By Kayleigh Donaldson | Celebrity | March 27, 2024 |
By Kayleigh Donaldson | Celebrity | March 27, 2024 |
Cowboy Carter, the newest album by Beyoncé, is sure to make a splash. Queen Bee going country after the house-inspired masterpiece Renaissance proved to be a big surprise for even the most ardent members of the Beyhive. With the album arriving tomorrow at midnight, Beyoncé has revealed the tracklist on Instagram.
After many weeks of rumours and speculation, the reveal seems to confirm that Bey will be covering the iconic Dolly Parton song ‘Jolene.’ The tracklist also mentions ‘Dolly P’ and ‘Smoke Hour Willie Nelson’, but we’re not sure yet if they’re song titles or confirmations of guest singers and collaborators. Parton herself has talked about wanting someone to do a big ‘Jolene’ cover in the way that Whitney blew ‘I Will Always Love You’ up to power ballad levels. Will Bey do that here?
One title, ‘The Linda Martell Show’, refers to the first commercially successful Black woman in country music and the first to play the Grand Ole Opry. She faced much racist abuse during her career, often from white audiences who yelled slurs at her while she performed. She retired from Nashville in the ’70s and switched to a variety of other careers.
It’s a very long album, by the looks of it, and we’ve still yet to see the list of collaborators. The internet has been eager to guess who might join Beyoncé on Cowboy Carter. I’m personally hoping for the return of The Chicks, and there’s prevalent gossip that ‘Blackbiird’ (lots of II spelling here because it’s Act Two) might be a cover or interpretation of The Beatles.
When unveiling the album cover, Beyoncé got remarkably candid in confessing that her motivation for moving into country was the experience of not being made to feel welcome ‘over five years’ ago. It’s clearly a reference to when she performed ‘Daddy Lessons’ at the CMA Awards with The Chicks and all the racist gatekeepers in the country industry acted as though she’d peed on an American flag then set it aflame. The country music world has done a very effective job in erasing the Black roots of the genre.
I’m sure Cowboy Carter will inspire all the usual Discourse about whether or not it’s ‘real’ country music, regardless of the quality of the album. That’s tedious and far less interesting to me than one of the biggest musicians on the planet choosing to experiment with a genre that is historically Black but culturally treated as a bastion of white conservatism. We’re mercifully past the era of Bro Country, dominated by the likes of Florida Georgia Line, but the field remains hugely white and largely male, with prominent women like Maren Morris and Kacey Musgraves finding more success as crossover artists due to the lack of country radio play. Beyoncé plays by her own rules, as one would hope for with a true megastar, and her sheer power got her a country radio #1, even as many stations tried to revolt against her presence.
Prepare for the yee-haw summer. It is inevitable, kids. But will it be easier to get tickets for this tour? I missed out on the Renaissance Era, and I’m still sad.