From Renaissance to the Rodeo

Beyoncé’s ‘Cowboy Carter’ just made the internet say ‘yeehaw’

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Beyoncé‘s Cowboy Carter is all the internet can talk about.

Act II is officially here and we all have on our cowboy boots, hats, and spurs. Cowboy Carter is cohesive narrative dedicated to her southern roots, matrilineal heritage, and trailblazing Black country artists. Stylized as a radio broadcast from fictional Texas station KNTRY Radio, the album features Dolly Parton, Miley Cyrus, Willie Jones, Post Malone, and Black country legend Linda Martell to create an album that pays tribute to history and forges ahead into the future.

“The joy of creating music is that there are no rules,” Beyoncé said in a press release. “The more I see the world evolving the more I felt a deeper connection to purity. With artificial intelligence and digital filters and programming, I wanted to go back to real instruments, and I used very old ones. I didn’t want some layers of instruments like strings, especially guitars, and organs perfectly in tune. I kept some songs raw and leaned into folk. All the sounds were so organic and human, everyday things like the wind, snaps and even the sound of birds and chickens, the sounds of nature.”

Clocking in at 1 hour and 18 minutes, the world is transfixed by Beyoncé’s latest (and one of her longest) creations. And the reactions to Cowboy Carter prove that, once again, Queen Bey has a chokehold on the internet.

First starters, the internet can’t get over the research Beyoncé put into the album. From the Chitlin’ Circuit promo art, to using her nails to make music a la Dolly Parton and Pattie LaBelle, to using Western films to influence individual tracks on the album, Bey made sure to turn her art into a history lesson for fans.

Related:

Beyoncé’s ‘Cowboy Carter’ track list reveal is actually a history lesson

Beyoncé’s new confession about country music has her fans ready to fight

Fans were overjoyed by the collabs on the album. Bey gave Parton and Martell their flowers, found a way merge her powerhouse vocals while highlighting Post and Miley’s signature sounds, and reworked the Beatle’s track “Blackbiird,” a song in response to the Little Rock Nine incident, featuring four Black women in country: Tanner Adell, Brittney Spencer, Tiera Kennedy, and Reyna Roberts.

Speaking of Parton, Beyoncé’s cover of the country icon’s “Jolene” has fans searching for Parton’s nemesis and “Becky with the good hair” too.

Honestly, the internet can’t get enough of Cowboy Carter.

We’ll see you all at the rodeo this weekend.

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