Said I wasn't country enough, said I wouldn't saddle up

Continuing my trip forward in time through the album charts

05/04/24 : Cowboy Carter - Beyoncé

I've heard the fuss about this but, given the girl grew up in Texas, I feel she's got the right to record some country if she wants to.  Whether I'd choose to listen to it under any other circumstances is debatable, but we are where we are, so let's see what we've got.

Hmmm - I'm not sure I'd say it's exactly a country album, but it's certainly countrified.  The other thing that immediately jumped out at me was how long it was (78 minutes), which I wasn't entirely convinced was necessary.  Apart from that, I'm not really sure what to say about it - there's an awful lot in there, some of which works well and some not so well.  I feel I was probably a bit overwhelmed by it all and suspect it needs several listens to fully form an opinion on it - but, for me, not enough of it was immediate enough to mean it will get any more listens.  I did particularly like "Ya Ya" though and her cover of "Blackbird" was also pretty fine - I was less convinced by her cover of "Jolene" but the spoken intro by Dolly comparing Jolene with "Becky with the good hair" was well done.

We are, of course, at #1 with a new entry this week - I suspect she'll be around for a week or two.  The rest of the top five are Olivia Rodrigo, The Weeknd, Ariana Grande and Noah Kahan making it a good week for the women and the young and we have one more new entry in the top ten which is Ride (#8) which I fully intend to check out, particularly after Slowdive's enjoyable album last year.

Last week I said that I thought Elbow would drop to #46 so I'm both pleased and absolutely gutted to see they're at #45 - so close!  I'm actually feeling pretty confident I can get next week right by saying Beyoncé will stay at #1 and this week's Taylor stats are one in the top ten, five in the top twenty (including #17. #18 and #19) and nine in the entire chart.

Wikipedia has a massive amount for a new album (407 milliPeppers) but that's not in the least bit surprising for Queen B.  I totally didn't bother reading most of it but I was amused to read she'd involved "lesser-known country artists such as Tanner Adell, Brittney Spencer, Tiera Kennedy, Reyna Roberts, Shaboozey and Willie Jones" and a few slightly better known artists like Dolly Parton, Willie Nelson, Stevie Wonder, Paul McCartney and Nile Rodgers.  

I was also surprised how interesting the background section was because it's normally incredibly dull - she and The Chicks performed "Daddy Lessons" (from Lemonade) at the 50th Country Music Association (CMA) Awards and the critics loved it and it also gave the awards their highest viewing numbers.  However some "fans" claimed there was no place for her at the awards or even in the genre (I wonder why they thought that?) and so the CMA, in their wisdom, deleted all publicity about her performance.  And hell hath no fury like a Beyoncé scorned, so here we are - and fair play to her!

The critics were unanimously positive about the album, although some have made very grandiose claims about the cultural impact of the album - which might turn out to be true, but they went very over the top very early.  It's also early days to fully understand the commercial reception but I think it's safe to say it will do pretty well.

"Customers also listened to" "no similar recommendations" - what?!?  I guess there aren't too many albums like this, although Lil Nas X would seem an obvious complement to me - and for all the fuss about Beyoncé's colour, I felt this was a lot more of colourblind offering than his album was.  It's certainly an interesting album though and I'd recommend you give it a listen - but I'm not entirely sure I'll ever decide what I think of it.

29/03/24 - Fine but unnecessary
19/04/24 - Not dreadful, but also not very good