Album Review: Beyoncé – Cowboy Carter

Cowboy Carter reminds me a lot of I Am… The Genre, Baby. Not only was that also an album where Beyoncé dipped into pop rock, a touch of country and folk. But there was a very similar sense of that album being unnecessarily messy for what Beyoncé wanted to do with it. She wanted to show she wasn’t tied to a genre. She could do pop. She could do ballads. She could do rap. She could do whatever the fuck type of songs that she wanted to. I Am… The Genre, Baby was a declaration. It was Beyoncé saying ‘I’m not one thing, and you aren’t even sure of that one thing you say I am, so here. Now tell me what I am.’ Beyoncé has that exact same energy with Cowboy Carter and I dig it. But Cowboy Carter also suffers in many of the same ways that I Am… The Genre, Baby did.

What Cowboy Carter does and represents is great. But the album itself in terms of the music and how it’s packaged together, is less so. It feels like a step back from Renaissance, which was such a tightly put together album that felt so wholly considered. It was and still remains an amazing body of work and is easily Beyoncé’s best album to date. Cowboy Carter throws me back to Beyoncé’s earlier albums — where you could tell that she had a singular idea, but the execution got lost in her wanting to do a whole lot of different things, which resulted in these really uneven albums. And this is why Lemonade felt like such a breath of fresh air within Beyoncé’s discography, because it wasn’t overlong, overstuffed and it had one clear focus. It’s also why I regard The Gift as one of Beyoncé’s best albums, because it had a clear focus. Cowboy Carter has about 4–5 different focuses. It’s a lot and not always in a good way.

Beyoncé – Cowboy Carter | Parkwood Entertainment / Sony Music Entertainment

I’d say that there are five main themes on Cowboy Carter — country, genre, America, family, and legacy, and how these things are tied to Beyoncé’s identity. The album opener “Ameriican Requiem” acts as the manifesto for this album and lays all of this out in a song which itself plays with genre — sounding like a cross between Jimi Hendrix, Prince, The Beatles during their Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band trip and Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody”. It’s a fantastic song, which despite its length and scope never loses focus and holds your attention the entire time. I was locked in and ready to experience The Album Formerly Titled Beyincé based on the tone set with “Ameriican Requiem”, which was a stark contrast to how I remember feeling when I first pressed play on Renaissance and heard “I’m That Girl”. I was like ‘What the fuck is this?’. And it took a while for me to ‘get it’. But then as you make your way through The Album Formerly Titled Beyincé, the themes hold a lot less, they even unravel at one point, the album even shifts to something very different, before wrapping everything up and tying it back together with the album closer “Amen”, which is pretty much a reprise to “Ameriican Requiem”.

Cowboy Carter winds up sounding like three albums stuffed into one, instead of one album which ties in multiple concepts. When you’re listening to Cowboy Carter the shifts are clear, made even more so by the fact they’re divided by interludes. Each of these concepts and themes can absolutely coexist on one album. But the song choices, the weighting, the sequencing and the lack of flow Cowboy Carter has from the midpoint results in an album which feels too uneven and scattered. And unlike Renaissance, Cowboy Carter is not an album I run from top to bottom and it has songs that I straight up skip. But we’ll get to that.

When you separate the intent of this album from the quality of it, this is where the disconnect occurs. Because the intent is great, necessary and makes use of Beyoncé being Beyoncé. But the album we got is a mess. It’s a fun mess at times. It’s a progressive mess. But Cowboy Carter is still a bit of a mess no matter which way I try to cut it. But if I am being completely honest, I am not disappointed or surprised, because…this is more of what I expect from Beyoncé. Renaissance was a surprise to me because it was so considered, tight and focused in a way that I have never found Beyoncé’s albums to be for the most part. Blasphemous, I know. But I have never been a huge fan of Beyoncé’s albums for many of the things aforementioned. I always felt she was too talented to be putting out what I felt were quite middling albums.

Beyoncé – Cowboy Carter | Parkwood Entertainment / Sony Music Entertainment

The curation of Cowboy Carter doesn’t feel anywhere near as tight as Renaissance. And I think this could be for a couple of reasons. Dance music as a genre is so broad. It has sub-genres. And each of these sub-genres have their own cultures, contexts and histories. It’s so much easier to take ‘dance music’, disassemble it and reassemble it in a number of ways. There’s a greater level of freedom and fluidity with dance music as a genre and a concept. With country music, it’s very different. And, I know, I know. ‘This ain’t a country album’. But so much of this album pushed a country aesthetic and was led with country-isms, and I wonder if perhaps this was part of the mistake.

