Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter: not a country album, but much more
There is no shortage of female solo county artists. Laney Wilson was last year’s CMA
Entertainer of the Year. Ashley McBride’s The Devil I Know was named one of country’s Top
Five albums for 2023. Carly Pierce has taken home a brace of CMA Awards. Patty Loveless is in
the Country Music Hall of Fame. Faith Hill, Trisha Yearwood, Crystal Gayle, Martia McBride,
Tanya Tucker, Loretta Lynn, Shania Twain, Reba McEntire, Patsy Cline, Tammy Wynette, and
the unstoppable Dolly Parton all sold millions of records and streams. And of course, Taylor
Swift started in country music.
But the gatekeeper to hard-core country listeners, country radio, is pretty much tone-deaf to the
success of women. In 2022, a study by Jan Diehm and Dr. Jada Watson reported that, despite the
huge successes of female country singers in streams, sales, and awards, country radio stations
pretty much ignored them.
The study reported that 75% of charting songs on country radio stations surveyed up to 2021 were by men, while 16% were by women – the rest were M/F duos or bands. Female artists’ songs have
averaged about 15% of charting tracks on country radio and only .5% of back-to-back spins and
few of those were prime time.
In 2023 it got worse, 88.5% of artists on the top of the Billboard Country Airplay Chart were solo
male artists; only 5.75% were solo female acts. Country radio programmers either know or
think they know, that their audience is bros who don’t want to hear girls on their radio stations.
(Faith Hill was an exception).
And now comes Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter, illustrated, marketed, and promoted as a breakthrough
in country music. It is not. As Beyoncé said on Instagram, “This ain’t a country album. This is a
Beyonce album”. It’s also a frontal assault on the bro wall around country radio, not to scale the
wall and become #1 in spins – she’s only #33 – but to deliver messages. It is packed with
memes, references, name checks, and most of all, memos that the world is changing. Women,
including black women, are leading the market breaking down the walls around country
music – and changing the genre.
Cowboy Carter’s 27 songs are a musical attack of twangy guitars, banjos, Willie Nelson, Dolly
Parton, Miley Cyrus, and Post Malone fired at the industry and bro radio culture with the
opening barrage in its cover – every country meme you can think of. The white horse, the white
cowboy hat, the America flag, the high heel boots, even her riding sidesaddle like Queen
Elizabeth II. Every element says “I am redefining, country, the flag, patriotism, music royalty,
and who owns the symbols, who owns the music.” She goes even further in the nude alternative
cover photo with just the red, white, and blue sash with her name on it (spelled with an “i”) and
smoking a cigar. “I am me – black, proud, and so powerful that I am a global symbol,
unadorned, all by myself.”
This is what Beyoncé does, makes music that starts conversations — national conversations,
global conversations. She knows her every word, movement, lyric, and inch of her body,
launches 1000 memes and clicks, and talk shows and podcasts, and YouTube videos. That she is a
superb musician, songwriter, actress, and entertainer is taken for granted. But even more than all
of that, she is one of the world’s best communicators in the digital age. She can use and
manipulate words, music, symbols, memes, and visuals better than anyone else. In Cowboy
Carter, she recalls the black origins of country music (banjo, blues. Gospel), flaunts the
dominance of rap and hip hop worldwide, the power of black women, and the last gasps of the
misogynist bro culture. And she reminds us she is from one of the reddest bro states in the
country, Texas.
A lot to pack into a not-country album, and she does it.
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