COWBOY CARTER
A sprawling, cinematic reimagining of American roots music. Banjo-driven trap, operatic country-pop, and lush acoustic harmonies dismantle genre boundaries.
March 29, 2024 · Parkwood Entertainment
A sprawling, cinematic reimagining of American roots music. Banjo-driven trap, operatic country-pop, and lush acoustic harmonies dismantle genre boundaries.
March 29, 2024 · Parkwood Entertainment
A heavy acoustic guitar strum collides with a trap beat, sounding like a dusty porch floorboards vibrating under a subwoofer. This record feels like a long, late-night drive across state lines with the radio dial spinning wildly, catching fragments of opera, bluegrass, and church choir harmonies. You are pulled into a sprawling, humid landscape where acoustic fingerpicking and soaring vocals reclaim the open road, turning familiar American sounds into something vast, strange, and entirely new.
“Some of Beyoncé’s best vocal work on record, produced flawlessly and at the forefront of each track. Her voice as an instrument is wielded superbly across the entire album but most strikingly at the top of it, as she glides across country and R&B inflections effortlessly”Read review
“The Texan superstar’s eighth album is a thrilling 27-track journey through and beyond America’s roots music, and it feels like a genuine feast”Read review
“The album is a landmark provocation that dares the country music establishment to look itself in the eye.”Read review
“The superstar’s latest album might be her most ambitious to date. Though its quality is inconsistent, its inclusive vision for country music shines throughout”Read review
“While it won’t be able to please everyone, that’s not the point: this is an intensely personal statement about reclamation, belonging, and legacy, celebrating the past with hopes of changing the future. One can only hope Act III finds Bey going full rock”Read review
“It’s a reminder that country music has always been about “three chords and the truth”. Beyoncé’s truth shines here with the fierce strength of the Texan sun. Cowboy hats off to her”Read review
“Ms Carter unlocks yet another infinity stone with a heartfelt, expansive take on country music”Read review
“owboy Carter could have been a slam dunk. Unfortunately, the record stands as a bloated mess that doesn’t fully know what it wants to be”Read review
“As both a treatise and a sonic testament, ‘COWBOY CARTER’ is its own triumph; unmoored in form, space and time, it’s the work of a preternatural talent painstakingly poring over every word, stratified vocal, sample and stylistic flourish”Read review
“The follow-up to Renaissance is a powerful and ambitious country album cast in the singular mold of Beyoncé. She asserts her rightful place in the genre as only a pop star of her incredible talent and influence can do”Read review
“There’s no question that Cowboy Carter is a landmark record. Arguably, an inevitable one. But once the dust of its audacity settles, it misses the mark of a classic”Read review
“Queen B is back, and countrified”Read review
How does COWBOY CARTER sound next to the rest of Beyoncé's catalogue?
This record introduces a cinematic road trip aesthetic to her discography, framing the entire tracklist as a sprawling, dust-caked radio broadcast across the Texas desert.
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