Cowboy Carter is not a flat out country album. And I do think that the statement Beyoncé put out when she revealed the album cover was to reign in a narrative which got away from her, so that people’s expectations weren’t misplaced. I mean… What did she expect based on releasing “Texas Hold ‘Em” and “16 Carriages” as singles? Although I’m sure she knew what she was doing. And when you think about Renaissance being led with “Break My Soul”, this is where the broadness of dance music compared to that of country becomes really clear. “Break My Soul” was a great representation of Renaissance. We knew we were probably getting a dance album, but didn’t have any expectation that every song on the album would sound like “Break My Soul”. But the release of “Texas Hold ‘Em” and “16 Carriages” was different. Because how could we not assume Cowboy Carter was going to be a country album based on these songs? Now, if Beyoncé had released the Pony Up version of “Texas Hold ‘Em”, I think things woulda been different. But it’s not all bad. Cowboy Carter has sparked a lot of necessary conversation around the erasure of Black people in country music — a genre which has Black origins, despite the historic whitewashing of it. Cowboy Carter caused a ruckus that only a Black woman of Beyoncé’s magnitude could. She’s using her star power to educate and kick open the saloon doors for many others. But then you listen to the album and it’s kinda befuddled. And something which could have been really simple, becomes a bit messy. And at times the music on the album and how it’s present is even at odds with the message.

Beyoncé – Cowboy Carter | Parkwood Entertainment / Sony Music Entertainment

As an early Destiny’s Child’s fan, for as long as I can recall, Beyoncé has always been proud of being a country girl. Even though people choose to try and rewrite history and pass it off as just an aesthetic. And Beyoncé using an album to remind people that she’s country has done wonders for each of the Black country artists featured on the album. Shaboozey has one of the biggest songs of the year, bolstered undoubtedly by his appearance on Cowboy Carter. Tanner Addell, Brittney Spencer, Tiera Kennedy, Reyna Roberts and Willie Jones all saw huge jumps in their Spotify streams as a result of appearing on Cowboy Carter, and were invited to appear at a number of award shows as guests and performers due to their affiliation with Beyoncé. So the album largely did what Beyoncé wanted it to, and it’s great for that. But then I see Willie Nelson, Dolly Parton, Miley Cyrus and Post Malone as guest features and my eyebrow raises. Now. I am not saying Beyoncé can’t ever work with no white people. Beyoncé’s trusted and faithful engineer is white. But there’s something odd to me about the balance here. Addell, Spencer, Kennedy and Roberts all feature on “Blackbiird”, but are collectively given 20 seconds of the song. Meanwhile, Miley Cyrus gets to go back and forth with Beyoncé for three and a half minutes. Shaboozey just gets one verse on a song. Meanwhile Post Malone gets a whole verse to himself and gets to scream over Beyoncé for a whole section of a song. Nelson gets two interludes and Parton gets to introduce two songs. When Black country icon Linda Martell shoulda had all them interlude spots.

All of the Black acts featured on Cowboy Carter feel underutilised. Martell should have been the radio host throughout the album instead of Nelson. Shaboozey should have been on “Uniiqlo Jeans” instead of Post Malone. I’ll give Cyrus and “Lesbiian Back Shots Riider” a pass, because the song is good and her inclusion has some weight, given that she is the daughter of Billy Ray Cyrus who also happened to feature on a song with Lil Nas X, which really helped that whole ‘your shit ain’t country enough’ debacle he experienced in 2019 — so there’s a nice trans-generational thing going on there amidst Beyoncé being a Black woman on the same song. Parton is beloved and Beyoncé covered her song. I get that. Nelson is a Texan and a country legend. I get that. They are both synonymous with country music. But having all the white folk on this album get more airtime than the Black country artists just doesn’t feel right to me. Beyoncé coulda just as easily had Nelson play guitar on “Texas Hold ‘Em” or had Dolly contribute vocals or play her acrylics on “Jolene” and fully credit and disclose their involvement on the album to still make them part of it, without their presence overshadowing others and eating up parts of the album which really shoulda been given to Black folk. To push a narrative of Black people reclaiming country music, to then sideline the Black artists in favour of the white ones was a weird move to me.

