The world has been put in its place with the release of Beyonce’s new COWBOY CARTER album. Beyonce brought home number one on the Billboard Hot 100 for the first time in history as a Black woman with country singles titled “TEXAS HOLD EM” and “16 CARRIAGES.” A few weeks later, the album dropped and shifted the definition of being a musician by creating music from all different types of genres.
COWBOY CARTER is Beyonce’s eighth studio album released on March 29, 2024. It is the second album in the ongoing trilogy following the RENAISSANCE album, bringing light to Black country artists that have continuously made music in this white-dominated genre. The new album features some of the biggest country musicians like Dolly Parton, Willie Nelson, and Linda Martell.
This album was set to come out right after her notorious Lemonade album, but Beyonce said that after the COVID-19 pandemic, the world needed to dance and have fun after such a rough patch in everyone’s lives, which is why she released RENAISSANCE and brought it to tour all around the world. She announced her new album by being in a commercial partnered with Verizon and ending it with “Ok they ready. Drop the new music.”
The album was made in response to the reactions and insults thrown at her during the CMA Awards, a country music-based award show, after performing her song “Daddy Lessons” which dabbled into the country genre. While performing the song the camera panned to country artists refusing to dance or sing along for no apparent reason other than the fact that it was Beyonce singing. From the first song on her new album called “AMERICAN REQUIEM,” Beyonce talks about feeling unwelcome and shamed for not staying in the pop genre as people expected her to. However, it only pushed her to create more in the genre after the negative reactions, leading her to make one of the most groundbreaking albums of the last decade. Not only does it implicate country music throughout the album, but it also masterfully integrates rap, hip-hop, soul, and even a little opera, which appears in the song “DAUGHTER”.
COWBOY CARTER debuted at number one in many countries around the world, including Australia, Canada, France, Germany, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom, and broke several chart and streaming records. In the United States, COWBOY CARTER became Beyonce’s eighth consecutive number-one album on the Billboard 200 and the first album by a black woman to top the Top Country Albums chart. Beyonce also became the first black woman to place first on the Billboard Hot 100 and Hot Country Songs charts.
Not only was this an incredibly moving album with tears being shed over the songs Beyonce had written for her kids like “PROTECTOR”, but it was groundbreaking in the sense that Beyonce had made country music so wildly popular by people who would have never chosen to listen to the genre. Beyonce also drew people in by covering famous songs such as “Jolene” by Dolly Parton and “BLACKBIRD” by The Beatles, making even older generations who grew up on these songs want to give the album a listen.
Beyonce has proven that the industry cannot put her into a box and force her to stay in one genre, and she can make an album in any genre with record-breaking numbers and a global listening impact.
