Hey everyone, it's Anne. Just a heads up to the last part of our conversation. This is a 17-minute discussion about Beyonce's cover of Joleen and where we think Cowboy Carter will rank in her discography and why Alamine thinks that Joleen is the only skip on the album. This is exclusive to paid subscribers. So if you already know that you want to hear that, head to culturestudypod.substac.com and subscribe. I also just want to say that if you can swing it, a yearly subscription is so helpful for us as we try to figure out our
budget and continue to plan out the show. It's normally $50 for a year, but if you already subscribed to the Culture Study newsletter, you can add the podcast for just $30 a year. Just throwing that out there. Okay, on with the show.
Beyonce shows up at the CMAs and she's performing with the chicks. To any reasonable and rational person, you would think the stage is currently occupied by a lot of royalty. Perhaps I should be rising to my feet. Perhaps I should be celebrating the presence of Beyonce and the presence of the chicks and the presence of this combination in front of me. And what do the CMA do? But not much.
We're at the CMAs and like, yeah, the country music awards. I'm there kind of like, uh, who is this lady? Why is he here? I think there's a, I should be fair to the CMAs and say like a couple of people were quite excited by Beyonce's presence. But you wouldn't say that was a warm room for Beyonce. And at this point, she's already, you know, Beyonce with a capital B. And so it feels pointed. It feels like they're trying to say there are people who do this genre and belong in this genre.
And we're not really sure that you are one of them. Part of the reaction had to do with the chicks presence. Right? Who are persona? I'm doing the Latin plural here. Non-grata within the CMA for many different reasons. But most of all, just the like, it just excised from country history for daring to say they were ashamed of George Bush coming from Texas, right? Yeah. Yes. And so part of it, it's Beyonce on stage, but also having the gumption to invite the chicks on stage with her.
And when I was rewatching the clip this morning, I noticed how few cutaways there actually were. The camera stays very close. Yes. We don't want to make this complicated by showing it. It takes halfway through the performance before the first cutaway that I noticed to Miranda Lambert. Like, this is the inverse of Taylor Swift doing her like awkward, what person standing at every single performance.
This is important for this discussion because there is sort of like an award show watching grammar. You have to be familiar with in order to know how that performance was landing. And when you see Beyonce and the amount of attention that the crowd is getting during that, like when any performer is up at the Grammys, even if you don't know who they are at all, there are cutaways to people just jamming and vibing.
There are dozens of cameras in the room prepared to capture the most excited person. And you just don't get that in that room. You really think of the same as is like the most gatekeeper of country music shows. And then here were the people that are trying to keep out the gate on the stage. And the room is not having it. I'm Anne Helen Peterson and this is the Culture Study Podcast. I'm Ella Meadeb de Mahmoud. I'm a fan of country music first and foremost and I'm so excited to be here, pal.
What else do you do? Well, I professionally, I'm a country music listener, but for a living, for a living, I host a podcast called Commotion for CBC for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. So part of the reason I really wanted to have you on the show is because like me, you are a fan of country music. Like me, you are a fan of Beyonce. And I think there are a lot of people who can situate this album in a much more rigorous music college-est way.
But I want to have an interesting conversation about this album as a country album and screwing around with genre. And the idea that seems to be all over the place that this isn't a country album. Before we get into all of that, we have some established scaffolding. Should we go to the questions that listeners have and allow them to unpack some of these corners for us? I am so ready. Let's do this. Let's talk about Beyonce at length is one of my favorite hobbies. Let's do it.
It could do it forever. Yeah, 100% you could. Okay. Our first question is from Kelsey. This album feels academic to me. Like it's a thesis on country music. Much like Renaissance felt like a thesis on house music. It's clear Beyonce did the research and the reading. That since I'm not as familiar with country music as a genre, I'm curious about the references and influences that can be heard on the album, especially as it seems like she is drawing from a few different areas of country music.
So I totally agree. I was listening to it today and I was like, just Beyonce create her own syllabus. Does she collaborate with like musicologists to come up with the syllabus? Like how does she know everything to read and to know? You know, like she's drawing on so many different references and thoughts. Like, and she doesn't tell us. Like I want her to have like a process block. That's not Beyonce's style. That's not how she operates.
