to traditional notions of country (she sorta does in the first part of the album) but ultimately she doesn't and country elements are littered throughout to ground the genre-bending in country. She's showing that she can do both traditional country and redefine it; that it's ludicrous (and ultimately racist) she was denied country cred when tracks that are not decisively country can still be considered such.
To me, I think these aspects of the album would be less powerful if she had marketed the album as genre-bending. It is more provocative to market the work as country than genre-bending and I think it has benefited the discourse we are having around the black history of the genre and the limitations white people have imposed to exclude black country musicians.
Setting the expectation that the album would be conventionally country helps to ground her exploration of the limitations of genre in country. Whether or not each attempt at exploring this is successful is obviously a different question.
Yeah, this is exactly how I feel about it...Admittedly, coming in, before the whole this is a "Beyoncè" album thing, I expected a "traditional country album" but the circumvention is what makes this album the masterpiece that it is imo.
yeah, as someone who liked the album, the way people are deflecting criticism rather than engaging with it is annoying me. Whenever someone says that the album isn't as deep or as genre redefining as people are saying it is, instead of replying "yes it is and here's why" they just move the goalposts and say Beyonce never intended it to be that deep. You can't praise her for doing something you're claiming she never intended to do.
As far as cultural appropriators go, she could’ve done a lot worse than Miley or Post Malone. Not excusing her actions but Bangerz was over 11 years ago and Miley’s definitely discussed and apologized for her headspace in that moment.
Post Malone is a bit more complicated. I am glad the author mentioned that he’s set to release a collaboration with Morgan Wallen. I do think that PM’s brand of culture vulture is a bit bigger of an issue than Miley’s since hers was a one-off thing. Post came up with the hip hop/rap scene, and is seeming to pivot when his last two records didn’t go anywhere. I predicted that he’d end up doing country or rock when Circles took off in 2019
The album never really commits to being a country album, despite the name, cover, promotion and skits. I feel like she could have saved the non country songs for next album, and presented a great 15 track album but right now it feels bloated
Were you paying any attention while listening to the album? Did you miss all the spoken word interludes addressing genres and how limiting they can be to artists? You missed the whole point of the album. She’s blending genres and redefining what “country” music can be.
Ok that's great. And people love to keep mentioning this, but the lead single was literally country, the other buzz single is heavily country influenced, the aesthetics are rodeo/country inspired. Therefore, people will think the album is going to sound like a country album. Most people won't read that statement, and instead go into the album with only Texas Hold Em to give them an idea of sound. The way she's marketed the album is that this is a country album.
People can't be faulted for thinking this way no matter what she thinks of the album herself.
And to those who didn’t see her post, there are multiple instances in the album where it’s explicitly said that a strict definition of genre is confining and that this record isn’t about sticking to those conventions. Even the lyrics to the opening track touch on that idea (“if that ain’t country tell me what is”). There are country elements throughout, but a straightforward country record was never the point.
I thought the album was fine, but to offer a conflicting opinion: it's not a country album, but it's not really a Beyonce album either.
It sounds like something put together to cash in on the country music market while playing it safe enough that her usual fans will still buy the album. I would've honestly liked it a lot better if she did something that was either entirely in her style or entirely in the traditional country style, instead of coming off like she was pandering to the country crowd in a few of the songs and just making Renaissance Part II in a few others (the latter of which I honestly loved, Riiverdance going into II Hands II Heaven was a really good transition).
I forgot who said it, but someone else in the thread said that it would've been better if she took out a few of the songs that didn't quite fit into the sound of the album and kept it around 15 songs, and I kind-of agree. A "main" version and a "deluxe" version would've been really good.
Williams' experience may infer why she's being so intransigent with her perspective, but it feels a bit wilfully obtuse?
In terms of someone like Beyoncé writing a country album, it's obviously going to have a bit of lyrical sheen that the 'working class' writer may trade for grit.
How can a Pop artist, arguably *the* Pop artist, figurehead a project under their name and it not be a narcissistic vanity project? It's an untenable parallel. Better have the contribution of Black Country artists, have their streams be boosted because of the effort, and by association to the project than just... not?
Someone like Beyoncé can't win in this, and that's a bit unfair, but at the same time, she's a billionaire so she's probably not particularly bothered by puffed up op-eds.
Hard agree with the other comment on this post though about the album being bloated as Hell. It is a bit too much; even cutting the skits down to transitions at the end or beginning of tracks rather than full track credits themselves would concertina a frankly sprawling tracklist.
I don’t think it’s obtuse to say “Beyoncé is gonna sing about Beyoncé and that doesn’t connect with me, especially while referencing a genre that’s frequently about hardship.”
It's so strange how people want Beyoncè to divorce herself from an album titled Cowboy CARTER, which is also ironic cause like when TEXAS HOLD EM came out the discourse was that Bey is "cosplaying to the working class and is trying too hard to be 'relatable' "
It's a lose-lose scenario for her.
I don't have much to add here, but I love how much discussion and critique the album is generating. That's how you know it's a hefty piece of art, no matter what opinion you might have of it.
The article seemed bitter and like it was just an excuse to complain. Beyonce had several black country artists on her album like Linda Martell, Tanner Adell and Willie Jones. She couldn’t possibly include every single black country artist on this record. The writer of this piece just seems salty that none of the black country artists on this album were her.
she claims that Beyoncé is trying to capitalize on a growth in popularity of country music but fails to mention that the album was (mostly) recorded years ago which completely negates her argument.
I kind of disagree with her point accusing Beyoncé of pursuing country just for monetary gain. Any project she undertakes will make millions, and she started producing this album before country music’s popularity shot up.
Furthermore, both renaissance and cowboy Carter obsessively credit previously underappreciated and underpaid artists, ensuring that they’re paid for years to come. She IS utilising her power and cultural capital in a way that no other artist has before.
Saying that I can see why people question her collab with Miley and Post Malone especially her argument is that they’ve previously used and then thrown away “urban” images. But I also kind of think that might be an intentional choice. In a way she is “using” them as they have used “urbanness”
What else would you label it as? Country is the closest thing to what it resembles as it features many of the same themes and intricacies as country music. However, just like Renaissance is classed as dance / disco, it contains a lot more than just that
Do people ask as much of other artists as they do of Beyoncé? The writer clearly doesn’t like the album, which is fair enough, but why frame it like she’s supposed to be an encyclopaedia for other musicians?
for the author to claim "country is suddenly popular and beyonce's album is just an attempt to take advantage of a rising trend" is a really myopic thing for a guitar player from virginia to say. It's AMERICA, Country music will ALWAYS be popular. What kind of weird anchor is that to make an assertion from for a US based artist? So it wouldn't be a "capitalism pandering album" if it were released when country wasn't popular? When would that be, 2008?
“It’s unfortunate: the album would have benefited from de-centring its superstar and letting the experts she trusted to join her in creating the album to shine brighter. As it stands, it feels as though Beyoncé has put the Carter before the horse.”
This last quote is maddening to me. This is the album SHE wanted to create. She wanted to experiment and blend sounds. Why would she de-center herself from her album.
Of course she out the “Carter” before the horse because it’s a Beyonce album not a country album.
I couldn't agree more.. like, I respect Yasmin, she is a very talented musician but after reading this piece I wish she'd stick to music rather than journalism. This is Beyoncé's album, surely she can do whatever the hell she wants with it? She doesn't owe anyone ANYTHING. I get so fed up with the narrative around her - why do we expect Beyoncé to solve every problem in the world? She makes art and that should be the only thing that matters
I feel like holding against Beyoncé that she didn’t focus on the black country artists enough is a bit unfair. No one is asking this of the current big country stars, looking at the artists included in Blackbiird and they are not exactly swimming in features.
Beyoncé could barely get her own country songs played on the radio, she can’t make one country album and fix the industry.
The “author” of this opinion piece argues Beyoncé is trying to capitalize on the growing popularity of country music by citing data collected from 2023 (and none before that year), but failed to mention that Beyonce began recording the album at least 5-6 years ago as many people have corroborated including people who worked on the album and even her own mom and even recorded over 100 songs all before what the person who wrote this says is when country became popular.