Beyoncé – Cowboy Carter | Parkwood Entertainment / Sony Music Entertainment

Aside from featuring perhaps one too many guest features, Cowboy Carter also features too many songs. This album has 27 tracks, not all of which are full length songs, but you feel the sheer number of tracks this album has when you’re listening to it. The first half of this album is by far the strongest and most consistent part of it. As much as I adore “Flamenco” and “Desert Eagle” and as cool as I find “Ya Ya” — Beyoncé coulda just slapped “Amen” after “II Most Wanted” and that woulda been a damn good album. But nope. It goes on and on, with a backend which features songs that just do not deliver. “Riiverdance”, “Tyrant”, “Sweet★Honey★Buckiin” and “II Hands II Heaven” — I didn’t need them. I like “Riiverdance”. But it’s not a song which makes or breaks the album, or defines it in any way. It doesn’t feel essential the way in which a song like the Fleetwood Mac-esque “Bodyguard” does — easily one of the best songs on the album. I really wish Beyoncé would stepped out the house just once to promote the song as a single, because it easily coulda been another Billboard number 1 hit and a song of the Summer if she had. It’s such a good song.

The way in which the album is split is almost like the first half is the I Am… part of the album and the second half is the Sasha Fierce part. And in terms of what this means in the context of country and genre — the first half of the album is closer to traditional bluegrass, folk and country, where-as the second half feels like Beyoncé playing around with the genre and saying ‘This is how I’mma do country’. But the problem with this, aside from creating a clear and unnecessary divide in the album, is that the execution of this idea is so messy. “Ya Ya” is the only song in this group which fully delivers. Not only is it a great song, but much like most of the songs which come before it, Beyoncé pisses all over it, owns it and honours her inspirations in a way that very few other artists today could. And the coolest thing about this song, is that much like all of the songs on Renaissance, it feels like something Beyoncé has kinda done before, but also unlike anything she’s done before. I could imagine Beyoncé attempting a song like this during B’Day, but it would not have worked anywhere near as well, because Beyoncé wasn’t as bad a bitch then as she is now. Beyoncé wasn’t cussing back then. Beyoncé cared too much back then. Beyoncé’s voice didn’t have that richness back then. Beyoncé wasn’t try’na make commentaries on race and the state of America back then. Beyoncé hadn’t lived as much back then.

A big part of what makes “Ya Ya” work is that you really feel Beyoncé’s years of life, knowledge and music experience in her performance, all of which help make up the fabric of the song, right down to the production and the absolute clusterfuck of sounds and references. I can’t say anything close to the same for “Riiverdance”, “II Hands II Heaven”, “Tyrant” and “Sweet★Honey★Buckiin”. Although, God bless Pharrell Williams, because that peanut headed man really did try on “Sweet★Honey★Buckiin” — but the song ends up sounding like some reject SpongeBob Squarepants sounding-ass shit. Although the songs he actually did do for one of the SpongeBob movies were far better than what he gave Beyoncé for this cowboy album. He even managed to deliver a cool southern ass outlaw R&B fusion for Justin Timberlake’s Man of the Woods with “Midnight Summer Jam” — one of the best songs on that album. I will never understand why it wasn’t a single. But “Sweet★Honey★Buckiin” gets points for at least trying to take a swiing in ways that “Riiverdance”, “II Hands II Heaven” and “Tyrant” don’t. The idea was the right one, but the execution just wasn’t all that great. The same of which goes for “Riiverdance” — cool idea and vibe, but too monotonous. It needed far richer production and more in the way of variation. But “Riiverdance” holds the honour of featuring the only good transition on the album.  Although it’s weird to me that “Texas Hold ‘Em” didn’t transition into “Riiverdance”, because the end of “Texas Hold ‘Em” easily could’ve transitioned into “Riiverdance”. In fact, there are a couple of moments on this album where there are no transitions, where it would have made sense for there to be. Why did “Blackbiird” end the way it did, instead of just seamlessly transitioning into “16 Carriages”? Why did “Just for Fun” not transition into “II Most Wanted”? 