I love the idea of this record feeling like an academic record, like a work that is like to be mine to be engaged with and that way because like Beyonce is is is largely conceptual artist. She's been a conceptual artist for maybe the last 12 years or so. Since 2013. So when self title came out. Half of her career should have switched modes and becomes this larger conceptual artist. The albums are not albums. They're sort of explorations of ideas.
You know, you get self titled, which is like different explorations of the nuances of womanhood in that particular moment in her career. Lemonade explores all these nuances of marriage. You know, but then the two albums that people don't really talk about is like the gift, which is the accompanying album of the Lion King.
I honestly really recently revisited it. It's like a really beautiful meditation on paired head. I'm not going to say I listened to the Lion King album because I'm not out here trying to you know embarrass myself like that. But it has like these really gorgeous gorgeous moments. She did that album with Jay Z. Everything is love. Under the name the Carter's, you know, again, we try to forget about some of those moments.
But she's now, you know, in this Renaissance project. And to me, the Renaissance project is like, it's like a project of repatriation. It's a project of there are musical ideas that have been divorced from their history. And that is not going to sit well with Beyonce. So Beyonce is out here. You can sort of imagine her being like, nope, this belongs in my museum. Thank you. This belongs in my museum. Thank you.
And she's just taking all these ideas back. She does it for house and techno music, which has become like largely disembodied from its black history. And then with a single album, she manages to sort of recreate that history or sort of replace that history sort of upfront.
And then she says, I'm making this country album and everybody's like, oh, here we go. This is a big moment for country music. I think it's significant moment for country music because this conversation has been ongoing in the genre of country music before Beyonce arrived. And that's important to note. And then the album comes out.
And I think the album comes out and we don't get a straightforward country music album. There are plenty of songs. You're like, well, I've heard plenty of country music. This surely does not sound like this. There's no talk about cold beer in my hand. Not one beer in my hand reference. A bunch of horses though I gotta say more.
There are many words. This is so many words. And I think like the larger argument that she's making here is like, I think you can read this album. I think you can read cowboy Carter as like unsettling the sediment of American popular music. And sort of like uncover that the very root of it all is black music that created what we think of as country music. And she does all of this musically. She never does it lyrically. She's really not interested in like spilling it out for you.
It's like all the music sort of overlaying on top of each other having conversations with each other. The idea of, you know, a song the samples of beach boys. Yeah, the idea of a song that samples, you know, these boots are made for walking. Same song, right? Same song. That's right. That's what's interesting.
It's doing something very, very interesting. You know, even the very opening of the record, you know, she sort of tells us in American Requiem. There's a lot of talking going on in a style that is like she's, she's sampling with her voice for what it's worth by Buffalo Springfield, which is a protest song. Like this, that's a protest song about genre and the history of genre and how genre got us to this place.
And then segueing into Blackbird. Exactly. Yeah. Exactly. Into a cover of Blackbird. That is like, it's interesting that it's a cover that is bringing forth a new generation of young Black women to also sing with her. She's recalling the history of Blackbird, which Paul McCartney has talked about a billion times as this song that is about the little rock nine that is like about a history of civil rights in the South.
Again, like that song has been divorced from those conversations. I think most people think of Blackbird and go, a pretty song with a bird. They think about it like as the same as like here comes the sun or something. It's exactly right. Yeah. Which is like, it's not part of the nature collection of the Beatles actually. It's a part of the, it's part of a deeper, a deeper and more meaningful more nuanced history of the Beatles.
And for her to sort of say, this is a song that I will sort of feature these Black women on that in itself is a significant statement. Beyonce knows how to talk a lot without talking. She can create psychodrama. She can create conversations in your head. And that's her artistry is like, making you think about two ideas by juxtaposing them next to each other.
While trying to make a record that is like semi competitive, let's try to get on the charts and in fact into, you know, go into number one. So that's that's part of what makes her, you know, the greatest living artist in popular music right now.
You know, I think that she does something that is really hard to pull off, which is to make a text that is you can unpack it in so many different ways, right? Like it rewards, re listening and like going very academic into all of the different footnotes and references and everything that she's sampling.
But it also works even if you don't do that right. And that's always a challenge like a remember the reading James Joyce in college. Yeah. And professors being like, oh my gosh, it's so incredible right. And like it does become incredible once you understand like this is referencing this to do with this piece of Irish history and all that sort of thing.