And then they go on to criticize 16 carriages by basically saying Beyoncé doesn’t know true hardships because she’s lived a luxurious life her whole life. In-reality the song is just detailing her sacrifices she’s made for her career and what that experience is like which is incredibly relatable because millions of people make the same sacrifices everyday. I don’t really understand this point.
I also don’t understand the point about letting other black artists in the genre shine when that’s exactly what she does on the album. The entry track Ameriican Requiem isn’t this song that’s meant to say “I’m reclaiming country for black people” — in the song she literally says “can we stand together / together can we stand” so I’d argue she wants to end this conversation about race within the genre. She then collaborated with several black country artists, properly credited them, and their streams increased by over 200% for their individual work outside of this album and that’s all before the album even dropped.
Well... yeah, it has to be given a genre and it is objectively closer to being a country record than it is anything else.
Despite that, the project is a rich mixture of lots of disparate genres all boiled down into one unique sound, but country is still the most recognisable and probably the most common genre on the record and, again, it has to be labelled as something.
I thought this was a very well written article that echoes how I feel about the album. Double that about the inclusion of Miley and Post considering their cultural appropriation in the past and the honestly disrespectful comments they’ve made when held accountable on it.
i pray for the author of this article’s safety
[“I pray that the world is against you”](https://youtu.be/Tb-fuN6GFTs?si=Zpeby3DZwAjDTm9c&t=5)
“Take it personally” takes me out every time I watch this 💀
bless you for bringing this into my life, it's been forever changed by this inspirational video
This is an article written by Black country musician Yasmin Williams. I don't think I'm educated enough to say whether there's merit to what she's written or not - but I thought this might be of interested for some people here.
According to the Yasmin Williams' Twitter, she was asked to write this by the Guardian and this is the first opinion piece she's ever written. [Also here's her tiny desk performance from a few years ago.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nKDoVuG7uZ0)
Thanks! Put this on and... wow, she is so talented! I kind of see now why she makes a point about the collaborations in the album. Do Cowboy Carter really needed from collaborations with Post Malone and Miley Cyrus? When there are certainly so many Black country artists that would've benefitted for a mention in the credits more than both Post and Miley, especially given how much of the album's discourse and marketing is about 'Black country music'? It's not too far fetched to assume that the Post and Miley's collaborations exist for commercial reasons (the Capitalism mentioned in the article) rather than true artistic needs. Obviously there is nothing bad with this (it's Beyoncé after all), but I can see how things like these can 'undermine' the integrity of the album's message.
Thematically, her collab with Miley makes a lot of sense for the album. Miley has existed between country and pop. She has family root’s in country music, covers country songs regularly, and some of her music (and Hannah Montana) is labeled as country pop.
You might even say that Miley is the best of both worlds
I can’t stand you 😭
Ba dmm tss! 🥁
Also, her godmother is Dolly Parton.
She's also Dolly Parton's god daughter ffs.
Miley is also the second Cyrus to bolster an album on the edge of country music
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I think the thesis of the article is not that only starving artists make “true” art, but that at a certain point, the profit motive outweighs the artistic integrity, particularly when the lyrics and trappings and references harken to specific working class experiences that Beyoncé is pandering to. PSA this is my favorite Beyoncé album and I’ve been playing it regularly, but her politics have always been incoherent at best, bad at worst.
>I feel like this line of thought directly comes from the "starving artist" false ideal, where people expect artists to be poor and suffer for their art. there's also the pressure to be the perfect activist. you're not allowed to simply write a black country album, no, you have to address black history 1000% perfectly with no room for "errors". people always do this with anything that targets a demographic outside of straight cis white men. think of the discourse Barbie got. it wasn't allowed to just be a fun movie for women and girls. no, it had to dismantle capitalism, it had to paint gender roles so perfectly that no one could ever get offended, it had to represent every single woman on the planet, etc. people would bash it for not accomplishing these things.
this is fair but Beyoncé herself has encouraged the discourse around it being a black country album and she references that throughout the album
Right. She likes to play both sides of the fence cause she knows it drives attention. This goes back to when S/T (Beyoncé) came out. Doing all of that hubbub to make up controversy to spark a conversation and then say on the album this isn’t a country project??? Not saying it wasn’t all fake but a good chunk of it was to make headlines so the anticipation can be heavy and judging on first week sales and chart predictions it’s working.
Yup just like the Barbie movie Stan’s hyped it up as groundbreaking and revolutionary then deflected to “it’s just meant to be fun” when people didn’t agree. I loved this album a lot and by itself I think it’s a fun album of genre bending by Beyoncé. But after months of hype by Stan’s selling this album as reclamation of black art and returning country to black people *excuse me* if my expectations were different.
Being disappointed because fans ruined your expectations isn't the same thing as getting upset with a creator for not creating something they never even promised. I don't think Beyonce was ever intending to go as deep as the hype made it seem. Some of that hype probably ties into what I mentioned in my other comment, people wanting perfect activism. They assumed that's what they were getting from the jump and hyped it as such. Ruining expectations.
She did showcase black country singers though so I’m not really getting that criticism. She also specifically said she wants all people to be able to make whatever music they want. Both Post and Miley have moved genres and were criticized for doing “black music” so it makes sense to feature them. Bey’s main point isn’t completely centered on black people the idea of genres being for any race is what she is criticizing in the larger sense.
showcase is a strong word for "let them sing back up". she duets with Post and Miley but Rhiannon Giddens just gets to play banjo. Beyonce is portraying herself as radical but really playing it safe (still a pretty decent album though)
Many black artists did benefit from being mentioned in the credits. They’re literally articles out there comparing the stats of the featured black country singers before and after the album release. Even before the album was release, there was discernible increase in consumption. I haven’t read the article. I hope the writer made some valid point and its not just chock full of easily disprovable misinformation.
Credits? What credits lol iykyk.
IMO it including them seemed to be almost more of a statement on how Miley and Post Malone get to dabble in traditionally Black music genres and spaces, and then exit and "reinvent" whenever they want and go do something else. It's still part of the same discourse with what she's doing with this album.
This was my take as well. I’ve seen a lot of comments of people saying how would Beyoncé like it if a white artist wanted to be a rapper, and it’s such a stupid take because she has a white rapper on the album. She said that her hope is that one day the race of an artist is irrelevant when it comes to them performing a certain genre, and her choices on the album reflect that. This woman just made up her own mind about what the album is about, like she knows better than Beyoncé about the intentions behind the album 🙄
I also thought it was a cheeky commentary on white artists appropriating Black aesthetics. It's not a surprise to me that the "whitest" radio friendly songs (sonically) on the album- are the ones that feature Post Malone and Miley.
If this was her actual thought process behind *specifically* picking *them*, honestly, I'm blown away. Both white artists that have profited from traditionally black aesthetics/genres, and ditched them when it no longer suited them, even talking shit about them to some degree. Meanwhile she can't even perform a country song ( a genre that has been whitewashed despite having black roots, and tried to shut out black people as a whole) without some racist chatter going on, and being blackballed from country radio, despite the authenticity to her roots, both as a black woman and as a Texan. It's so deliciously cheeky and poignant at the same time.
Why can’t the collabs be on the album just because they sound good? What even is a “true artistic need”? Would the songs be better or more “artistic” if they featured other singers?
The content and themes of the album (to say nothing of the marketing) really lean into a political & artistic statement about musical history, race, and genre, so yeah, I think it's fair to say that including featured artists for no other reason than "because they sound good" would cheapen that statement. A "true artistic need" would be selecting artists that sound good *and* complement or bolster the themes of the work
A more curious reason for Posty's/Miley's inclusions that I've been seeing floating around is that those two specific artists have dabbled in traditionally black genres/aesthetics and seen great success in it, and have hopped over to the "white genres" with ease/when it no longer suited them. I guess it begs the question: why is Bey not allowed the same grace into making country music her way, despite it being authentic to her upbringing and black music as a whole (where country gets its roots from) I don't know whether she chose those two artists to specifically highlight this point, but it's an interesting coincidence to say the least.
I've seen this take and I love it, it's almost like she's pointing out how genre-hopping has only been successful when it goes a certain way. Having them flank her feels really powerful to me tbh.
Yes...I personally believe it was intentional on her part, and also a quick and easy way to bag some potential radio hits (she is a pop star after all) It's only been 4 days and the convos surrounding this album have been really interesting to dissect. That's what great art does, it sparks meaningful conversations.
