This Is Beyonc Country - by Stephen Thomas Erlewine
Partway through Cowboy Carter, her eagerly-anticipated country album, Beyoncé laughs at the very notion of musical classification, playing a snippet of a speech that claims "genres are funny little concepts." Artists may not subscribe to the notion of genre but the music business does, particularly the country music business which has a rigorous gate-keeping system to allow certain musicians onto the airwaves and exclude others—a game Beyoncé bested prior to the release of Cowboy Carter, ensuring that its lead single "Texas Hold 'Em" not only received country radio play but topped the Billboard Country charts.
"Texas Hold 'Em" and its companion single, the gloomy operatic "16 Carriages," aren't precisely indicative of the rest of Cowboy Carter. At 80 minutes and 27 tracks, the album has plenty of space for all imaginable iterations of country, many of which Beyoncé is eager to try and synthesize. Keenly aware of the past, Beyoncé is equally cognizant that she's not a roots-music revivalist; she may collaborate with Rhiannon Giddens, the folkie who once led the traditionalist folk outfit Carolina Chocolate Drops, yet she has no interest in singing old timey music. Instead, she plucks sounds, instrumentation, samples, and tropes that she finds interesting and useful, creating an extended dialogue with the past—a process made explicit by spoken-word guest spots from Willie Nelson, Dolly Parton, and Linda Martell, plus an aural collage of old genre-benders that culminates with "Maybellene," Chuck Berry's hot-rodded adaptation of the western swing standard "Ida Red" (she later speeds up his late-'60s number "Oh Louisiana").
Placing Martell, a pioneering Black country singer who struggled to climb the charts during the heyday of Charley Pride—the unspoken message was clearly that country music had room for no more than one Black country singer at the dawn of the 1970s—on the same level as Willie and Dolly, a pair of universally beloved American icons, is no accident. It's Beyonce tacitly acknowledging Nashville's ugly racial politics while also leading listeners to undiscovered history. Cowboy Carter is littered with such allusions, stretching back and forward; it's a dense text, the rare album that could benefit from a study guide. Despite all this context, Cowboy Carter doesn't function like a lecture: it's a pop album, almost defiantly so. Its very length and considered sequencing defies casual streaming consumption; it's a record that builds momentum as it shifts gears and moods, opening and closing with songs that thematically rhyme. The most audacious numbers are the loudest and brightest. "Ya Ya" splices "These Boots Are Made For Walkin'" and "Good Vibrations" in her quest to pay tribute to Tina Turner, "Bodyguard" updates Urban Cowboy disco, while a cover of Parton's "Jolene" transforms it from a plea into a threat. The lyrical changes make sense: there's not a chance Beyoncé would cast herself in a passive role. Cowboy Carter occasionally could benefit from a dose of vulnerability but that's an emotion that Beyoncéxxf has removed from her arsenal. She'll sing slow and low, she'll mine trauma, but she will not appear weak. That sense of self-styled strength permeates Cowboy Carter, turning it into a testament to how Beyoncé can create her own world—one that mirrors ours but there's no mistaking that it belongs to her alone.
Not a Fugazi fanatic, I missed the Messthetics until this release where saxophonist James Brandon Lewis received a deserved co-billing. The album's appearance on Impulse!, not Dischord, helps frame The Messhetics and James Brandon Lewis as an heir to the imprint's long history of adventurous jazz, which is appropriate. As reliant on atmosphere and rhythm as improvisitory transcendence, the album settles into a peculiar and fruitful territory, one that's simultaneously visceral and dreamy: it's a record that demands attention then defies audiences to follow the group's internal logic.
It’s a wonder that these two didn’t join forces earlier: they both fulfill each other’s needs to a tee. If anything, John Squire needs Liam Gallagher more than the singer needs the guitarist. Since the end of Oasis, Gallagher has found collaborators eager to work with his wonderful sandpaper voice, demonstrating its malleability along the way. Squire saddled himself to the dullard Ian Brown years ago, sticking with him long after his toxicity became evident. Brown’s inherent insouciance did benefit the Stone Roses but it curdled with age, something that can’t be said of Gallagher, who genuinely seems to appreciate his voice and how it adapts and thrills. All these factors inform this duet album—Squire writes it all, Gallagher sings the songs—which doesn’t attempt to do anything besides hit its intended target squarely. No surprises, then, apart from how Gallagher’s supple, sinewy performance immediately puts to shame Brown’s singing on the classic Stone Roses records: yes, Liam is the spiritual child of Ian but he’s long since eclipsed his inspiration, singing with nuance, humor and humanity. As crystalline and strong as the songs are, it’s Liam that remains the focal point—which is by design, as a song doesn't mean much if it doesn't have a singer..
Inevitably whittled down to the Brothers Robinson, the Black Crowes stick to the basics on this reunion shepherded by Jay Joyce, a producer who has kept Eric Church and Miranda Lambert lithe and lively in the past decade. The Crowes may hit their target hard—"Bedside Manners" comes crashing out of the gate with a slippery slide guitar—but they're not attempting to be anything other than the unrepetnant rockers they are. As it turns out, I miss the shagginess of Chris Robinson's hippie dreams as much as I miss the big swing of drummer Steve Gorman but neither is a dealbreaker: this is a rock record that's so lean and lively, it suggests the form will never die.
The kind of dazzling musician that settles into a career as a craftsman, I remember being fascinated by the stories of Karl Wallinger spending his spare time trying to replicate the sound of the White Album in his home studio. His albums as World Party showed he wasn't quite a nostalgiast—at the very least, he loved Prince—and he placed equal emphasis on record and song, which is why Private Revolution, Goodbye Jumbo and Bang still sound good and charmingly idiosyncratic. My obit for the Los Angeles Times.
The Raspberries remain unimpeachable: their debut holds its own again #1 Record and there’s never been a better song about the desire to dominate the airwaves than “Overnight Sensation.” I also have a lot of time for “I Wanna Hear it from Your Lips,” where Carmen took all he knew about songcraft and gunned for an mtv hit that didn’t quite come. I can’t blame anybody for finding his conservative heel turn a bridge too far. My obit for the Los Angeles Times.
If you were wondering why everything in my particular sector od the universe slowed this month it’s because I once again was on the ground in downtown Austin, contributing to Rolling Stone’s coverage of the event. It’s good fun and exhausting, particularly since it coincides with Austin school’s spring break so I was parenting whenever I wasn’t at a show.
I couldn’t get into Mojo Nixon’s final mayhem—by the time my family obligations cleared the line didn’t move at all. I was thrilled to see Mojo’s bad taste having one last hurrah on a street that’s now littered with high end boutiques and Hermes outlets. I can relate one phenomenal story: word on the street says that Steve Wertheimer, the owner of the Continental Club, guaranteed Mojo 20 grand for his farewell bash…which Mojo promptly promised to the Knitters, in hopes they’d play their first gig in a decade. They did show up on March 16, 2024, and they sounded fantastic from my spot on the sidewalk outside the Continental.
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