Rolling Stone Names Beyonce's 'Cowboy Carter' Greatest Country Album Ever

by Julian Spivey

Photo: Columbia Records

 
Beyonce released her eighth solo studio album Cowboy Carter on Friday, March 29 to much acclaim.
The album, which has been labeled as “Beyonce’s Country Album,” features many types of sounds, including country, R&B, soul, house, funk, rock, pop and even opera.
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Despite being a veritable melting pot of different sounds and genres, Rolling Stone magazine made waves late Friday afternoon, less than 24 hours after the album’s release, by stating: “Beyonce has made the greatest country music album of all time.”

In a review, written by Ron Masekela, Cowboy Carter was hailed as the greatest achievement in the nearly 100-year history of the genre known as country music.

Masekela wrote: “Step aside Red Headed Stranger [Willie Nelson’s 1975 concept album], step aside Coal Miner’s Daughter [Loretta Lynn’s 1970 autobiographical album] and step aside all you Honky Tonk Heroes [referencing Waylon Jenning’s 1973 release], the Queen of Country Music (and We Don’t Mean Dolly Parton) has arrived.”  

Cowboy Carter was first hinted at on Super Bowl Sunday when Queen Bey was featured in a Super Bowl ad for Verizon, in which she said: “OK, they ready. Drop the new music” and the songs “Texas Hold ‘Em,” a country-pop dance number, and “16 Carriages,” an introspective ballad about growing up,” appeared on streaming sites.   

When the album was released on Friday it included interstitials by country legends Nelson, Parton and Linda Martell, who could’ve been country music’s first black female star had her 1970 album Color Me Country been better received within Nashville.

The album also included a reimagining of Parton’s 1973 country classic “Jolene,” in which Beyonce as the narrator is a bit more threatening toward the hussy trying to steal away her man.

Masekela said: “Much like what Whitney Houston did with Parton’s ‘I Will Always Love You,’ Beyonce has taken Parton’s original, breathed new and improved life into it and come out with a better version that could only make Parton weep, wishing she had an ounce of the talent Beyonce exudes.”

Cowboy Carter also includes a touching cover of The Beatles “Blackbird,” written by Paul McCartney, which Masekela called: “Absolutely transcendent. I’m not sure who this McCartney fellow is, but as long as he sticks with Beyonce he’s bound to go places.”

Beyonce doing country music has caused some consternation and controversy within the country music industry.

Within an hour of Masekela’s review dropping on RollingStone.com, the popular country music website Saving Country Music sent out a tweet or an X or whatever they’re calling it these days saying: “DEI, DEI, DEI. That’s all this is!”

When we attempted to reach Rolling Stone founder and longtime editor Jann Wenner, who had a major controversy in September of last year when he was quoted in a New York Times interview as stating “[black and female artists were] not in his zeitgeist” and later doubled down by saying “none of them were as articulate enough on this intellectual level,” about his creation labeling Beyonce’s album as the greatest country album of all time we simply received a one-sentence response: “Look how they massacred my boy.”