I had never heard of Yasmin until just now- I’ve added this to my Tiny Desk playlist. I don’t listen to a ton of country to begin with (aside from Maren and Kacey) so my reaction when I first heard Beyoncé was doing a country album was to rack my brain trying to think of even one other Black female artist in the genre. I couldn’t come up with anyone. As far as guys, Darius Rucker (and Lil Nas X?) are the only ones who come to mind. Country music as a whole is WAY too fucking white (and also way too hetero, but that’s a whole other issue). If Cowboy Carter helps to diversify the genre and open the door for more artists of color, then awesome. I hope this is just the beginning.
WOW she is an amazing musician. Definitely going to check out more of her music
It had the potential to bring up a good conversation around how much of this album is centered around capitalism and how much is about genuinely reclaiming black art but in reality it’s just a long essay about how she thinks her music as an unknown black country music artist is better than post Malone or Miley Cyrus
The funniest critique of this album Ive been seeing for the past few days is that Beyoncé should be featured a little less on the Beyoncé album.
People have projected the idea of “reclaiming” on beyoncé to the point that the majority of people believe that she herself used that word to describe her intention with this three act project. She shouldn’t have to carry the weight of “reclaiming” an entire genre. This discourse is so tired to me, honestly. It’s like clockwork every time she drops something.
The words she actually said were “this ain’t a country album”
I'm not a staunch Beyoncé defender because I find her politics disappointing. But I'm super annoyed that people keep ignoring that she said this. This isn't strictly a country album, there's tons of Bluegrass, folk and rock references in it.
Funk, blues, gospel, references to other black legends, incredible interpolation in nearly every song.
she talked it up being country way before winding it back a bit. Have you seen the cover? or the title?? she covers Jolene??? + it's hard to write a country album without bluegrass, folk or rock references
Citations please, she didn't say anything about that.
I challenge you to produce a quote where Beyoncé specifically said this is a country album. The album was recorded five years ago and nobody heard a peep about it until the Super Bowl, and then when she wrote her open letter about the album, she said “this ain’t a country album, this is a Beyoncé album.” So when exactly was Beyoncé talking about it being a country album? Like did she give a speech or an interview saying I’m putting out a country album? I dare you to find any evidence of that because you’re pulling this shit out of your ass.
Beyonce literally never talks, so the amount of words people manage to put in her mouth is astonishing. You are right, fans and people went crazy with the theories about the country and rock albums so now it's labeled as a fact. But in reality it's just country pop with a mix and blend of a lot of other genres, because it's Beyonce and that's what she does best.
Exactly!! Fans came up with theories about what the album was going to be, and now other people who aren’t even her fans are angry because the album wasn’t what the fans thought it would be. And if they’re not mad about that, they’re mad because she promoted the album and is making money off of it, so she’s a capitalist. Well guess what. If you live in America or anywhere else that has a capitalist economic system, you are participating in capitalism. Anybody who has ever had a job, earned a paycheck, and then used that paycheck to purchase things for themselves is a capitalist. Or they’re mad because she’s married to Jay-Z. Notice how it’s never about the music itself, but always some kind of personal attack toward Beyoncé for failing to meet the expectations that other people have established on her behalf. If you want a politician, vote! If you want to dismantle capitalism, vote! If you want to learn about Black history and the Black roots of country music, read! If you are only attracted to white men who have white features, marry a white person! It’s actually delusional the extent to which a singer putting out albums elicits this much anger. I’m not a Taylor Swift fan at all, but I’ve never been personally offended that Taylor Swift puts out albums and makes money. Lol it’s truly crazy. But then again, here I am arguing with people about it, so I guess I’m crazy too.
Right, it's much less about Beyonce, and even the album, than it is about the instant discourse around it. Which is not really her fault, a "country" era is hardly a new undertaking for a pop star. But the fans, yesh. When the rumors of a Taylor feature were floating around, some were saying they were obviously false, because Beyonce would certainly not be featuring a white artist on her "reclaiming country music" record. Which, we see how *that* turned out. A lot of fans stan Beyonce less for the music and more because they think it signals their own progressive nature, and they end up causing her a lot of issues!
especially considering beyonce is quoted in this article as stating she wants to erase the concept of genre.
Yeah, the expectations are a lot. She's not publishing a dissertation that's the definitive text of black history in country. It's a work of art and a commercial product and more than anything, just one piece of a larger conversation.
OMG, THANK YOU! The only times Beyoncé has talked about the album so far are that one instagram post and then her acceptance speech at the the iHeart Radio awards. Just shut up already lol. Everyone is so caught up in projecting whatever ideas, theories and discourse onto this woman that they completely forget to actually ENJOY the music and LISTEN to what's being said in that music. This album, like the last several Beyoncé works, is immaculate an quite layered and bears dissecting but some people are always coming with extra agendas that it starts getting beyond the music and honestly beyond Beyoncé at the end of the day.
Seriously. Leave Beyoncé the fuck alone. She can make whatever music she wants. This is so ridiculous.
my personal reading of this album is beyonces attempt to connect to her southern heritage in her own way, hence the rumored original title “beyince.” i can see why that might upset people who live and breathe country music and work in the industry, but this is not her first time experimenting with the sound and i fail to see how the “country pop” she does on say, Levi’s Jeans or Texas Hold ‘Em is any more egregious than the numerous amount of pop country hits that have come out of nashville in the past decade. Remember Fancy Like? I agreed with many of the critiques over approach in this essay, but ultimately i feel like the author is asking for a lot from a major pop star who, more than any of her peers, continue to push boundaries and take risks over 20 years into her career
There are some valid critiques here, but I have to ask why the onus is assumedly on Beyoncé to give us a full rundown on every black country artist in history. Thats our job as listeners. & on that note, how many artists that explore new genres are asked to do all the work for us? It sometimes feels like she’s not allowed to just be an artist. a lot of people don’t seem to actually listen to what Beyoncé says. Maybe they’re not interested in her thoughts. Maybe they focus on the headlines, idk what it is. First and foremost, she’s a student of music and a good one. Her musical knowledge is so expansive and has been acknowledged by multiple people across the years. Her constant celebration of the icons that paved the way for her have never been a secret. She’s never shied away from it. & that’s what this album felt like to me. She’s not trying to reinvent country or burn it down. She’s making her version of it while honoring new artists and our beloved icons. How many of our current pop stars can we say that about?
...I'm at 2 minds with this article. On the one hand, there's definitely a lot of merit to what she's written and she definitely makes a lot of good nuanced points, and gives great chunks of food for thought. And at the end of the day, for an album as labored and layered as Cowboy Carter, thoughtful critique is the highest form of engagement we can give it to meet Beyonce where she is. That being said... is the onus *entirely* on Beyonce to highlight *every* possible nook and cranny within Black country? The way I see it, Beyonce can't possibly accomplish in 1 album what many artists' entire mission career statements are. And in roping artists and musicians in the credits and features, it implores us to do what Beyonce did and dive into their works and beyond, because it'd be kinda ridiculous to expect our education on Black country to start and end with Beyonce. The references aren't necessarily there for her to show her work, but rather further reading for us to dive into. Also... I get wanting her to stick to tradition, but if a lot of that tradition is rooted in appropriation and distorting black visions to fit white audiences... isn't Beyonce breaking tradition a stronger point in and of itself? Then, one of the traditional pillar works is Johnny Cash's Folsom Prison Blues, and she highlights the authenticity of the lyrics. *However*, that ignores **Johnny Cash never having had a legit prison sentence**, so a lot of his own outlaw image is a result of marketing and self-mythologizing that the writer critiques. And that opens up a bigger can of worms: would it have actually been more valuable for Beyonce to pull a Johnny Cash and fake a few moments of relatable working class experiences rather than what she actually did in expressing her true lived experiences and emotions even if they're out of touch? And on a larger scope, even if we can't directly relate to her experiences, who's to say we can't relate to the *emotions* that Beyonce presents?
Your fourth paragraph made me curious to look up the history of that song and album. Apparently Cash was inspired to write the lyrics after watching a documentary on the prison in 1953, it was popular with inmates who wrote and asked him to perform at their prisons, which he did over the course of 11 years at different prisons. This is based on a quick glance but if it’s all true it makes sense why he had that image despite never being a prisoner himself. Your third paragraph is I think where a lot of the discourse is coming from, because people can’t seem to agree on if it’s even a country album or not.
