Cowboy Carter, a review

Beyonce saves a horse and rides a cowboy.

‘Cowboy Carter’ (2024) is not, as per fan speculation, a reclamation of historically black genres by the biggest living black artist. It’s also not, in many ways, a country album. In her own words, this is a “Beyonce album”, made by the woman in response to the awful and racist response to her performance at the Country Music Awards. That one piece of information is the most context Beyonce has provided about an album in over a decade. She rarely discusses why she made the music itself, but more puts herself in context of the wider industry, or outlines the process.

‘Renaissance’ is, in retrospect, the return of Beyonce as a pop star, after a decade or so as an “artist”. Much like how Madonna’s 2005 record ‘Confessions on a Dance Floor’ recontextualised her as a hitmaker for a modern audience, ‘Renaissance’ found Beyonce cashing in her cultural capital to make elevated dance music. It’s an album that, in retrospect, felt like it owned the moment more than it led it. Artists like Drake and Megan Thee Stallion attempted to successfully jump into a house wave that really never hit the mainstream – although I must recognise that Drake beat Beyonce to the punch.

Much like how Madonna’s effort didn’t change the sound of music but rather ascended it, Beyonce saw the same type of success. Fascinating in its isolation, nothing like ‘Break My Soul’ actually came to dominate radio. Pop radio is still chasing the disco-lite sound of Dua Lipa, while the pop rock revival and alt-cosplay are still huge on streaming.

To put the artist herself in cultural context, “Beyonce” as a conversation had and has far outstripped “Beyonce” the hitmaker. She still has had some hits, but in an era where stardom has been directly tied to relatability, her persona quickly became remote. Appearances were extremely polished, her words usually through interviews that heavily implied distance, and while the work nodded to assumed reality, the truth is that we have no concrete throughlines in her life. Look at ‘Lemonade’ (2016), a record that gave a lot of context to her relationship with Jay Z…in theory.

In practice, we’ll never know, and we shouldn’t know.

‘Cowboy Carter’ does not break that cycle, except in it’s conception. We have no grand reveal of who “Becky with the good hair” is, nor the context of Jay Z’s affair. This is not a particularly revealing album at all. Instead, it’s contextually tied to film, and richer for it. But as I stated before, it’s an album made to respond very specifically to a moment in Beyonce’s career.

Her 2016 performance at the CMAs was poorly received by an incredibly racist industry in Nashville. Many hid their complaints about her attendance with allusions to pop stardom being a disqualifying factor, while others just…booed. It’s actually quite strange in context of her general stance as one of pop’s living legends. But not surprising. Nashville is nothing if not utterly predictable in how it’ll treat outsiders, particularly those it can identify immediately.

Let’s start with what the record is, before we get into the pros and cons. It’s an eclectic mix of country, folk, hip hop, R’n’B, and even dance music into an hour-long radio show. Interspersed with announcements, introductions, and interludes, you get the feeling of slipping channels and choosing your favourite songs on a long car ride. This is a track list that feels cohesive in sound (for the most part), but chaotic in execution.

With that, I’ll start with what doesn’t work. The answer is basically the aesthetic premise. Not of the visuals themselves, but the very often jumpy and unhinged sequencing. It’s excellently mixed and creates compelling sections, but that also means the jumping between them feels completely unhinged.

Which brings me to my first real critique. This album is bloated and heavy. For an artist of her calibre, who has had nearly a decade to fine tune the final product, this feels like the outcome you may have been waiting on, but not hoping for. In many ways this feels like a vanity project more than any other album in her discography. And that is not solely due to the context she has given us. The record is indulgent.

I don’t want to feel this way. Almost every track feels worth it in their own right. But as a singular statement, it’s trying to cover a lot of ground subgenre-wise that it arguably doesn’t need to. The last time Beyonce covered this much sonic ground was ‘Lemonade’, but where that’s a tight 50 minutes with a narrative throughline, ‘Cowboy Carter’ is over an hour of genre exploration.

Everything exists with its own unique sets of justifications. ‘SPAGHETII’ sits in conversation with both Country’s historically odd relationship with hip hop, from the rap-inspired flows from Florida George Line to Lil Nas X’s historic ‘Old Town Road’. It’s thematically interesting. But what it isn’t is cohesive to the album, nor is it particularly good. Considering how long she spent on this record, I’m willing to bet money that this is castoff from 2018’s ‘Everything Is Love’, which is easily the worst thing she put out in the 2010s. She also makes a Thanos reference which feels beneath her in 2024.

