The Pop Corporation

It’s very interesting that Beyonce has decided to release a country album, in part because it’s a revenge LP after the Country Music Awards committee snubbed her ‘Daddy Issues’ track – hell hath no fury like a wealthy celebrity scorned. It’s also interesting because Beyonce is such a megastar, you have to be curious to see what she’d do with the genre.

For devotees of hers, they’re going to love this regardless because she can do no wrong, but for normal fans, this is a notable album because frankly, Beyonce hasn’t been in imperial form for a while. She’s sold well and is still versatile enough, but really, it’s not been since 2014’s self-titled album where it seemed like she could walk on water.

Not to say that there haven’t been moments. ‘Break My Soul’ was a fun bop, and ‘Lemonade’ was spirited in places – but this album was the first time in a long time when it seemed like everyone was very interested to see where she’s at now. Beyonce is still good and country music is great – so will we see her in full Acid Queen Tina Turner mode? Will she be taking out the trash? Will it be a love letter to a genre she loves or is it a cynical move seeing as everyone’s gone country at the moment?

First thing first – this is an album that has 27 tracks and a running time of well over an hour, which is a lot for anyone to sit through. These days, these extra long albums aren’t just self indulgent – remember New Wave kicking the doors off its hinges in response to Prog’s gatefold double LPs and all that? – they’re also to game the streaming system. Seeing as Beyonce’s unswerving popularity means that she doesn’t really need to play Spotify, you’d have to assume it’s the former, right?

However, let’s not have our megastar fatigue set us up to be overly fussy and picky before we’ve even pressed play, because the fact is, Beyonce while prone to be frustrating of late, she’s still capable of very special things.

‘Cowboy Carter’ kicks off with ‘Ameriican Requiem’ which doesn’t yeehaw or clog dance around someone playing a jug, thank christ, but rather, sounds like ’70s Americana and still very Beyonce. It’s a grand thing for sure, and for music fans who are now effectively demanding that every new move demands a cinematic ‘this is a moment‘ opener, they’ll be sated for sure. From that, we get one of Beyonce’s more curious bad habits which is expensively doing stuff on the cheap. Licensing a Beatles song is eye-wateringly pricey, yet her cover version of ‘Blackbird’ – while layered up with super pleasant harmonies (which Beyonce has always been one of the best at) – it sounds like she’s sampled the original track rather than get someone in to play the guitar. We might be wrong, and we’re invariably missing the point, but still.

See, when McCartney wrote the song, he had in mind the students known as the Little Rock Nine who were on the receiving end of vicious racism for daring to be the first kids to go to school post segregation. The fact that Beyonce’s decided to relight the torch as American politics lurches dangerously further to the right is not a coincidence. And despite initial nit-picking, it’s a nice enough reading and we’d like to see a live version with the other voices on the track, like when Crosby, Stills and Nash did it. That would be special.

There’s other cover version too – Beyonce’s reinterprets ‘Jolene’ – and it’s a decent enough stab, but you there’s a nagging sense that Beyonce and her team could’ve dug a little deeper into country music’s deep well for a song to shine up. We’re not overly bothered about whether or not anyone is trying to steal Bey’s very famous man or not, but we can’t get over how straight up-and-down it is. In the past, when we heard Destiny’s Child make the Bee Gee’s penned ‘Emotion’ their own, it’s only then you feel that she could’ve totally immersed herself in these tracks and turned them into something hers.

That’s because elsewhere on the album, there’s moments where it really, really works. ‘Daughter’ is a show-stopper and a gorgeous baroque country number with a lonesome pine of orchestration and a bubbling acoustic and Beyonce’s singing like she’s wearing a black veil, breaking out into some kind of Mexican operatic number. If it’s filmic music you want, this is the track and it’s truly sensational. Here, she’s giving a nod to the music made on the border – reminding everyone that country music is at it’s best when it is cosmopolitan, rather than the corny, clean cut shit that whitewashes everything.

On ‘Ya Ya’, which kicks off with a loop of ‘These Boots Were Made For Walking’ (again – dig a bit deeper), once it gets going, is another good slab of American stomp, and is as close as we get to Beyonce in full Tina Turner mode (aside from the ‘Good Vibrations’ lick) and while it’s enjoyable, it’s an opportunity for Beyonce to really lose it and go full nutso and she doesn’t quite get there. It’s fun though. ‘Desert Eagle’ however is more like it, with a squelchy bass (is it an uncredited Thundercat?) that sounds pure ’70s swamp rock weirdness. Finishing up at just over a minute, she could’ve gone for a full three minutes on it and worked it harder and made something that reminded the country world that there’s more to the genre that bootcut jeans and pick-ups.

In the middle of the LP, there’s a trio of duets which really determine what we’re dealing with. First of them is ‘Just For Fun’ which is a slow burner with gorgeous orchestral ornaments and a kind of country that really suits Beyonce. It’s on this song that Beyonce really connects with the material and between the two of them, it’s the album at its most realised. Willie Jones was already fusing R&B with country, and it’s great to see Beyonce giving him a wider audience. Beyonce in prime ballad mode and Willie bringing the grit, and the pair sing beautifully together, with a chunky rhythm section that reminds us of some of the more recent Blind Boys of Alabama and Tom Waits stuff.