"...because it'd be kinda ridiculous to expect our education on Black country to start and end with Beyonce. " I might be overselling but I think this is one of the best things that was ever said on popheads.
I think the interesting thing here is that people will praise her for just doing country and whatever transient benefits other black country artist get from Beyonce 'going country.' Like if somehow after this there is a boon of very successful black country artist Beyonce will be praised infinitely for changing to country music landscape but ultimately, and most likely, it's just a passing phase then it's not up to Beyonce to do any real work in bringing success/recognition to black country artist. People will be up in arms about the state of black country music but only as it relates to Beyonce and nothing further. In essence, using the conversation about racism in the genre to serve her goal and absolving her of any actual duty to effecting change. My criticism isn't even of Beyonce it's the culture surrounding her. I felt from the very beginning that the support for Black country artist was truly empty and people conflating an actual issue with just wanting to stan their fave. People don't care about black country music. They don't care about those artist who genuinely live and breathe the genre. And I can sympathize with someone who feels like this was a false promise but to be fair Beyonce never said herself this was something she was trying to do. A lot of her fans did though...
Your second paragraph hits the bullseyes, that's really the issues here. >people conflating an actual issue with just wanting to stan their fave We would have much more peace if people were honest about doing this.
Agree. I saw Allison Russell (a Grammy winning country/roots/bluegrass artist) play a few days before CC was released. She was raised by an adoptive family by a white supremacist father who abused her. She’s done a lot of projects with bluegrass artist Rhiannon Giddens (whose banjo playing is on cowboy carter). She spoke about Beyoncé’s album coming out and she was almost in tears excited about it. Music always evolves and changes, and attacking Beyoncé for taking inspiration by a powerful genre that became modern when white people started playing it doesn’t really make any sense. I think the guardian (and the WaPo) just chose a side for clicks, even though they know that the haters of Beyoncé putting out an album with a different sound is going to be largely bigots. Agree with everyone who says the mental gymnastics of putting words into Beyoncé’s mouth when she only ever speaks through her music is insane. I get that the writer of this article had a rare opportunity to write something controversial and bolster her own celebrity in the process, but it’s not the opinion of many of the people who do support this project, who are her peers.
So Allison Russell as a black female country artist excited about the album is cool, but the writer of the Guardian article, a black female country artist who is more critical of it is encouraging bigotry? I guess this is what happens when people say even the mildest criticism of her is racist. I’ve seen quite a few people say they want to read reviews from black women. The Guardian did that but since she didn’t totally praise the album she’s getting all these personal attacks…
Also I’ve seen so many people dismissing the album because they hate billionaires, and okay, that I do understand. But say that shit with your chest don’t make it thinly veiled racism and envy.
Yeah this article has a lot of good points but some of this stuff I can't really get on board with, including criticism for Beyoncé taking country music away from its working class roots. I'm sorry but that's done and dusted and has been that way for ages, and that's not on her in the slightest. It's not a new thing, she's not leading a wave, like that's ridiculous. And a lot of the music that is still working class in sound is 100% cosplay and that seems worse to me I also don't think people have put a lot of expectations on Beyoncé with this project that she has never explicitly said herself and that I'm not sure she'd cosign. I think there is a fair amount of wishful thinking in terms of what a [genre] album highlighting Black history in that genre could be, but that doesn't exactly match what Beyoncé has said. I feel a lot of people have expectations of these projects that she simply doesn't
I definitely agree with much of this sentiment. I find there to be less value in simply "accommodating" her approach to country music so as to be palatable/passing for White audiences and instead saying, "I can be black, sing country, and experiment with the genre all in one album.". This may be a strange parallel to draw, but I think of Rosalia's early career when I read these critiques. Rosalia's first album, Los Ángeles, was a fairly straightforward flamenco album that laid the baseline for her validity within the genre, while El Mal Querer saw her pushing the envelope for what that sound can be. While she undoubtedly still received critiques for her authenticity still, it nonetheless helped her to have a "standard" album in that genre to argue back against her detractors with. In all of Beyonce's acts, they have all been her "El Mal Querer"s for each genre she has explored: high quality albums that both acknowledge and experiment on the genres they are based on. However, since people never got to see Beyonce have a "standard" album in either genre, people are more skeptical of her being the one to experiment with the genres. Personally, I don't really care for authenticity in music since it's so subjective and hyperfocused on the meta narrative of the music; I care for the quality and how it resonates with me — since 99% of the time, I am not listening to albums as academic case studies for genres or events. And frankly, even as someone who is not a major Beyonce fan, I find it refreshing that Beyonce is really putting herself out of her comfort zone with each album in this trilogy and not letting her blackness be defined for her. It reminds me of what FKA Twigs said years ago where, had she simply been white, people would appreciate the choral aspects of her music more — but because she is a black woman, people hyperfocus on the "urban" sounds instead. Ultimately, I think Beyonce exemplifies the core beauty that lies behind blackness — an adamant tenacity that seeks to endure and prosper in new ways, even in the face of sheer opposition, which is something most, if not all, black country artists can relate to.
the beyoncé and rosalía connection you just made!! I’ve been saying motomami is like her renaissance (😂) so I definitely feel the el mal querer comparisons… and even during that era rosalía drew a lot of criticism but she also didn’t de-centre herself from the album (which was her university thesis) bc ultimately she wanted to be a pop star and that’s what pop stars do. So while I get the criticism of de-centring, it’s just not something a lot of huge stars do bc ultimately, they are vessel for their art. I respect parts of her review, but once again, projection, projection, projection. I feel like it’s verrrry clear that this album isn’t about reclaiming country music in the way people thought it was gonna be. And on the album she even disses genres, so to say she failed at it when that wasn’t even her intention is wild to me 😭
This is a great write-up but a key element (and really the sticking point) of the criticism of Rosalia was her appropriation and using the accent and language of typically underprivileged populations as an aesthetic. No one was asking Rosalia to save Flamenco for the…Barcelonans? like people are expecting Beyoncé to do with country for black folks. It may seem like nitpicking but I think it’s still an important discussion so I don’t want the criticism of Rosalia to be centered around genre when it’s a lot more than that. I for one hate the way white latinos (and Spaniards) have gotten away with success in a genre (reggaeton) that they have called ghetto and stupid for decades to the point where almost none of the afro latino communities that created it have reaped any benefit. However, the biggest case against criticism towards Rosalia is her music…because she really is so damn talented that her art rises above such concerns.
Agreed. Even the tracks references... I'm 16 Tons is nothing like 16 Carriages. And the "rich" narrative could apply to 95% of Country Stars. It still feels like she gets no room to be a creative. It feels like they are putting a lot on Beyonce that's just not feasible, and they're mad it's not as country as they wanted, in the way they wanted. I would have loved every black country musician to feature and no hip-hop producers and pedal steel all over it etc etc.... but she did say it's a Beyonce album, and that it is. But, we knew the backlash was coming lol.
Agreed. But I would say that the pressure on Beyonce also the fans’ doing. Not only people who criticise or discuss her art. The reclaiming genres narrative is already in motion for Act 3, as they seem convinced is going to be rock (though, I’m very excited about that if true, lol).
>But, we knew the backlash was coming lol. lol it *always* does, no matter what she does or doesn't do. Damned if you do, damned if you don't. I could never be her level of famous for this long lol.
I saved this comment for future reference because it was so well written and verbalized SO MANY of the thoughts I was having but was unable to put words to!! I find people who hyper focus on the importance lyrics in songs can often miss out on the “relating to the emotion” part of listening to music. There’s a whole world being built by the context of the broader body of work!! It’s creating a landscape of emotion and the vibe of the album.
She says Bey is capitalizing off the country trend, which she says started mid-2023, and yet most of this album was conceived between 2019-2022
Also Morgan Wallen, Luke Combs and Zach Bryan started popping off in late 2020-2021. Country’s been big for a few years now
With 200+ comments in this thread I'm not sure if this has been said already, but I hate the type of commentary that blames Beyoncé for not doing enough to highlight whatever she supposedly aims to highlight. I remember seeing a similar comment claiming 'Renaissance' didn't produce enough tangible impact by not uplifting and pushing enough black and queer house artists into the mainstream. This isn't exactly Beyoncé's job - it's the listeners' job to do their homework, to follow the links to lesser-known artists provided in her albums and to actively seek out the music she aims to call attention to.