Playing Dr. Frankenstein with country music with Black producers was the right move, especially given where the genre is at right now. Because for how much country wants to try and make up new rules to keep Black people off the charts with songs which ‘don’t sound country enough’, country music on the charts sure is adopting a whole lotta R&B and trap sounds and not sounding very ‘country’. A lot of songs which are considered country now, sound like Beyoncé’s “Irreplaceable” or that Fast & Furious song “See You Again”, but with exaggerated southern drawls. So it’s a shame that the likes of “Riiverdance”, “Tyrant” and “Sweet★Honey★Buckiin” miss the mark.

Beyoncé basically tried to do with country music on this album what she did with dance music on Renaissance, but just didn’t do it as well.

Beyoncé – Cowboy Carter | Parkwood Entertainment / Sony Music Entertainment

Cowboy Carter is pretty inconsistent. But one part of it which never fails nor falters are Beyoncé’s vocal performances. She sounds incredible on this album. She sounds the best here that she has ever sounded on an album. These types of folky, bluegrassy, rock tinged songs really suit the timbre and texture she has to her voice now. But the same way that Beyoncé’s years of life and experience contributed to “Ya Ya”, it also contributes to her being able to really sell the story of the more narrative driven songs through performance. And this really comes through in “Ameriican Requiem”, “Blackbiird”, “Protector”, “Daughter”, “Alligator Tears” and “Just for Fun”. But this shouldn’t be a surprise to anybody who heard “16 Carriages”, which still remains a standout song on this album because of her performance. To Beyoncé’s credit, she gave us hints of this with The Gift on songs like “Otherside”. So I’m glad Beyoncé tapped back into that part of her artistry on Cowboy Carter. It’s truly in these moments where Cowboy Carter shines brightest. Shit, even on “Texas Hold ‘Em” and “Bodyguard”, Beyoncé sounds great and is still able to really sit into the narratives and sell them with her performance, as per “Ya Ya”. So it’s not a tempo specific thing.

Another part of why I think Beyoncé’s voice really shines on this album, is that you get such a clear sense of how many different facets there are to her voice and how ridiculous her singing ability is. Beyoncé does show vocal range, but not extensively. “Ya Ya” and “Daughter” are probably the only songs where Beyoncé shows some of the breadth of her range and just lets all of us have it. But even with these songs, it’s not really about Beyoncé’s range. It’s about her singing ability, the mastery she has of her voice and the freedom it allows her on songs. Beyoncé’s singing ability has never been a question for me. Not with how she was tearing up those Destiny’s Child songs as a teen. But even all of these years later, not only is Beyoncé still tearing up songs, but you can hear the growth in her vocals and how she approaches singing. Beyoncé could do the most on every single song she sings — she certainly used to. But she doesn’t now. She’s realised that loud and high doesn’t equals good singing or sounding good. Beyoncé pretty much sings the entirety of the lead vocals of “Blackbiird” in her lower registers and she sounds incredible. There’s no disputing that she can sing. Same with “16 Carriages” and “Protector”. Beyoncé’s voice has so much richness in her lower to mid registers and she really sits in. I have always liked when Beyoncé sings low, but she so rarely used to. But now she’s doing it all the damn time, so I am ‘fed’ as the kids say. She really does sound so good. But Beyoncé pops out and lets us know that she can do not only high, but operatic too. The aria she sings on “Daughter” made me clutch my chest. Even though as a long-time Beyoncé fan and somebody who attended the Renaissance World Tour, I have heard her sing like this before. And yet, it still knocked my wig sideways.

I don’t ever wanna hear no shit about how Beyoncé can’t sing and her voice ain’t all that.

Beyoncé sounds real good. [Turns and looks into the camera] So good, that I would really like to hear her sing some of the slower songs on I Am… The Genre, Baby. Not “Halo”. Also, we heard nu Beyoncé sing that in 2020. But “Satellites”, “Ave Maria” and “Smash Into You”. Because as good as Beyoncé sounded singing these songs in 2008, I just know she would sound so much better singing these songs now — as was evidenced with how she sang the shit out of “Dangerously in Love”, “Flaws and All” and “1+1” on the Julius World Tour.

