Issue 37: If That Ain't Country, Tell Me What Is
Reviewing the latest album from Beyoncé!
Welcome back to Band Practice where the bar has been raised! We have moved beyond the point where the albums I’m recommending are good or great, must-listens, etc. I’ve got recommendations that are so good you should stop everything that you’re doing and listen to them because they are potentially life-changing. In March, I happened to come across three such albums. This week, I’m devoting a whole issue to one of them: Beyoncé’s COWBOY CARTER. The others will be featured in the next issue because, boy, do I have a lot to say about this album. Think of this review like eating a crab. We may not get to every last shred of meat that the album has to offer, but we’ll get to the most succulent bits.
If you’re not a fan of Beyoncé’s music or have your misgivings because she’s a billionaire (fair! eat the rich!) I encourage you to read this anyway. The importance of COWBOY CARTER is bigger than who she is as a person. This project is not only a reclamation of American music (as everyone and their mom, including VP Kamala Harris has asserted) but a desegregation and liberation of it. It uses country music as its entry point to honor its Black progenitors, but it doesn’t stop there. It challenges the very idea of genre itself. It requires context to appreciate in full, and I’m going to share some of that context and why it is (and will continue to be) one of the most significant pieces of art to come out this year. And, of course, I’ll answer the most important question: does it slap? To which I can offer an emphatic yes. This album is, above all else, a gift of joy and a lot of fun to listen to. I have been so excited to dive into it with you.
Are you ready? Put yourself in a Beyoncé harness, ‘cause I do not need you flying out of your chair...
Beyoncé — COWBOY CARTER
Country, pop, rock, R&B, hip-hop/rap, and more! [Released 3/29/24]
The roots: a prologue 🪕
Believe me when I tell you I have been preparing for this album since before it was even announced. This year, I have been working my way through former New York Times music critic Kalefa Sanneh’s book Major Labels: A History of Popular Music in Seven Genres, and the timing could not have been more perfect. The book goes through the respective histories of rock, R&B, country, punk, hip-hop, dance, and pop—almost all of which appear on COWBOY CARTER. A theme from the book clicked into place when I listened to this album: throughout music history, deciding who belonged in which genre often came down to race.
Genres themselves are fluid and hard to define. The Billboard Charts took a long time to figure out how to label R&B music, for example. In the 1980s it was referred to as “Black Singles,” which stuck for a decade or so before becoming “rhythm and blues.”1 Charts and radio stations drew lines between what was classified as rock, R&B, and country, in order to market it—though there was so much overlap. As a result of those lines, music became segregated. Country and rock were considered “white” genres and anything that sounded “Black” was often confined to R&B. Sanneh writes:
[The] sound of country going “pop” is often the sound of country music embracing elements borrowed from Black genres—while insisting, all the while, that its cultural identity is as “gut-country” pure as it ever was.2
Country, and nearly all of American music, can be traced back to blues music—which has its origins in spirituals and work songs sung by the enslaved people of the American South. In addition to country, it shape-shifted into jazz, rhythm and blues, and rock and roll (which eventually beget pop and hip-hop, etc).
As musician and multi-hyphenate Queen Esther shared in her Ted Talk: The True Origins of Country Music:
If American music were a house, African music traditions would be the joist and the beams that allow it to stand, and blues would be the house itself. We have every right to own the house we built.3
That last sentence is the most important part. Much of American music history has been whitewashed, erasing its origins. Black artists have been overlooked or kept out of awards ceremonies and radio stations. White artists have been praised for their contributions while failing to acknowledge who gave them their know-how. Beyoncé—even with her popularity—is no stranger to this. And this is precisely where she begins the story of her album.
A reckoning and a reclamation ✊🏾
In a statement about the album on Instagram, Beyoncé said:
This album has been over five years in the making. It was born out of an experience that I had years ago where I did not feel welcomed…and it was very clear that I wasn’t. But, because of that experience, I did a deeper dive into the history of Country music and studied our rich musical archive. It feels good to see how music can unite so many people around the world, while also amplifying the voices of some of the people who have dedicated so much of their lives educating on our musical history.
The experience she’s referring to is her 2016 CMA performance of “Daddy Lessons” (off her album Lemonade) with the Chicks. There was a backlash over her presence on that stage—viewers were outraged by the crossover—and the CMAs removed all social media posts of the performance. It was clear that, even in the 21st century, the lines that had been drawn by radio stations and record executives decades ago were still prominent.