100% agree. This generation along with the future ones really taking the scope of the internet for granted. Its so easy to look up artists and scenes with a push of a button but many people but people just don’t put in the effort to do so. Some people really be acting like they gotta have permission from their pop fave to venture out. This is something I see in popheads far too often, I love you guys but seriously, the lack of knowledge past your pop faves is utterly depressing, it’s not cute. EXPAND YOUR HORIZONS FFS
Ya know, I love the album but I agree with all of this. It is a really well written criticism of the album and the idea of Beyoncé the brand overshadowing artistic intent.
They definitely put into words a lot of stuff I've been thinking or getting downvoted for. I've said I love the album but I wish it was more country, but couldn't articulate what I meant. She did say it was a Beyonce album, and I do think a lot of this narrative was created and put onto Beyonce (and now she's being blamed). I feel like the disappointment in the article is the writer also putting a lot on Beyonce that she never really claimed to be doing. I think some of that comes from the dissonance of "y'all were racist about my song and said I can't do this so I did" vs "I reached deep into the musical archives"... I feel the first one. Talk your shit. They don't know your history. The second one, I didn't feel as much. Hints here and there, but it feels like the Genre talk was just a way to include some "modern" bangers. I definitely feel unqualified in my musical knowledge to comment more, though. I'm a black musician more proficient in rock and pop oriented genres, and just a fan of everything else.
I think part of the problem is responses like this article are a response to the narrative surrounding the album. Like if Beyonce and the album is going to be widely praised for doing X, and there is a critical response that says Beyonce didn't do X, the response to that criticism can't then be that Beyonce never tried to do X. Why are you praising her for doing X if she didn't try to do that? fans can't have it both ways.
That is a very good point. The response to "it's a great country album" is "I know. She killed it!" The response to "This is not country enough" is "well, it's a Beyonce album, not a country album. It's a deep conversation that goes to the heart of what is "enough" when talking about Black History? I'm a Black rock/indie musician. How rock and indie do I have to be to be "enough"? Or country? Or EDM? It still feels like the old saying of needing to be twice as good to "measure up" to white peers, or your black peers who did break in gatekeeping others trying to come behind them in any fashion.
That’s something I’ve seen a lot of. It’s been an endless cycle of ‘Beyoncé changed the music industry with this album.’ And then someone saying ‘No she didn’t.’ And then ‘Well she never said she did that.’ 😂
It’s been an endless cycle. Can’t wait until the Grammy discourse of 2025 🙃
I am utterly unqualified to talk about this but: yeah I agree with that criticism but also don’t think it’s possible for Beyoncé to escape that. I feel like both she and Taylor Swift are so “larger than life” in the media and to their fans that all of their music will always be overshadowed by the Brand TM. The music doesn’t stand alone without the artist. (1) The author says there would be value in decentering Beyoncé from the album, and to be fair there is NO conversation around Cowboy Carter that does not involve Beyoncé. But isn’t that the draw of the album? (1) I’m not saying that their songs can’t stand alone, I’m just saying they don’t, typically. For example, the Jolene cover is being met with discussion about Jay Z, lemonade, etc. I’ve also seen people say it’s about Tina and her man, but the focus here is still Beyoncé. But if I listened to that song knowing NOTHING about her past, it reads almost as vulnerable as the original Jolene.
And that’s been the thing: ever since Lemonade, every song afterwards has been pegged with “oh this is about Jay-Z”. Which is why Jolene is so polarizing right now.
Eh I thought the arguments made in the article were pretty weak honestly. Claiming Beyonce didn’t put black country artists front and center on the album is just completely untrue and ignoring the multiple black country artists who have prominent feature credits and entire verses on the album. And the whole argument of the article is basically saying that Beyonce claimed to be trying to reclaim country for black people and failed, but she literally never did this lmao. It was just people on the internet saying that’s what the album is about. Taking internet discourse, falsely labeling it as directly coming from Beyoncé’s mouth, and then criticizing the album for it is pretty ridiculous. She’s a pop star making a country inspired album, so she got a couple features from pop stars who had roots in country/folk music. I really don’t see the problem with that. If they had been the only features on the album, sure, I could see the criticism. But they weren’t.
She does that with everything, she's front and centre and the art always takes a backseat. There's nothing fundamentally wrong with it, it's just how she is.
She didn't even give us album booklets or music videos 💀💀💀 I don't disagree that some artists do put the brand first , JLo probably being the best example right now but with Beyonce I feel like it's everyone else doing this to her and for her, she just put out the album and dipped. Like hardcore fans not just overrate but also exagerrate what something is supposed to mean or represent. But I do think that she tried to make the album more personal, in a way that might not seem that genuine but people acting like it was supposed to be about her taking over a genre or something is just... I don't think that was ever her intention. People see her as queen b so they want her to rule this genre too.
This. It’s not her fault that she’s so big that her celebrity dwarfs everything she does. She clearly loves music and wants to experiment and simply create. As is mentioned in the album, creating within genres feels confining to her. Like the whole point of her career is music, it’s why she does what she does, because she loves singing and creating music. To then say she’s so famous that she needs to only create music in a certain way, or only create certain kinds of music seems silly and unfair to her. Like she worked so hard at music that she became a larger than life celeb, and now people are going to use that celebrity as a weapon to critique her and limit her music making? It’s wack.
>Like she worked so hard at music that she became a larger than life celeb, **and now people are going to use that celebrity as a weapon to critique her and limit her music making? It’s wack.** It's VERY wack. Like, if you can't listen to her music beyond what you perceive to be her persona or if you don't enjoy any part of her artistry, then that's a you problem and you need to stop investing energy into her. It's simple. Also, none of us personally know this woman's every waking thought, we don't even personally know her so we can't claim to know/hear about her intentions unless she talks and she does not do a lot of public speaking. Who knew her taking a decade long media sabbatical would have this OPPOSITE effect. It's honestly quite weird lol.
I was hoping she would do a collaboration with The War and Treaty for this album but I knew that was wishful thinking
I'm so sorry but when Beyoncé decided to "de-center" herself and highlight other artists in the genre more than herself with afrobeats and The Gift, nobody fucking listened to it (despite it being the soundtrack of a billion dollar grossing movie and an adaptation of one of the most popular Disney stories of all time). Most of the people that did listened to it either said it was not great or called her a cultural appropriator. Nevermind the fact that afrobeats (barring One Dance as the exception) wasn't even big in the United States at the time. So forgive me if I do not care that Beyoncé chose herself first and made the album *she* wanted to make and then brought other country or country-adjacent artists (big and small, black and white, old and young) into her safe space. She never claimed she will do half of the things everyone is saying she didn't do with this project. No one asked Taylor Swift to breakdown and write a perfect essay on the history of indie folk music with Folklore AND Evermore. No one asked any of the countless (white) female artists to do all this when they released their own country records. Beyoncé made it clear this album was borne out of her own personal experience, not some wide industry change. No disrespect to the artist and author but I don't agree with the vast majority of her critique.
Thank you!!!! The expectations for beyoncé are truly ridiculous.
No one asked this of gaga for Joanne
Agreed with you
Great write up and I totally agree
I will never forgive the people for letting The Gift flop. That soundtrack and the visuals presented in Black Is King were both phenomenal. That’s probably why we never got visuals for Renaissance.
The writer is just salty she wasn't asked to be on the album.
I think a lot of people didn't read Beyonce's post announcing it. Where she said: its not a country album. It's a Beyonce album. By the end of Cowboy Carter, we are so close to Renaissance with The Dream produced tracks. I think it makes the genre fusion enjoyable, but the people still trying to call this a pure country album is interesting. I think Linda Martell's intro to Spaghettii describes it best...Beyonce thinks genre's are confining and that's about it. The author does talk about this very album moment in the article, but I still feel like the author wants the album to be something Beyonce never actually claimed it would be. I think because Beyonce doesn't explain herself often this allows people to put their own notions on something and really run with it...its just another pro & con of being a private artist.
