After Beyoncé’s revelatory new album Cowboy Carter arrived everywhere on Friday, March 29th, some fans weren’t so happy with the products they purchased. Beyoncé’s physical releases of Cowboy Carter left out some key tracks: “YA YA,” “SPAGHETTII,” “THE LINDA MARTELL SHOW,” “OH LOUISIANA,” and “FLAMENCO” are all absent from the vinyls.
The CD version includes “FLAMENCO,” but per Rolling Stone, the limited edition CD was supposed to include an additional song — it turns out that “FLAMENCO” was that additional song all along, even though it appears on the digital release of Cowboy Carter. Vinyl purchasers, however, weren’t given “FLAMENCO” on their records, nor do the pair of Linda Martell-featuring tracks “SPAGHETTII” and “THE LINDA MARTELL SHOW” appear.
The BBC is positing that these songs were added to Cowboy Carter’s tracklist late, and thus could not be retrospectively added to the physical formats in time for the album’s release. Before being pressed to vinyl, albums need to be turned in months in advance to pressing plants, meaning it’s definitely plausible that these additional tracks were added after the album was turned in.
It’s not the only thing that was changed at the last minute — early CD pressings had the song “MR. ROSE” initially titled “MR. SIR,” and the spine and artwork for physical releases was originally act ii: Beyincé instead of Cowboy Carter. Beyincé refers to the singer’s ancestral surname, which was changed to Beyoncé on her grandmother’s birth certificate. It also explains the frequent addition of extra “I’s” to the song’s titles, functioning as a commentary on the marginalization of Black Americans in the South and reclaiming a space and vocabulary that was traditionally Black.
Beyoncé herself might be aware of this error on her physical releases, as her webstore didn’t offer a tracklist for the CD and vinyl versions of Cowboy Carter ahead of the album’s release on Friday. Fans who purchased physical copies of Cowboy Carter weren’t given tracklists when they received the album either — Beyoncé opted to add a QR code linking to the album’s liner notes and credits rather than present the album’s tracklist on the front or back of the cover.
Beyoncé previously amended her last album Renaissance after release, removing a lyric that featured a phrase used to demean disabled people. But prior to Cowboy Carter’s release, Beyoncé claimed that Cowboy Carter had been in the works for five years, pre-dating the sessions for Renaissance and confusing fans as to why the album arrived incomplete in physical formats. She has yet to offer a statement on whether the vinyl and CD versions — which were released with four limited edition variants each — will be amended.
Meanwhile, there’s been quite a bit of discussion lately on pop star’s offering an overwhelming amount of variants and alternate versions of their albums. Billie Eilish recently slammed artists who release multiple vinyl variants to boost album sales, calling it “so wasteful” and opting for a more sustainable approach. Beyoncé may be sales-minded, but she also gave Dolly Parton sole songwriting credit for her interpretation of “Jolene” on Cowboy Carter, ensuring all the song’s royalties will go to Parton and not Beyoncé.
Read all that Beyoncé has to say about Cowboy Carter, and check out why we named Beyoncé’s heartfelt duet with Miley Cyrus “II MOST WANTED” as our Song of the Week on Friday.
