Beyoncé released her eight studio album this year — the sprawling Cowboy Carter, part II in a proposed trilogy, coming off the back of dance album and 2023 world tour, Renaissance.
If country is a genre, the Western is a concept: the individual grappling with the frontiers of the landscape in which they find themselves, in a twangier, less highfalutin cousin of the gothic. The Shining is a Western. Cowboy Carter is more Western odyssey than country record and I rather liked it. Beyonce’s vocals work well against some of the instruments, particularly on tracks like ‘Bodyguard’ but also on songs that are more playful with form like ‘Tyrant’ or ‘YA YA.’ Some of it is difficult, for me: I find ‘LEVII’s JEANS,’ a duet (I am yet to see why I should enquire more about Post Malone) interminable in its sickly sweetness; ‘grab your Lexus’ feels too much like product placement rather than of-the-moment referencing in ‘Texas Hold ‘Em.’
Cowboy Carter is both confident (the soaring cry of ‘American Requiem’) but also overcomplicates matters with interludes on the meaning of genre, but I think it’s worth the experimentation. This is an album by someone who wants to be taken seriously as one of the great American recording artists of her age — a singer as capable of continued relevance and reinvention as Madonna demonstrated at the turn of the century. I’ve listened to some tracks many times this year; others barely at all. I only managed The Tortured Poets’ Department the once: two hours is a lot of my time to ask for, and I was unwilling to give someone who has been so unsporting this year, by releasing a stream of new editions of the same album to prevent other artists like Charli XCX and Billie Eilish get to number 1 this year, more chances than necessary.
What next for Beyoncé? Well, she received no nominations in this year’s Country Music Awards and she’s busy with a new haircare line (Cécred) and whisky (SirDavis). The maturity and malleability of her artistry remains at odds with her more commercial streak when it comes to visuals. Make no mistake, I KNOW Beyoncé isn’t a black radical! I just think the cover art for this album was a bit naff, is all. She works well against the electric guitar so if the next American genre for interpretation in the trilogy is rock, I wouldn’t mind. ‘Don’t Hurt Yourself’ with Jack Black is one of my favourite songs on Lemonade.