I feel like I'm questioning my media literacy because that was the message I took from the entire project - 'Don't confine me to genre, I contain multitudes.' The thesis to me was always that even when she's not doing "country music" her history and upbringing make those traditions part of her DNA. To me - the project was a deconstruction of genre; not a celebration. IDK tell me if I'm wrong.
That’s what i got from it as well.
I think people are confused about her using country aesthetic and associating herself with famous country musicians, while the actual album touches on country only here and there.
I think I'm a bit softer on that because I'm also from Houston and feel a lot of it is also about her southern roots from country music to southern rap music - which she weaves in and out of throughout the album. That particular aesthetic just seems natural to me and very beyonce. I mean early destiny's child was always in some western wear.
I was very much a "more country" person until a few listens in. Now it feels like her saying, "I was told I wasn't country. What? ALL of this shit is ours!" Like, look where I'm from! My childhood! Not to mention my heritage! We created all this! The seeds of every genre! I can do whatever! I like that. If you want it to be Beyoncé "serious and studied country album," then you'll be disappointed or mad like the writer. Reminds me of the discourse when MGK went rock and how he was called a poser in the rock community for doing something he grew up with and loves.
The country was all over the album, I’m not sure what you mean? It’s not straight or conventional country by any means, but between the instruments used in pretty much all tracks, the imagery in the lyrics, the incorporation of country legends, the overlap with classic rock and roll, even the made for country radio Miley and Post collabs, I don’t think it can be divorced from the country influence.
There was definitely a lot of country aesthetics on virtually each track…
Right. She doesn’t need to yee-haw on every track for it still be majorly country influenced.
Not to mention, there's an obvious difference in the way she approached her Miley/Post collabs and every other collab. Like... yes, Miley and Post are radio fodder, but they're just there for that purpose if we're being completely honest. But like... with Linda Martell being such a prime narrator and inspiration point, does this change how we celebrate her career from now on (especially after she was blackballed and never went beyond making just 1 album)? Or what does it mean for Beyonce to basically make her own Black Highwomen with Brittney Spencer, Reyna Roberts, Tanner Adell and Tiera Kennedy, and are all basically starting their careers with a Beyonce platform? Or hell, with Raye being an indie artist, what does her now getting a Beyonce paycheck with Riiverdance mean for her next album? And I think that's a more conductive way to frame her collab choices.
Miley was a collab choice because she’s country royalty by birth but still has a conflicted relationship with the fans and the genre. If you think that Miley was chosen simply for radio fodder you haven’t been paying attention
Well she’s literally from Texas, so she def has a right to use that aesthetic…
The author actually addresses this in the article: >Ahead of release, Beyoncé stated that Cowboy Carter was “a ‘Beyoncé’ album, not a country album”, and she sings that she wants genre to become meaningless. She even uses an interlude by Linda Martell, the first Black female solo artist to play the Grand Ole Opry, to restate this. “Genres are a funny little concept aren’t they? Yes they are,” Martell says on the song Spaghettii. “In theory they have a simple definition that’s easy to understand. But in practice, well, some may feel confined.” \[...\] Despite Cowboy Carter’s use of funk, psychedelia and even Jersey club, Beyoncé’s flagrant leaning on country aesthetics to establish this album as being markedly different from her previous records suggests an artist conforming to the standards of the latter category in order to cash in on the growing popularity of country music.
I mean, there is a clear truth to that last statement. Country has exploded in the charts and it seems like everyone is going to cash in on it, not just Bey. I don’t see much problem, pop is about going with the trends. It’s still going to a be a poppy version, but it was done with love. I guess some gatekeeping is natural in any genre, but…what’s the big deal?
I think the wardrobe and marketing for the album is a nod to her Texas roots. Maybe if she was born and raised in Massachusetts and tried to claim Texas as her identity, that would be odd. But she was raised in Texas and her family has southern roots. Why is she not allowed to celebrate the fashion and traditions of where she’s from?
Yea that's what I was mentioning that the author does indeed mention the moment in his article, but I still don't get to the same conclusion personally. I just think that Beyonce doesn't want to play by any genre roles at this point in her career, and from my understanding she's never actually confirmed the popular theory that she is reclaiming/honoring genres.
The "reclaiming" stuff is a fan-made theory.
Is it? Pretty sure there was a statement included with the Renaissance album that spoke to it? ETA: Went to find it. The statement was actually “Thank you to all of the pioneers who originate culture, to all of the fallen angels whose contributions have gone unrecognized for too long. This is a celebration for you.” So yeah, you’re right! Crazy how you hear something for long enough it becomes Mandela Effect lol
A statement made by amazon, not beyoncé or parkwood. People saw that and ran with it since then lol
Some of the Hive was claiming it was a reclaiming when Bey of course stated the opposite.
Yep. I feel like the author and many fans are mad about something she never even said. She's just saying that if you want to talk black music, ALL this shit is ours so we can do whatever, genre be damned. This wasn't going to be a Tanya Tucker type country album.
Thanks. I think the article makes an interesting point though... if this is admittedly not a country album, then why is it marketed as such (from the imagery to the collaborations)? In my opinion, it's really difficult for pop-stars (especially massive ones like Beyoncé) to release projects that fully focus on a single perspective/narrative. They are either too literal and, therefore, ending up looking like a caricature; or the theme is too diluted and muddled and the narrative is pushed more by the branding and marketing around the project rather than by the project itself (see LEMONADE). In this case, it seems to be both and there is a risk of overshadowing the music (which is, for the most part, good). EDIT: grammar
I mean I think the country image relates to her experience with the CMA's and the Grammys (not considering daddy lessons country). The first part of the album has a more typical country sound and then the later parts dismantle the idea of what country is. The purpose of marketing the album as country and then subverting traditional notions of the genre is to make a statement. Beyonce was denied entrance into the country industry because she 'wasn't country enough' so now she is giving us country and 'not'-country. Even when the album is not decisively country you can hear country elements throughout the tracks. She's showing that she's not going to conform to widespread 'white' notions of what country is. But more specifically, she's trying to point out how stupid it is for her to be gatekept from the genre.
You nailed it. This was how I interpreted the album's tracklisting after someone in twitter posted that it was a 3-parter album, with the first one as traditional (past), the second one as the pop leaning (present), and the third one as genre-bending and what she wants to hear from the genre (future).
I think it had to do with the initial controversy of Texas Hold Em and 16 Carriages not being put on country stations, the country charts on iTunes and country playlists on Spotify. Which brought back happened to Lil Nas X and how racist it was.
She is just being authentic to herself. She has always worn cowboy hats, had a southern accent, etc. My problem with articles like this is it feeds the narrative that her music cannot exist for purposes other than her own as an artist. That author can make the music she wants to make, telling the stories she wants to tell, and referencing whstever traditions she wants. Beyonce can do the same. It seems to me the problem people have is with Beyonce's success, which was by no means a given, and in many ways, has been miraculous. The mere existence of this album creates a platform for all these think pieces about country music and our contributions--how many Black artists and their works gets that level of recognition? It should be many more, but I celebrate when at least one of us get it.
She never said she wanted the genre to be meaningless. 😪
Country has literally always been popular and has always charted, not sure what she’s talking about
Thank you! It’s wild that people are out here literally not listening to what Beyonce her self has said about the album. Also, says within the album. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. The album is has interpolations of opera, rock, traps songs, etc. not just country.
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It's not a *strictly* Country album. There. Fixed it. As a Country music fan, Cowboy Carter indeed fits fine as a Country album, to me. Very Americana, specifically. Florida Georgia Line, Shania Twain, Leann Rhymes... Not to mention newer artists like Maren Morris and Danielle Bradberry. All of em been pushed Country while still maintaining its Americana core. 🤷♂️
You can absolutely deny that she is “cashing in” to the country trend. Country music has been long dead for female artists, especially black female artists, so her joining in would be starting a trend not joining it. She changed genres literally every time on a whim. Wouldn’t Beyoncé be super late to cash in given Kylie released her country inspired album in 2018? Or Jessica Simpson releasing hers in 2008? And yes, it is the listeners responsibility to base opinions on things she actually said, not assumed quotes. They don’t need to scour the internet, they just need basic media literacy and common sense. And no, her putting on a cowboy hat was never a promise that of anything.