And I love coming to understand and appreciate the work in that way. But I don't think that. And this is I don't know controversial joystick. I don't think it works when you don't know those things right. And just like I think that sometimes like William Faulkner like some these things fall apart. If you don't have the tools to read them. But I think with Beyonce, she's doing both things at once. And that's what makes her a popular genius like she's operating in both of these registers.
She's coming to you as a historian and an archivist who can say, here are all the tools you need to understand how we got to this musical moment. You can do the thing that people do when they engage with pop music and go like, this is fun and I want to dance. Or you can go, this is history. This is a library and I'm going to spend my time trying to figure out and to code all the connections and the ways that these ideas are engaging with each other.
And the fact that it works in both dimensions is not easy at all. I say this as one of many people who have tried to like, you know, write the vegetables into a popular story. Like, yeah, like all artists, all writers all creators try to do this. I need you to understand this thing about this larger idea. But also it should be fun to read it engaging and and so many times people are like, I'm just here to dance, buddy.
And Beyonce's like, if you're to dance, that's cool. Get on the dance floor. But if you want to do some history, maybe spend five minutes looking into why I made this choice and not 100 other choices. The other thing that I would recommend for anyone listening is to check out there's an episode of Sam Sanders podcast into it about the whiteness of country music. And he has on Tressie McMillan cotton, who is one of my favorite scholars and also a country music fan.
Yes. And they talk about the history, the black history of country music, how country music was disarticulated like hillbilly music was disarticulated from quote unquote race music. And how like what we think of as contemporary country evolved from that decision. And there's this great moment where Tressie points out that like the standards of country music today. Like how incredibly white, straight and masculine it is. Like no, no other industry would people be like, that's chill.
And in fact, it's getting, in fact, it's getting worse. That's what's actually like, incredible country music is that like even with all the people pointing at all these problems in any other industry, you have the industry go like, oh, maybe you should have value. We should have a reckoning, right?
Yeah, never reckoning. There's a doctor, a doctor, she's not a doctor. She is an academic doctor, data Watson love doctor data and what she does is sort of look at, you know, years and years and years of the data of country radio and country charts and who the country music industry is elevating.
And y'all the diversity in country is getting worse. Like that's, it's incredible to know that there's, there's never been more diverse, you know, a number of people making country music. And there's been, you know, fewer and fewer opportunities for those people to get recognized. And then into that whole mess comes Beyonce cratering in. And she forces like, I think a conversation that's like on at least a slightly higher decibel level.
Yeah, there's a great review and pitchfork by Julian Escobar Escobaro. Yes, where she points out like what Beyonce has done with this record is force an ongoing conversation about what is country. So even if you think this isn't country, she is force like she has wedged this conversation into the national conversation. And like that is power, right? Like that is power. Let's have a genre conversation for months. Like, wow.
And it's with the very opening words of this record, right? Like nothing really ends for things to say the same they have to change again. Like she is again signaling of the idea of genre, something that has remained. Like to me, this album is a protest album against the concept of genre and how the idea of genre has become, you know, like a microcosm of or corollary of racism in general.
The way that, you know, genre operates is actually the same way that institutional racism operates. The same mechanisms that keep certain people confined to certain genres, I suppose other genres. And people maybe don't think enough about genre right now because, you know, you kind of go like, why listen to this genre and this genre, but like literally music is divided into this way, right?
Like your radio stations on your dial are separated by a genre, like every sort of, you know, every way that you engage with music is a little bit separated by genre. This is all a product of that racism that you're talking about. The thing that you mentioned earlier, the division between race records and hillbilly records.
And that's because of a man named Ralph Peer who, you know, went to the American South and he was like, oh, I shall dub these people making hillbilly music. They're white people because it'll be easier to sell the white audiences. And then we'll sell race records to black audiences. And literally that is the birth of the modern genre.
It is a product of capitalism and racism coming together. And I don't know a lot of people who are rooting for capitalism and racism let alone a let alone a love child of those two forces. But that's how we organize music. And so when Beyonce makes this record and she has someone like Linda Martell, who, again, if you see the name Linda Martell show on this album, you go, I don't know who that is.
And then you're going to have to look at the first black woman to play the Granola opera. And then she was largely written out of history. We're in a bit of a moment of recognizing Linda Martell and her contributions right now, which is great. But for a long, long time, we didn't recognize what she gave to us.