This makes way for a song with Miley Cyrus and it’s going to keep a lot of Country Pop Radio listeners happy. It’s modern, commercial country music and if that’s something you like, then you’ll enjoy Miley and Beyonce singing together, all aching lapsteel and thankfully we don’t end up in a shootout where they’re trying to out-sing each other. Then comes Post Malone with more of the same, and on all three songs, Beyonce might be making the point that she’s not sullying country’s ‘good’ name because dammit, it’s not like she’s not just featured two white hicks who have pivoted from R&B to country – and y’all didn’t kick much of a stink up then, did you? She also may just see them as kindred spirits and it’s not that deep.

Either way, maybe that’s somewhat the point here? The fact that in 2024, there’s suspicion about a black artist making a country album speaks volumes about the state of the US and its country-verse. It should almost be of no remark, but country music too frequently demands such a narrow field before it’s willing to wholly embrace a singer is absurd at best, and speaking to something incredibly insidious at its worst. Beyonce’s family have had to come to the press to say that she’s always loved country music and there’s been this sub-narrative that Beyonce is cosplaying for racists and it’s all a cynical ploy and all that. That makes this album political whether it wants to be or not, and that’s faintly ridiculous, given that it might just have been time that Beyonce’s thought she’d given her legs a stretch and compile all those country songs she had in the can an airing.

All we hope is that she’s got some merchandise ready which says ‘SERVING CUNTRY’ on it.

To be more serious, back in ’21 Beyonce told an interviewer: “I grew up going to the Houston rodeo every year. It was this amazing diverse and multicultural experience where there was something for every member of the family, including great performances, Houston-style fried Snickers and fried turkey legs. One of my inspirations came from the overlooked history of the American Black cowboy. Many of them were originally called cowhands, who experienced great discrimination and were often forced to work with the worst, most temperamental horses. They took their talents and formed the Soul Circuit. Through time, these Black rodeos showcased incredible performers and helped us reclaim our place in Western history and culture.”

It’s obvious that she’s a point to prove, and as a whole, while the album runs a bit long, it’s certainly not going to damage anyone’s career. On tracks like ‘Bodyguard’, you hear what a dynamite album this could’ve been if the whole thing was tightened up a bit. It’s a breezy slice of Southern pop, pairing Beyonce’s voice with flat-wound bass and acoustic, maybe more akin to the country-lite AOR of Fleetwood Mac, but it’s a new version of Beyonce that is hugely enjoyable.

And maybe it’s a timing thing? Beyonce had originally intended to release ‘Cowboy Carter’ years ago, as the first instalment of her American trilogy, but as she says “with the pandemic, there was too much heaviness in the world”, so we got ‘Renaissance’ first, because she felt we “deserved to dance” instead.

In Beyonce’s favour, this is a fine middle finger to Country conservatives and you have to root for that if you’ve got an sense about you. Likewise, it’s not too deferential to what’s already out there, and maybe the weaker moments on the LP are because they feel more like that, than the moments where she mixes things up a bit, and put great dollops of her own sound into the mix. The moments we felt the album was lacking was when it felt more like ‘See? I can do country radio hits too!’, when in actual fact, the moments where she made something markedly different and away from modern country’s terrible formulaic stasis, is when the album really sings.

So is this album a net good? It is, even if it’s not wholly for musical moments. It’s a riposte to bad characters and it’s created a moment, sure as shit. Should you listen to it? You should. There’s moments on there that are great, because no-one is as pigeon-holed as a listener as many would assume. There’s not an R&B fan on the planet that doesn’t love a handful of country songs, and the reverse is just as true. There’s been a lot of hand-wringing around this album, and just as much fanfare from the bug-eyed Beyhive who think she can do no wrong.

In part, it’s both of these things that remind us just how much pressure there is on Beyonce to make a masterpiece on every single release, and that’s ridiculous. Is it fun that a woman of colour who has the spotlight has decided to make a country album for herself? Of course it is. If it shines a light on the artists that are already doing this, and shines a light on the fact that not all country music is made by GOP voting weirdos, then you have to side with this release, even if you’re not planning on listening to it.

Co-signs from legends of the scene, such as Willie Nelson, Dolly Parton and Linda Martell – the first commercially successful black woman in country – and collabs with new singers – it’s all a good thing, even if Beyonce is suffering from a smidge of bloat in the name of giving value for money to a rabid fanbase.

Cherry pick some songs from this and you’ll have a grand ol’ time. And if you’re feeling peevish, think about those conservative grinding their teeth at night, stressing out about them fuggin libs coming to take the only music they thought they’d keep for themselves forever. Kacey’s new album is out, Beyonce’s wearing a ten gallon hat, and Lana is bring out ‘Lasso’ later this year – potentially, there’s a festival being hatched somewhere that might make the worst of US Southern States’ heads explode, and that’s really fun to think about.

Enjoy this album for what it is. Don’t overthink it. There’s flashes of the good stuff indeed.