Beyoncé – Cowboy Carter | Parkwood Entertainment / Sony Music Entertainment

And as is pretty usual for Beyoncé, the vocal arrangements are also a type of ridiculous. And she is not only arranging the vocals but singing all, if not most, of the vocals on these songs. “Ameriican Requiem”? Ridiculous. “Blackbiird”? Ridiculous. “My Rose”? Ridiculous. “Flamenco”? Ridiculous. Her vocal arrangements are one of the things which really saves “Riiverdance” and helps distract (a little bit) from the monotony of the beat. It’s been a while since we’ve heard Beyoncé give us this level of vocal production and arrangement. We got a bit of it on Renaissance with songs like “Cuff It” and “Virgo’s Groove”. But prior to that, 4 was probably the last album where Beyoncé pulled a Yoncé from 12 different timelines in the multiverse and held them at gunpoint in the studio to sing all of her harmonies and backing vocals for more than a couple of songs. There are so many backing vocal moments on this album which made me rewind and run the shit back. When it comes to vocal arrangements and layering, it’s still Janet Jackson, Brandy and Beyoncé as the trinity.

Beyoncé – Cowboy Carter | Parkwood Entertainment / Sony Music Entertainment

Beyoncé is talented. And despite how messy Cowboy Carter is, there is no question of her talent. It’s truly Beyoncé’s vocal performances and her nerve which do the heavy lifting of this album. But it really is a shame that this album didn’t go through another revision of edits and that Beyoncé didn’t make more notes. This album needed to be reduced down to something which felt tighter, because there is too much excess here. And the narrative and parameters of this album needed to be better defined by Beyoncé and her team whilst they were putting it together, so it didn’t need interludes and intros from Nelson and Martell to outright say ‘THIS IS WHAT THIS PART OF THE ALBUM IS ABOUT’ to try and ‘tie’ it together. Because even with these moments, this album still feels loose, features too many songs and has a title which doesn’t really make sense. Trimming this album down, titling it Americana and dropping a couple of the white people would have worked wonders. And this is the part which makes me kick the dust and say ‘Aww, shucks’. Because there is a great album here, but the bloat bogs it down and gets in the way. What Cowboy Carter did to spark conversation around Black people in country music is what will make this album a standout in Beyoncé’s discography more than just the music. But had Beyoncé been more ruthless in culling songs, then the music would have stood a lot taller and it would have been easy to have said ‘This is a great top to bottom album’. But as it stands, it’s fun and it’s fine. But it’s very flawed. And it’s certainly no Renaissance.

When Renaissance first released, I was playing that album constantly, and I still run it from top to bottom now. Where-as I was over Cowboy Carter after a couple of listens, because it feels like a slog. The back end completely loses me. This album paints too many different pictures, rather than just one clear one. And I feel there was a lack of bravery on Beyoncé’s part to make a choice to either fully commit to the top end of the album or the back end. Renaissance was a highly curated album. It was also a complex one beneath the silver and shimmer. But the way in which it was presented was so simple. There was no need for Beyoncé or the album to ever explain what it was, because it was crystal clear. Cowboy Carter by comparison features too many references. It’s more overstuffed than it is complex. And there feels like a refusal to let this album just be the simple album it should have, because Beyoncé was too concerned that nobody would ‘get it’. Like, gurl. What is not to get? You are on the album cover in stars and stripes, dressed as a cowboy on a horse. Half of the songs on the albums be twangin’. We get it.

Renaissance felt like Beyoncé being free. Like, TRULY free. Where-as Cowboy Carter feels like Beyoncé not allowing herself to be completely free, because she let herself get tangled in the different messages she wanted this album to have, all of the different things that she wanted to prove and all of the different references to make sure everybody ‘got it’. This is why the first half of Cowboy Carter is so much stronger, because it has the most heart. There’s a purity to the music. A simplicity to everything. Beyoncé is just singing the damn songs. It’s far more about telling stories of her life and less about trying to put different references and pieces together like some form of thesis, which is what I feel starts to happen as the album hits the midpoint, resulting in songs feeling slightly overwrought and heavy handed. And the truth is, Beyoncé has nothing to prove. She is Beyoncé. She laid so much of her inspiration for doing this album out in the very first song. And by proxy, because of who she is, she is an intersection of all of the things she addresses and over addresses on this album. So it’s a real shame that Beyoncé didn’t let a lot of the stuff go which I feel gets in the way of this album being as great as it could have been, and her truly being free.

Album Highlights:
▪ Ameriican Requiem 🏅
▪ 16 Carriages 🏅
▪ Protector 🏅
▪ Bodyguard 🥇
▪ Daughter 🏅
▪ Just for Fun
▪ II Most Wanted
▪ Flamenco 🏅
▪ Ya Ya
▪ Desert Eagle 🏅