From beginning of Cowboy Carter, Beyoncé makes it clear that this is not your typical country album. The opening epic “Ameriican Requiem” is part gospel, part Queen, part Buffalo Springfield as the artist lays out both her intentions and origins. “I used to say I talked 'Too much country'/And the rejection came, said I ain't 'country' 'enough to say/I said I ain't gonna do it/But if that ain't country, tell me what is?” she sings from the gut, after listing her credible credentials for the country.
Like everything Beyoncé has done, particularly in the last decade of her career, Cowboy Carter it is a one-book college thesis: richly researched and meticulously constructed. And while she has something to prove to an entire music community, it's more of a love letter to her southern roots than strictly a watch.
Five years in the making, Cowboy Carter it lasts a long time but moves easily, with the album seeming to be divided into loose chapters. The first five tracks are heavy on both emotion and vocals, particularly her simple cover of The Beatles' “Blackbird,” featuring rising black country stars Tanner Adell, Brittney Spencer, Tiera Kennedy and Reyna Roberts. It's a warm-up for what follows, which is some of Beyoncé's best vocal work on record, produced flawlessly and at the forefront of every track. Her voice as an instrument is used admirably throughout the album, but most impressively at its peak as she effortlessly glides through country and R&B turns. The single “16 Carriages” already teased it, but nothing could prepare for the lullaby “Protector”, which features daughter Rumi at the beginning. The tender delivery of a mother's promise to her children is warmer than a shot of whiskey, her lithe twang handled with masterly delicacy.
Willie Nelson's radio DJ interlude in the first of two interludes on “Smoke Hour” is the first sign that the album will be about expecting the unexpected from the artist. His voice introduces the hit 'Texas Hold 'Em', the most straightforward country song on the entire album which is immediately followed by one of the less country moments, 'Bodyguard'. Shades of yacht rock and Christine McVie's Eighties Fleetwood Mac contributions color this standout, which is a simple love song about wanting to protect your lover while “John Wayne” any potential threats.
Like Willie Nelson, Dolly Parton's appearance marks the next turning point. Beyoncé enters a Lemonade– essential part of the play, where he is a scorned lover and this time he wants to fight for a good western showdown. Covering “Jolene,” he recasts the song as a clever warning instead of Parton's more pleading original. It's cheeky and humorous in a way that Beyoncé isn't always allowed to be, even if it doesn't add much to the album or the song itself. “Daughter” is a more effective delivery of Beyoncé's violent revenge fantasies. Over a guitar that sounds like it was pulled from the Kill Bill Score, she paints images of blood-stained sewing and the similarly cold manners she shares with her father. (And if you're not sold on her vocals yet, she delivers an Italian aria in the middle just because she can).
With the hypnotic and bluegrass “Alliigator Tears,” Beyoncé is in love again and embarks on an amazing run on the album. The Nelson-assisted sophomore “Smoke Hour” begins a fourth chapter in her ability to duet hits at country radio. Willie Jones and Post Malone make great collaborators, but they barely hold a candle to the presence of Miley Cyrus. He's the Sundance Kid to Beyoncé's Butch Cassidy on “II Most Wanted,” a transcendent meeting of two great singers whose careers melt into one another instead of battling for the spotlight. It's a career highlight for both.
The biggest feature of the album, however, is Linda Martell. Martell was the first commercially successful black woman in country music, releasing a chart-topping album before leaving the industry entirely. It first appears at the beginning of “Spaghettii,” calling genres “a funny little idea” before Bey goes full trap on this track with fellow Shaboozey. But after Martell's appearance on “The Linda Martell Show,” the album devolves into a fun mess, with some of Beyoncé's weirdest and wackiest musical choices.
On “Ya Ya” she channels Tina Turner via James Brown with covers of Nancy Sinatra and the Beach Boys. It feels like fantasy fulfillment (not the violent revenge kind this time) as she transforms into the type of performers she and her parents grew up with and has often referenced and emulated in her work. The Chuck Berry sample on “Oh Louisiana” drives this point home before going full Betty Davis funk on “Desert Eagle.” (And if rumors are true that Act III of this musical will have a rock bent, let's hope this isn't the last hint of Davis we hear in Beyoncé's music.)
From “Riiverdance” onward, it seems like Beyoncé is either making a comeback or re-contextualizing Renaissance, the disco masterpiece and Act I of the trilogy. The latter tracks have a holiness, more gospel hints and peaceful meditations that depart from the southern and country-western nature of the rest of the album, such as the tranquility of “II Hands II Heaven”. She slips back into her cowboy days long enough for “Sweet ★ Honey ★ Buckiin,” where she sings Patsy Cline's “I Fall to Pieces” over a Jersey club beat before singing her ode to a horse.
Beyoncé's point becomes crystal clear from the moment she gets to 'Amen': she is country and always has been country. There is no doubt that, gatekeepers be damned. Her latest is a textbook history that makes her case piece by piece. But Cowboy CarterHer greatest gift is her self-indulgence, when Beyoncé plays against the typology and rules made for her and, sometimes, by her. Since the work on this album was before her creation Renaissance, it's clear that exploring her southern roots and the parameters of who was expected allowed her a creative freedom that would go even further with the incandescent dance anthems of the trilogy's first act. We feel like after more than two decades as a performer, we're just meeting Beyoncé for the first time through these albums. When he asks her “Can you hear me?” in “American Requiem,” the answer, more than ever, is “loud and clear.”
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