With COWBOY CARTER, Beyoncé inserts herself in a place where she was shut out—country music—seeking justice for herself and for everyone who has been slighted by the segregated music industry. This is a wake-up call and a reckoning. It is an assertion that music is changing and cross-pollinating and the industry must change with it.
First on her agenda is to give Black artists credit where it is due. She includes legendary country music pioneer Linda Martell—the first Black female artist to perform at the Grand Ole Opry—alongside Dolly Parton and Willie Nelson to introduce her songs, as if to say, “If you’re thinking of Parton and Nelson as pillars of country music, you should be thinking of Martell, too.” She also tips her cowboy hat to other trailblazing Black artists in American music like Chuck Berry and Sister Rosetta Tharpe, featuring clips of their songs on the “Smoke Hour” interlude.
In the epic opening track, “Ameriican Requiem,” Beyoncé sings about “a funeral for fair-weather friends,” perhaps referring to those who support her work only if it conforms to a certain sound and stays in a certain lane.4 While her 2022 album RENAISSANCE was about rebirth, COWBOY CARTER (which was originally slated to be released first) is about death to old ways. “I am the one to cleanse me of my Father's sins,” she sings.5 She attempts to set the record straight, reclaiming the legacy of country music for its Black founders.
A desegregation 🥘
If in “Ameriican Requiem,” Beyoncé tells it like it is, in “Blackbiird,” tells you what she’s going to do. The song signals her project of desegregation on the album—both of genre and race. The song’s author, Paul McCartney, was inspired by the civil rights movement and the Black girls who were desegregating schools in the South like Ruby Bridges. “Bird” is British slang for “girl,” thus “Black girl” became “Blackbird.”
Beyoncé chose four Black female country artists to join her in covering the song: Tanner Adell, Brittney Spencer, Tiera Kennedy, and Reyna Roberts. It brings the intent of the original lyrics full circle, making them all the more powerful, “take these broken wings and learn to fly / all your life / you were only waiting for this moment to arise.” This is their moment as artists who reshaping the landscape of country music, connecting the past to the present. The song opens a door for the rest of the album: all are welcome here; country music is for everyone.
Throughout the album, Beyoncé connects what country was, is, and is becoming. And what it is, was, and is going to be is a melting pot of music. In addition to Black music traditions, country has roots in Mexican music (thanks, in part, to “border radio”), and music from many immigrant communities. She blends these influences, making switchbacks from Baroque opera in the stunning “Daughter,” to the Spanish guitar-accompanied “Flamenco,” to Irish folk in “Riiverdance,” to hip-hop in “Tyrant,” funk in “Desert Eagle,” and gospel in “Amen.” All, of course, done the Beyoncé way. This is the level at which she creates when she is free from labels and limitations.
Liberation begets joy 🕊️
Death to the old ways of thinking makes room for the new. In a press statement about the album, Beyoncé said, “The joy of creating music is that there are no rules.”6 In liberating herself and her listeners from the idea of genre, Beyoncé has created an opening for joy.
The album isn’t just about reclaiming the musicianship and styles of music themselves, it is about reclaiming the intent behind them: themes of joy, hope, and perseverance. These are gifts passed down from her ancestors, and Beyoncé graciously shares them with her listeners.
But does it slap?? 🐎
Lest you think the album is one stodgy history lesson, let me tell you, nope! It is so much fun. As with RENAISSANCE, the production is impeccable. Songs are composed and ordered with precision, and there is meticulous attention to detail down to the transitions between songs (the album makes a perfect loop when played on repeat). A careful ear could listen to the album—I don’t know—about 32 times (and counting) and still notice new things, like the Dolly Parton-esque fingernail percussion in “Riiverdance.”7 Still—a testament to Beyoncé and her collaborators’ craft—nothing sounds overproduced.
Her vocals shine on every track, of course, but I have a theory that on each album she throws in a song where she really lets it rip, just to disprove the fuddy-duddies who don’t think she can sing. On RENAISSANCE it was “Plastic Off The Sofa,” and this time it’s “Daughter.” Accompanied by Spanish guitar, she shatters the limits of the Beyoncé voice we have come to know and love, glissading into the operatic aria, “Caro mio ben,” throwing in plenty of sizzling runs along the way. And, just to mess with us (probably), she quickly pivots into snarling rap in the next track, “Spaghettii.” Beyoncé! Leave a lane for the rest of us!
