Album Review: Beyoncé Cowboy Carter

Hot on the heels of her universally lauded sixth LP Lemonade, Beyoncé performed the album’s bluesy offering, ‘Daddy Lessons’, with the Chicks at the 2016 Country Music Association Awards. Both during the performance and in the merciless court of public opinion on social media, Beyoncé was met with virulent racism. It is perhaps this incident that Beyoncé refers to when she says that Cowboy Carter “was born out of an experience that I had years ago where I did not feel welcomed…and it was very clear that I wasn’t”.

Although Act II: Cowboy Carter acts as a follow-up to Beyoncé’s Renaissance, the LP maintains a continuous thread with Lemonade, not only in genre but also in references. “Becky with the good hair,” makes a reappearance, this time in the form of a cover of Dolly Parton's classic ‘Jolene’. Led in by ‘Dolly P’, Beyoncé’s ‘Jolene’ is a much more hostile affair, where in place of "I’m begging you" it’s "I’m warning you". While it’s a spikier take on the beloved country track, it’s hard to see how Knowles, with her diva persona, could reproduce the more subservient tone of the original.

Parton is kept in good company by fellow country music legends Willie Nelson and Linda Mattell, who together act as disc jockeys on a radio broadcast by fictitious station, KNTRY Radio Texas, introducing Beyoncé at various stages in the epic, 80-minute album.

Some of these celeb insertions work, such as the cover of The Beatles' 'Blackbiird', and others fall short, like Post Malone’s lacklustre appearance on 'Levii's Jeans' and Miley Cyrus’ underwhelming contribution to 'II Most Wanted'. Fans expecting an entirely country album may be in for disappointment, as singles 'Texas Hold 'Em' and '16 Carriages' are largely where the exploration of the genre ends. However, Beyoncé’s soaring vocal performance carries through, from the hypnotic harmonies on ‘My Rose’ to the jig-dance music combo on ‘Riiverdance'.

Beyoncé is well aware of the rampant criticism Cowboy Carter invites, with opening track 'Ameriican Requiem' featuring the lines, “Used to say I spoke too country / And the rejection came, said I wasn't country 'nough”. In a Joycean fashion, the album’s closer 'Amen’ finishes on the opening note of ‘Ameriican Requiem’, the album’s cycle perhaps references how black people built country music, yet are routinely excluded from its history.

8/10

Recommended song: ‘AMERIICAN REQUIEM ’

Listen to Cowboy Carter below: