With 26 years in the music biz and a personal net worth of $800 million, Beyonce is pretty much immune to public commentary about her music.
The Queen Bee doesn’t need to justify herself to a music critic in New England. And it’s unlikely her giant fan base is going to need a prodding from a journalist to enjoy Beyonce’s latest album, “Cowboy Carter.”
But there are still barbs being tossed around about her sprawling new album, which in the old days – pre-Spotify – would have been considered a double album set.
The marketing hook for the new album has been: Beyonce does country.
And I must chime in: That soundbyte does the album a great injustice.
“Cowboy Carter” is much more than a busman’s holiday into a genre that sells a kajillion records these days. Beyonce is not riding the Nashville train to platinum on this effort.
For the country traditionalists lobbing bricks at the idea that Beyonce is doing country music, you clearly have not listened to the record. And the Beyonce fans who have been high-fiving Queen Bee for breaking ground by delving into a traditionally all-white genre, they clearly have never listened to country music. And again, those fans probably haven’t listened to the album beyond the thump-clap beat of “Texas Hold ’em.”
There are elements on “Country Carter” that definitely can be found on country records. There are the sounds of banjos and strumming acoustic guitars that are atypical for a Beyonce record. But those sounds alone aren’t enough to make a country record.
Think of it this way: Back in the 1960s, pop groups added the sound of a sitar to their tunes. This alone didn’t turn these artists into Ravi Shankar.
When I think of a pop group “doing country,” I think of artists like Bob Dylan (“Nashville Skyline”) and the Byrds (“Sweetheart of the Radio”), who were dogmatically faithful to the genre’s form. They channeled pioneers like Hank Williams and groundbreakers like Johnny Cash. If you listened to Dylan or the Byrds – and liked what you heard – you easily would have found something of interest in the catalogues of their influences.
“Cowboy Carter” is more than a dalliance in another genre. Beyonce’s newest is an album from an artist who is feeling creative and comfortable enough in her commercial status to try this.
I’m actually hearing way more gospel in the tunes than any country. And the harmonies she weaves by multi-layering her own voice would make any choirmaster proud; they’re nearly classical in structure. And she makes technological nods to artists like Queen or Abba, who used the studio to pile voice upon voice to create this wall of sound of voices.
“Cowboy Carter,” in my mind, reminds me less of a country record than an album that owes a great deal of debt to Stevie Wonder’s iconic “Songs in the Key of Life.”
Wonder’s triple vinyl set (two full-sized record and a bonus EP) had a lot of killer tunes, like “Sir Duke” and “Isn’t She Lovely,” that were designed to soar up the charts. However, there was plenty of exploration, musically and lyrically, where Wonder blew apart the walls between genres.
“Cowboy Carter” also reminds me of Guns ‘N’ Roses’ one-two punch of “Use Your Illusion” parts 1 and 2. On that album, Axl Rose and crew tossed aside the confined expectations of your typical hair metal bands. And they expanded their composition vocabulary where they could successfully pull off something as epic as “November Rain.”
Finally, “Cowboy Carter” reminds me of George Harrison’s “All Things Must Pass.” On that album, the silent Beatle tossed out all expectations based on his previous musical associations. Instead, he focused on his surprisingly prolific muse.
And that’s what Beyonce does on “Cowboy Carter.” She follows her muse and hits the mother lode of creativity.
Like those other sprawling packages that preceded her, there are times where Beyonce overextends herself. She tries too hard.
There also are times where the lyrics are too personal, where she tries to address her haters. These editorial asides could have been left on Beyonce’s hard drive without diminishing the power of the album.
But “Cowboy Carter” is clearly an album from a creative woman who is more interested in expanding who she is musically rather than catering to expectations.
Calling “Cowboy Carter” Beyonce’s “country album” simply diminishes what she is able to accomplish over the course of 77 minutes.