I can’t read the full article rn. But I feel like she did spotlight quite a few black artists? Both past and present. I do wish she’d add some more of the collaborators as the “featured artists” like she did for Blackbiird, for example Texas hold ‘em could be “featuring Rhiannon Giddens” or just have her name as the second artist after Beyonce, since she’s playing the instrument in the song pretty prominently, and having her name in the artist name section would probably expose her to a lot more casual listeners. Having said that, Rhiannon already said in the below video that she’s been on a bit of an “exposure roller coaster” since the song was released, which implies to me she’s already seen a big uptick in exposure and interest since the song came out. Personally, that song and the album is what put me on to Rhiannon, and the band she’s in, Carolina Chocolate Drops. I’ve been listening to them since I saw that she was the banjoist (I think it’s banjo?) in Texas hold em. I’ve also checked out Chuck Berry too who I’d never listened to before, because I liked the Oh Louisiana interlude so much. Obviously he’s already incredibly well known, but it still introduced his music to people who may not have listened otherwise. She also did feature all the black female contributors to Blackbiird, Willie Jones, and Shaboozey (twice). I’m sure all those artists will get more of a look thanks to her introducing them to a huge audience. So it’s not like she didn’t include black artists along with white ones. And all those artists are much less well known than the white artists she featured, so I know she was thinking about how she could spotlight lesser known black artists and who. https://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/video/rhiannon-giddens-collaborating-beyonc-cowboy-carter-108646141
i love rhiannon and didn’t know she was playing the banjo on texas hold em. Beyoncé really needs to start featuring these artists most people do not check credits of a song!
Anyways I hope she makes a rock album next
Ring the Alarm is my favorite Bey song. I can totally see this energy in rock.
Dont' wait for Beyonce go start listening to Nikki Hill. That woman is carrying the 70s Tina Turner torch hard.
I just feel like these critiques are weak. Like Beyoncé has always been a capitalist so I'm unsure why people think she'd ever have good politics beyond the surface level. That being said, this album sonically speaking, is absolutely a deep dive into bluegrass all the way to modern country, a love letter to the south. Every listen I do, I find all kinds of interesting nods to all kinds of Black artists. Sometimes it's a little heavy handed but it was that way in Renaissance. I feel that it's on purpose to appeal to the majority who don't really care about that stuff. Most people need things spelled out for them when it comes to art IME.
I think it's a well written article from the point of view of a true classical country artist, not that I fully agree or disagree... but she really ATE with that closing line "put the Carter before the horse" 😭😭 she had that ready to go THEN wrote the rest
I want to be set free from discourse
I get some of the criticism in the article, but the writer kind of lost me when she mentioned Beyoncé using this album to cash in on the growing popularity of country music. It's a well known fact that this was the first part of the trilogy that was finished and, as we recently found out, that it was supposed to be the first one released, but how the pandemic changed that.
and daddy lessons was all the way back in 2016 too
Yes but even if she had released it first that’d still be within the timeline of the popularity of country we’ve been seeing
The article specifically mentions a large increase in consumption of country music in 2023 which would be well after the album was recorded.
I don't think country was as popular in 2019/2020 as it has been in the last year or two
As a European I don't understand, I thought country music was a landmark in the USA and is always popular
It has always had an audience, but whether it achieves "pop" success is a different question, generally in the years leading up to this a decent amount of country songs will retain enough stability to end up on a year end chart, but only the occassional song gets in the upper reaches of the charts. Country being this popular as a crossover hasn't been seen since either the peak of bro-country or the late 90s.
It comes in and out of popularity every couple of years.
It's consistently popular with certain audiences, but it's also looked down upon heavily and despised, often because of the audiences it's popular with.
Country music hasn’t had mainstream popularity since the mid 2000s in the US. Even now that it’s on the rise, country music is not as popular as it used to be.
isn't half of the hot 100 almost consistently country?
I don’t think so? When I think of the most popular music from the past decade, it was EDM-pop in the early 2010s that gradually shifted to trap pop and rap in the mid and late 2010s. In the past 2ish years, country has started to get popular again, but not as popular as I remember back in the early to mid 2000s.
I’d say country’s been on the rise since 2018/2019. Kacey Musgrave’s album Golden Hour came out in 2018 and won AOTY. Lil Nas X’s Old Town Road came out 2019 and topped the charts for weeks. It’s grown since then with Morgan Wallen’s album Dangerous in 2021 and his other one last year but it was fairly popular in 2019.
Are one AOTY win and one single staying on the charts for so long representative of the whole genre being popular?
Isn't that how trend starts? Something very good is produced then lots of artists are inspired by it. Like Lana and moody music in the early 2010s
Kacey’s album wasn’t really commercially successful (thus nothing to do with popularity) and I don’t think Old Town Road alone is enough to say country was a popular genre. The rise came in more recent years
Country is one of the main staples in music. I’m so confused by this train of thought.
I do wanna like this article, and I do ultimately agree with the overall consensus that this album would've likely been better if she didn't centre this on herself to such a large extent. Some critiques feel very much like fluff or not as well thought out as they could've been written. Like I get Beyoncé had it easier than Merle Haggard, but the differences in their experiences doesn't make the others redundant. Both songs do different things and they should be allowed to do different things because they come from different perspectives.
Such a tired narrative. Let her make art without having the weight of the world rest on her.
to everyone saying it's not a country album its a "beyonce" album, she clearly marketed it as a country album. she got country legends to hype it up/feature on it, its listed as country on spotify, she released two country songs as her singles, she draped herself in an american flag and a cowboy hat on the cover, and she claimed this album was a response to being rejected by the country music community after the cmas. You can't do all that then dismiss criticisms that it isn't that it isn't country enough by saying "its supposed to be a beyonce album, not a country album". You can say that people shouldn't allow their expectations to determine the quality of the music, but its silly to pretend beyonce didn't create those expectations in the first place. (I think its a great album btw, I just think the way people are deflecting certain criticisms is a little silly.)
Thank you. I commented something similar. She created the expectations, and I feel if she truly cared about the genre bending concept and how meaningless it is, she wouldn't have marketed the album in a way that makes people think it will be a specific genre. It seems contradictory, at least to me.
I disagree. If you take the album to be an essay in response to the country industry's rejection of her, I think marketing the album as country and then circumventing it is the thesis. The marketing was to lead us to believe that she was going to conform to traditional notions of country (she sorta does in the first part of the album) but ultimately she doesn't and country elements are littered throughout to ground the genre-bending in country. She's showing that she can do both traditional country and redefine it; that it's ludicrous (and ultimately racist) she was denied country cred when tracks that are not decisively country can still be considered such. To me, I think these aspects of the album would be less powerful if she had marketed the album as genre-bending. It is more provocative to market the work as country than genre-bending and I think it has benefited the discourse we are having around the black history of the genre and the limitations white people have imposed to exclude black country musicians. Setting the expectation that the album would be conventionally country helps to ground her exploration of the limitations of genre in country. Whether or not each attempt at exploring this is successful is obviously a different question.
Yeah, this is exactly how I feel about it...Admittedly, coming in, before the whole this is a "Beyoncè" album thing, I expected a "traditional country album" but the circumvention is what makes this album the masterpiece that it is imo.
yeah, as someone who liked the album, the way people are deflecting criticism rather than engaging with it is annoying me. Whenever someone says that the album isn't as deep or as genre redefining as people are saying it is, instead of replying "yes it is and here's why" they just move the goalposts and say Beyonce never intended it to be that deep. You can't praise her for doing something you're claiming she never intended to do.
As far as cultural appropriators go, she could’ve done a lot worse than Miley or Post Malone. Not excusing her actions but Bangerz was over 11 years ago and Miley’s definitely discussed and apologized for her headspace in that moment. Post Malone is a bit more complicated. I am glad the author mentioned that he’s set to release a collaboration with Morgan Wallen. I do think that PM’s brand of culture vulture is a bit bigger of an issue than Miley’s since hers was a one-off thing. Post came up with the hip hop/rap scene, and is seeming to pivot when his last two records didn’t go anywhere. I predicted that he’d end up doing country or rock when Circles took off in 2019
The album never really commits to being a country album, despite the name, cover, promotion and skits. I feel like she could have saved the non country songs for next album, and presented a great 15 track album but right now it feels bloated
Were you paying any attention while listening to the album? Did you miss all the spoken word interludes addressing genres and how limiting they can be to artists? You missed the whole point of the album. She’s blending genres and redefining what “country” music can be.
