The Collegio Pittsburg's student voice since 1916
Megan Brownell social media editor
On Mar 29, Beyonce released part two to her Renaissance album, Cowboy Carter. This album instantly was showing a switch to country, a newer take for Beyonce.
Quickly, the album already has hit the billboard charts, with three songs in the top ten. ‘Texas Hold Em,’ as a single hit the charts first and peaked at number one for two weeks. When the full album came out, it shot back up to number two after dropping to number 11. The other two songs were ‘II Most Wanted’ featuring Miley Cyrus shooting up to number six, and her cover of the famous Dolly Parton song, ‘Jolele’ came in at number seven. The album went to number one on the Billboard hot 200, being her eighth album to achieve this.
The album overall was kind of interesting, it went through almost all sections, different kinds of songs in each. I noticed this as I loved the first few songs, which almost shocked me about how much I loved it already since I am not a huge country person. Then it was like a quick switch, one song from another, different and the next few songs after that followed the same vibes.
This huge 27 track list album starts with ‘Ameriican Requiem’. This is right when I started to love the vibes of this album. And it surely did shock me. As I said before, I am not a big fan of country music. I don’t know why, but I have just never enjoyed it. Listening to it felt like I was listening to a different type of country I had not been introduced to yet, and I liked it. This wasn’t an album I wanted to get up and dance to; it was one I imagined lying in bed and taking all the music in.
From this first sort of ‘section’ came my favorite song, ‘16 Carriages’. I really enjoyed this song. It was written so beautifully, and Beyonce sounds amazing in it. It felt like an empowering song that I want to keep listening to and enjoy even more.
Beyonce also did two covers on this album, ‘Blackbird’ by the Beatles and ‘Jolene’ by Dolly Parton. I loved her cover of blackbird. She added her own personal little zest, and I loved it, she sounded incredible, and I loved hearing the song in a female voice as well. ‘Jolene’ was good, but not as good as blackbird in my opinion.
Something I found different and interesting, was she had a few 30 second speeches from Willie Nelson, Dolly Parton, and Linda Matrell that separated out these different ‘sections’ of the music. Listening to the album and not expecting it threw me off a little bit, but it was an interesting take that I enjoyed the idea of.
After listening to the whole album, I think with Beyonce leaning into more countries she tried out a few different kinds of countries, which gives us the different ‘sections. With that, I think with my disinterest in country this is why I did not really enjoy the other sections of the album. I loved the first section, and a few songs in the last I enjoyed as well.
Overall, though, it saddens me to give it a 6/10. I had so much hope in the beginning, but thankfully the end showed me some more that I could enjoy for my typical music taste. I for sure want to continue listening to the tracks I do enjoy, because those alone are a 10/10 and I look forward to getting to know those lyrics more.