Beyonce’s country album “Cowboy Carter” – Dagsavisen

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MUSIC

Beyoncé

«Cowboy Carter»

Columbia

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“Genres is a funny concept, isn’t it,” says Linda Martell, an underrated pioneer of African-American country and western, a piece on Beyoncé’s new album. Genres are a strange invention, which theoretically should make something easier to understand for most people, but which closes many artists in – or out. It would have been a surprise if Beyoncé had released a country album that sounded like anything coming out of Nashville these days.

“Act II: Cowboy Carter” by Beyoncé Knowles-Carter is supposedly part of a trilogy begun in the covid years, perhaps an exploration of the prevalence of black musical traditions. Part 1 was “Renaissance” from 2022, often described as an exercise in house and disco, but with a lot of other things thrown into the mix. So here comes the country record (in a way). Can we hope for reggae next time?

As we touched on when Beyoncé released “Texas Hold ‘Em” as a single beforehand – it’s nothing new for the great artists of soul and rhythm and blues to make country records. The Supremes in the 60s, Tina Turner in the 70s, Millie Jackson in the 80s. But Beyoncé does something completely different.

“Cowboy Carter” begins with “American Requiem”, which sounds like the album’s manifesto. It is not something you would have heard on “Western saloon” with Vidar Lønn-Arnesen on NRK in the old days. “They used to say I spoke too country/then the rejection kings said I wasn’t country enough”, she sings, as a summary of her own experiences, from growing up in Texas to the reactions when she started flirting with country music herself.

The Beatles and Bob Dylan

From this she moves on into a version of “Blackbird” by The Beatles, which sounds like it was recorded on a porch somewhere down south, with great vocal harmonies. “Blackbird” is one of The Beatles’ songs that has the most cover versions, but it takes on new meaning in this context. Paul McCartney wrote it inspired by the American civil rights movement in general, and in particular to nine students who used their right to start at a white school in Arkansas to large protests.

“Cowboy Carter” has 27 tracks, many of them short “snippets”, but the album lasts almost 80 minutes. Far too long for most people, and I think involuntarily of the last time an equally legendary “Columbia recording artist” broke with the past and expectations and made a country record: Bob Dylan with the 27-minute long “Nashville Skyline” in 1969. But Beyoncé’s album is an exploration of possibilities, with music as a free flow of ideas that cannot be defined with a word or two. While the single “Texas Hold ‘Em” was able to go to the top of the country chart in the USA, it is unlikely that “Cowboy Carter” will be included in the corresponding album chart. As she put it herself beforehand, this is not a country album, it’s a Beyoncé album.

Music Review – Beyonce Beyonce: Cowboy Carter (Columbia/AP)

Early on in the album, we hear a nostalgic search for radio stations with country history buzz. This ends with Willie Nelson’s program “Smoke Hour”, which here becomes the prelude to “Texas Hold ‘Em”, which everyone who has some interest in this has probably heard by now.

Also read the review of Gåte på Rockefeller: Clean and cut primal power (+)

Dolly Parton og Beyonce

Dolly Parton pops in in person to introduce the next song, with “Becky with the good hair” (from Beyoncé’s 2016 infidelity drama “Sorry”) reminding her of a lady she once knew herself. Then comes “Jolene” herself, which is here arranged quite like the original. But Beyoncé takes liberties with the lyrics. She warns Jolene where Dolly Parton prayed on her knees, because “I’m still a Creole banjee bitch from Louisiana”, so you just have to be careful.

Beyonce during the Super Bowl in February this year. (EZRA SHAW/AFP)

“Daughter” continues in the same style as “Jolene”, but with some opera trills that only emphasize that everything is legal here. To continue the genre-hopping, here is a track called “Flamenco”, which is not exactly flamenco, but which helps to reinforce the diversity. And so this long album includes a large number of songs that are primarily Beyoncé. Daughter Rumi asks to hear that lullaby, and “Protector” is both beautiful, reassuring and uplifting.

Also read the review from the “Renaissance Tour” in Stockholm: Beyoncé sparkled in spectacular tour opening (+)

Strong duets

“Bodyguard” a clean and catchy pop song, with a reference to John Wayne as the closest we get to the western genre. But Willie Nelson is back for more ‘Smoke Hour’, where he says that sometimes you hear something you didn’t expect, and that he thinks his listeners will appreciate ‘Just For Fun’ with Beyoncé – a duet with Willie Jones, who is a more proper country singer. Linda Martell follows, to introduce a song that will span a wide range of styles. This one is “Ya Ya”, which is based on Nancy Sinatra’s “These Boots Are Made For Walking”, sweeps in “Good Vibrations” by the Beach Boys along the way, and becomes a very lively dance number. Perhaps the highlight of the entire album.

There are also a couple of strong duets here, with Miley Cyrus in “Most Wanted” and Post Malone in the erotically challenging “Levii’s Jeans”. (There are some double i’s in several of the titles here. Explanation coming perhaps?) A curious twist on Chuck Berry’s “Oh Louisiana” turns into the somewhat boring “Desert Eagle”, before the more resilient “Riiverdance” turns it all on space left.

Nowhere do country and soul merge more strongly than in gospel music. Here in the ending “Amen”, which picks up the “American Requiem” theme from the beginning, and looks back on the history of the American southern states, and the associated statue debate a few years ago, with “The statues they made were beautiful/but they were lies of stone”. The whole of “Cowboy Carter” is a big political play, with both musical and social significance, in the continuing fight for everyone to be themselves.