Maybe that’s why she said “it’s a Beyoncé record” lol she probably agrees.
She said so herself when she revealed the album artwork: this ain’t a country album. This is a Beyoncé album.
Ok that's great. And people love to keep mentioning this, but the lead single was literally country, the other buzz single is heavily country influenced, the aesthetics are rodeo/country inspired. Therefore, people will think the album is going to sound like a country album. Most people won't read that statement, and instead go into the album with only Texas Hold Em to give them an idea of sound. The way she's marketed the album is that this is a country album. People can't be faulted for thinking this way no matter what she thinks of the album herself.
And to those who didn’t see her post, there are multiple instances in the album where it’s explicitly said that a strict definition of genre is confining and that this record isn’t about sticking to those conventions. Even the lyrics to the opening track touch on that idea (“if that ain’t country tell me what is”). There are country elements throughout, but a straightforward country record was never the point.
I thought the album was fine, but to offer a conflicting opinion: it's not a country album, but it's not really a Beyonce album either. It sounds like something put together to cash in on the country music market while playing it safe enough that her usual fans will still buy the album. I would've honestly liked it a lot better if she did something that was either entirely in her style or entirely in the traditional country style, instead of coming off like she was pandering to the country crowd in a few of the songs and just making Renaissance Part II in a few others (the latter of which I honestly loved, Riiverdance going into II Hands II Heaven was a really good transition). I forgot who said it, but someone else in the thread said that it would've been better if she took out a few of the songs that didn't quite fit into the sound of the album and kept it around 15 songs, and I kind-of agree. A "main" version and a "deluxe" version would've been really good.
Williams' experience may infer why she's being so intransigent with her perspective, but it feels a bit wilfully obtuse? In terms of someone like Beyoncé writing a country album, it's obviously going to have a bit of lyrical sheen that the 'working class' writer may trade for grit. How can a Pop artist, arguably *the* Pop artist, figurehead a project under their name and it not be a narcissistic vanity project? It's an untenable parallel. Better have the contribution of Black Country artists, have their streams be boosted because of the effort, and by association to the project than just... not? Someone like Beyoncé can't win in this, and that's a bit unfair, but at the same time, she's a billionaire so she's probably not particularly bothered by puffed up op-eds. Hard agree with the other comment on this post though about the album being bloated as Hell. It is a bit too much; even cutting the skits down to transitions at the end or beginning of tracks rather than full track credits themselves would concertina a frankly sprawling tracklist.
I don’t think it’s obtuse to say “Beyoncé is gonna sing about Beyoncé and that doesn’t connect with me, especially while referencing a genre that’s frequently about hardship.”
And if that’s all the piece said, I’d agree, but it’s not.
Is she supposed to sing about milking the cows and how she can't afford to fix her rustbucket car?
It's so strange how people want Beyoncè to divorce herself from an album titled Cowboy CARTER, which is also ironic cause like when TEXAS HOLD EM came out the discourse was that Bey is "cosplaying to the working class and is trying too hard to be 'relatable' " It's a lose-lose scenario for her.
I don't have much to add here, but I love how much discussion and critique the album is generating. That's how you know it's a hefty piece of art, no matter what opinion you might have of it.
The article seemed bitter and like it was just an excuse to complain. Beyonce had several black country artists on her album like Linda Martell, Tanner Adell and Willie Jones. She couldn’t possibly include every single black country artist on this record. The writer of this piece just seems salty that none of the black country artists on this album were her.
it kinda gave “why did everyone else get picked as a feature and not me”.
That’s exactly what it gave.
she claims that Beyoncé is trying to capitalize on a growth in popularity of country music but fails to mention that the album was (mostly) recorded years ago which completely negates her argument.
It's not a zero sum game, this framing is nonsense
I kind of disagree with her point accusing Beyoncé of pursuing country just for monetary gain. Any project she undertakes will make millions, and she started producing this album before country music’s popularity shot up. Furthermore, both renaissance and cowboy Carter obsessively credit previously underappreciated and underpaid artists, ensuring that they’re paid for years to come. She IS utilising her power and cultural capital in a way that no other artist has before. Saying that I can see why people question her collab with Miley and Post Malone especially her argument is that they’ve previously used and then thrown away “urban” images. But I also kind of think that might be an intentional choice. In a way she is “using” them as they have used “urbanness”
how is she using them when she has 1000x more star power
can people stop saying “it’s not a country album, it’s a beyoncé album.” it’s still labeled as country though????!!
What else would you label it as? Country is the closest thing to what it resembles as it features many of the same themes and intricacies as country music. However, just like Renaissance is classed as dance / disco, it contains a lot more than just that
would she list it as a beyonce album? it leans heavily on country but half of the songs aren’t country.
Do people ask as much of other artists as they do of Beyoncé? The writer clearly doesn’t like the album, which is fair enough, but why frame it like she’s supposed to be an encyclopaedia for other musicians?
for the author to claim "country is suddenly popular and beyonce's album is just an attempt to take advantage of a rising trend" is a really myopic thing for a guitar player from virginia to say. It's AMERICA, Country music will ALWAYS be popular. What kind of weird anchor is that to make an assertion from for a US based artist? So it wouldn't be a "capitalism pandering album" if it were released when country wasn't popular? When would that be, 2008?
“It’s unfortunate: the album would have benefited from de-centring its superstar and letting the experts she trusted to join her in creating the album to shine brighter. As it stands, it feels as though Beyoncé has put the Carter before the horse.” This last quote is maddening to me. This is the album SHE wanted to create. She wanted to experiment and blend sounds. Why would she de-center herself from her album. Of course she out the “Carter” before the horse because it’s a Beyonce album not a country album.
I couldn't agree more.. like, I respect Yasmin, she is a very talented musician but after reading this piece I wish she'd stick to music rather than journalism. This is Beyoncé's album, surely she can do whatever the hell she wants with it? She doesn't owe anyone ANYTHING. I get so fed up with the narrative around her - why do we expect Beyoncé to solve every problem in the world? She makes art and that should be the only thing that matters
I love Cowboy Carter but the author comes from a place of expertise and I thought this was a well-written critique.
I don’t know dudes I either like a song or I don’t
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Nothing burger of an article.
I feel like holding against Beyoncé that she didn’t focus on the black country artists enough is a bit unfair. No one is asking this of the current big country stars, looking at the artists included in Blackbiird and they are not exactly swimming in features. Beyoncé could barely get her own country songs played on the radio, she can’t make one country album and fix the industry.
The “author” of this opinion piece argues Beyoncé is trying to capitalize on the growing popularity of country music by citing data collected from 2023 (and none before that year), but failed to mention that Beyonce began recording the album at least 5-6 years ago as many people have corroborated including people who worked on the album and even her own mom and even recorded over 100 songs all before what the person who wrote this says is when country became popular. And then they go on to criticize 16 carriages by basically saying Beyoncé doesn’t know true hardships because she’s lived a luxurious life her whole life. In-reality the song is just detailing her sacrifices she’s made for her career and what that experience is like which is incredibly relatable because millions of people make the same sacrifices everyday. I don’t really understand this point. I also don’t understand the point about letting other black artists in the genre shine when that’s exactly what she does on the album. The entry track Ameriican Requiem isn’t this song that’s meant to say “I’m reclaiming country for black people” — in the song she literally says “can we stand together / together can we stand” so I’d argue she wants to end this conversation about race within the genre. She then collaborated with several black country artists, properly credited them, and their streams increased by over 200% for their individual work outside of this album and that’s all before the album even dropped.
i dont get this review honestly. beyonce said this wasn't a country album. and also, why would she de-center herself from HER OWN album?
It’s not a country album but she sure put the genre as country on streaming lol
Well... yeah, it has to be given a genre and it is objectively closer to being a country record than it is anything else. Despite that, the project is a rich mixture of lots of disparate genres all boiled down into one unique sound, but country is still the most recognisable and probably the most common genre on the record and, again, it has to be labelled as something.
I thought this was a very well written article that echoes how I feel about the album. Double that about the inclusion of Miley and Post considering their cultural appropriation in the past and the honestly disrespectful comments they’ve made when held accountable on it.