She shares the mic in two endearing duets, “II Most Wanted” and “Levii’s Jeans”—the former a Thelma & Louise-inspired track with Miley Cyrus, which interpolates a slowed-down version of Fleetwood Mac’s “Landslide.”89 In the latter, she is joined by Post Malone—an artist known for being hard to pin down in genre, who, like Cyrus, has definitely flirted with country (their inclusion on the album, I think, is for that reason). On the track, she offers a lyricsgasm of a verse, which uses serpentine wordplay, and references her music video for “Crazy In Love” whilst using music history wordplay.10
Baby, let me rattle that snake with my venom
Denim on denim on denim on denim
Give you high fashion in a simple white tee
Give you these blues, it's in my genes
But perhaps the most fun of the album is “Ya Ya.” It is a rock history crash course packed into a song. In the span of four and a half minutes, she samples Nancy Sinatra’s “These Boots Are Made For Walkin,’” interpolates The Beach Boys’ “Good Vibrations,” and references Sylvia Robinson’s “Love Is Strange”—delivered with the gusto of James Brown (or Tina Turner—choose your fighter). Mark my words, this will be a showstopping moment on tour.
There are other moments I can’t properly prepare you for like the beat drop in “Tyrant,” the roller coaster that is “Sweet ★ Honey ★ Buckin,’” or the badass bitch glow-up treatment she gives to Dolly Parton’s “Jolene.” You’ll just have to dive in and enjoy the rodeo!
The revolution 🪩
COWBOY CARTER is important not because it claims to be a reclamation, but because it actually has the power to be one. Yes, there are artists who have been doing what she’s doing in country music like Yola, Rhiannon Giddens, and Tanner Adell (the latter two are featured on the album), and plenty who have been bending genres but, because of Beyoncé’s popularity, she has the power to move the needle in a significant and urgent way.
Since the album was released, its featured artists have had a sharp increase in first-time listeners on Spotify, with catalog plays multiplied by the thousands.11 She’s been Hulk-smashing barriers, becoming the first Black female artist to top the Billboard Country Albums chart, as well as Billboard’s Hot Country Songs (for “Texas Hold ‘Em”).1213 And she is bringing conversations about genre and Black music history to the mainstream—getting millions of fans interested in country while pushing the limits of what country music fans are used to hearing. She is educating, elevating, and liberating. This is a cultural shift.
This album was meant to challenge the status quo and it is succeeding. Those who have criticized her for working the tables for Grammy nominations should be shaking in their boots. And if they snub her again, it won’t matter. This album has already become a bigger achievement than a Grammy can signify (maybe that was her point). It isn’t just Grammy-worthy; she deserves a Pulitzer.
What’s coming up in act three of her trilogy? More rock? More genre-bending and blending? I won’t make my guesses, but I’m still hoping for punk Beyoncé.
Tracks on repeat: 16 CARRIAGES; YA YA; SWEET ★ HONEY ★ BUCKIIN’
Available on Spotify, Apple Music
Coming up
Coming up next will be a few more favorites from March and possibly some April picks. I’m not giving anything away, but we may not be done with country yet. Any guesses? Make sure you’re subscribed so you don’t miss it!
I love hearing what you have to say! If you have feelings about this issue, questions for me, album recommendations, or any other thoughts, send them my way by leaving a comment or replying to this email. You can also reach me at bandpracticenewsletter@gmail.com
Kalefa Sanneh, Major Labels (Penguin Press 2021), 90
Sanneh, page 214
The use of “II” as an alternative to “I” in the album’s song titles is a nod to the album being part 2 of her trilogy.
This line is parallel to a lyric in RENAISSANCE’s opening track, “I’M THAT GIRL,” “cleanse me of my sins, my un-American life.”
Parton came up with the song “9 to 5” by rubbing her fingernails together to find that famous rhythm. Her nail “playing” made it into the final recording.
Each song on the album was inspired by a different Western film.
The song itself is a wink at obscure Destiny’s Child lore (Levi’s was one of the few fashion brands that would work with the group. Design houses shut them out because they were too “curvy,” 🙄 and the color of their skin probably had something to do with it).
Loved your commentary on this! All good points of history. 😊