Finally carved out some time to listen to Cowboy Carter today. Lots of thoughts and lots of feelings, as usually is the case with a Beyonce release.
A solid, incredibly masterful body of work. I remember when I went to a conversation with Honey Dijon she said for Renaissance, she had Beyonce sit down and learn about queer culture and really understand the history behind house music. It ended up being Beyonce showing respect and homage to the culture and genre and doing it flawlessly.
With Cowboy Carter, country music is in Beyoncé’s DNA, it’s in her bones. She grew up on this music and you can hear it on this album. She’s singing from her lived experience with the genre and she sounds so confident and assured throughout. It makes total sense that this was actually going to come before Renaissance and I could hear early sketches of what the big tracks on Renaissance would become with the latter section of Cowboy Carter.
The mid section does lag a bit, but every song feels essential to Beyoncé’s overall vision and mission statement with this record. She took such a politically fraught and divisive genre and made something for everyone on this, and that isn’t easy.
I am going to get a lot of mileage out of this album this year that’s for sure.