Or how about ‘JOLENE’ a remake of the Dolly Parton classic with all new verses about how Beyonce will absolutely fuck that hussy up. It’s a power fantasy that manages to make both the song and Beyonce sound ridiculous. Which clearly isn’t the point. This is not a track played for comedy, and even if so, the album’s other funny moments mostly land.

Then there’s the generic piddle that is ‘LEVII’S JEANS’. Maybe I’m in the minority here, but this bland little track feels so out of place on a record that includes ’16 CARRIAGES’, ‘RIIVERDANCE’, and even the much better sex jam ‘TYRANT’. Post Malone is not a particularly inspiring acoustic performer (a huge reason he introduced himself as a rapper first) and they don’t have chemistry. It just does not work for me at all. You could give this record to Blake Shelton and Gwen Stefani, and people would laugh at it.

That being said, the record is full of great stuff. There’s the romantic country ballad ‘II MOST WANTED’ with Miley Cyrus, which is an obvious standout and likely hit. Also a high point is ‘BODYGUARD’, a silly track about all the ways Beyonce wants to protect the object of her affections. Radio should love the acoustic balladry of ‘JUST FOR FUN’ with Willie Jones, which practically aches with ennui. If there’s a track I need to hear live in a crowd of crying fans, it’s that one.

As a whole, the ballads on the record are Beyonce at her best. Maybe it’s because ‘Renaissance’ didn’t feature any, but they really shine bright on this tracklist. The ‘BLACKBIIRD’ cover with Tanner Adell, Brittney Spencer, Tiera Kennedy, and Reyna Roberts is a particular highlight in this case. Beyonce’s talent for harmonies and collaboration shines through here, and the voices melt into eachother in such a distinct and lovely way. The final 40 seconds of this record in particular feel like something deep in my gut.

That isn’t to say the fun stuff is all bad. As mentioned before, ‘BODYGUARD’ is sexy fun (the album is extremely sex forward, particularly in the back half), and ‘YA YA’ is probably the best of goofy Beyonce. It feels like an intro to a completely different record on the album, which makes sense, as the next run of tracks until the end are the strongest set on the album. ‘DESERT EAGLE’ is the best interlude of the album and could easily be expanded, except then it would lose the brevity that makes it so fun. ‘RIIVERDANCE’ is bouncy and fun in a way that will absolutely go wild live, and you can hear the influence Raye had on the flow. ‘TYRANT’ makes better use of a Dolly Parton introduction for an actual good song.

Then there’s ‘II HANDS II HEAVEN’, an ode to joy and the underlying glamour of Nashville. It’s the heart of the album and in many ways, the song that Beyonce felt destined to make on her journey through country, folk, and adjacent genres. It’s the right mix of triumphant and wistful – reminding me a lot of fan favourite tracks like ‘Summer Renaissance’ and ‘XO’.

The production throughout is stellar. Both in regard to vocal mixing, and instrumentals. But that’s to be expected from a Beyonce album. If something sounds bad, something went wrong. Baseline, I expect an album by pop’s most accomplished artist to sound great.

But what I think is missing from this record is focus. It’s long and meandering, with odd sequencing in the middle (‘DAUGHTER’ followed by ‘SPAGHETTII’?) that suggest it was never really considered as a full experience. Yes, the “radio” aesthetic is meant to paper over the cracks, but the end result is something that can be put on shuffle for roughly the same experience. Which is disappointing when this is an artist who just two years earlier dropped an incredibly cohesive and singular record which almost demands to be enjoyed in one go.

It isn’t a collection of songs, but it does feel like maybe three distinct records within one that never really connect. The final third especially stands alone as a full body of work. I’ve never walked away from a Beyonce record thinking “this needed editing” quite as much. But you know who I have done that for?

Janet Jackson. Madonna. Prince.

If Renaissance felt like a pop star stepping into their singularity as an artist and hitmaker, and ascending their ascension from pop, ‘Cowboy Carter’ is what happens beforehand. It’s her version of Janet’s ’20 Y.O.’ (2006), Madonna’s ‘American Life’ (2003), or Prince’s ‘Emancipation’ (1996). A somewhat (or in Prince’s case, extremely) bloated album that contains some devastatingly high highs, but desperately needed a stabilising voice.

‘Cowboy Carter’ isn’t going to be the Beyonce album that the public will look back on as her magnum opus. It will have hits, it will have fans, and in 40 years’ time, it will spark covers. She is traditionally more than just “very good”, which makes her a victim to her own success. But it’s impeccably produced, filled with clever and touching lyrics, and significantly more accomplished than what anyone else has release since her last outing. We don’t really have recording stars like this anymore.

Would I recommend the album? Yes – it’s still a Beyonce record. But I’m more likely to recommend individual songs. There’s hits here. Let’s see if she actually services them to radio and promotes.