And then we're going to have a, hey, John was kind of a funny little concept. It's a little silly actually feels extra powerful, but also the kind of detail that you can very easily miss because you're on your way to listening to spaghetti or your way to listen to yaya. And you're like, let's go. I want a party. Beyonce, can I just get to my body moving?
Right. But she says it like it's right there. And it's not even like, oh, it's in the liner notes or whatever. Like you need to listen to Linda Martell saying genre is a funny little concept.
Like, oh, maybe you should think again about what you're thinking about whether this is or isn't country. Okay. So we have a question that explicitly calls this out that I think we'll give you and I a little bit of a chance to talk about contemporary country and and where this fits. So this comes from Alison. I love Beyonce's new album, but why do a number of the songs not feel country to me? I've been racking my brain as to what defines country and mostly come down to I know it when I hear it.
I realize she winks at this at the beginning of spaghetti, but I would love a musical analysis of what we generally equate with country music and what Beyonce does in cowboy Carter that breaks some of those expectations. And how all that interplays with race because I'm sure it does. So love that question. Yes, such a good question. I was listening to the reaction episode of switched on pop to this album. And both of them.
Their reaction was like, this isn't country. It's something more interesting and and I get that reaction. And I think we see a lot of that. But I actually think this album sounds really country to me because country is much more expansive than I think most people understand, especially if they're not super familiar with country.
If you've only heard some Dixie chicks, some Toby Keith, maybe some Tim McGraw, some Garth Brooks, like 90s country and then maybe some like what I think of as like contemporary he ha country, which is like what's his name who's on the voice who's my Blake Shelton, like that style. And I'm not even talking about like all country, which is super expansive in so many different directions, like contemporary country top 40 country, often sounds like R&B. Right? Like there are so many different.
Like there's trap music in country music right now. There's rap in country music. Yeah, they sure is. That would say two things. One, the idea of what's country what's not country has been a central pillar of country music conversation since time in memorial. That is like a pure function of how we talk about country music.
Shania Twain wasn't considered country when she first came up because they were like, hey, these drums, they sound a lot like the guy from deaf leopard because guess what produced by the same dude. And so people are like, no, no, I don't know what this is, but it sure can't qualify as country we're not going to allow this.
There is something about country music that is kind of regularly like a forest fire, you know, we kind of like burn a little part and go like, no, this will not be allowed to be country music. And then what grows there is something that is borrowing elements of country music in order to push the genre forward.
There's sort of a continual sort of renewal within country. And then the other thing about it is that I think part of the thesis of this record is saying you have been lied to your whole life. If you think that country music is this certain set of characteristics.
If you think that country music is like has these limitations because the only times that country music has been allowed to expand is when it is financially, you know, profitable for giant record companies that control radio, that control, you know, which artists get promoted, which artists do not get promoted.
So when you listen to Morgan Wallen and you're listening to the snap drums on a Morgan Wallen record, you're like, these are explicitly hip hop snap drums like they are directly borrowed from hip hop for the last 10 years or so 11 years or so, the cadences of how so many artists in country music,
and everything have just been like little R&B runs on top of guitar licks country music has been allowed to be expansive. It's a matter of who's not allowed to be included in that expansion. And I think like Beyonce is trying to say if you if this is a borrow from other genres in order to expand itself as a commercial enterprise, I think we need to get back to the artistic enterprise which is to say it's also like to be expansive. And that's just from a purely sort of functional point of view.
I think like I think Beyonce is trying to make an argument of saying you've been lied to a little bit if you think like like hey country music to me is like Trisha Yearwood because it is and I love Trisha Yearwood and I write for her every day.
And I think that the music is also allowed to be a sort of a wider definition of all these artists who are kind of challenging the sonic palette by saying, you know what, I'm going to borrow from all these ideas that exist in country music but also push it forward. But most memorable example that I can think of of this is Casey Musgraze album Golden Hour because Golden Hour is an album that is like it's purely sort of genre bending, genre blending exercises.
And she has songs on there that are like, what if country but like disco drums? What would that sound like? You know, what if country music but like actually we made it like really sad and fokin some parts but then also like immediately paired it with like what you recognize is like really sort of big pop music mechanics.
And to me like Beyonce is trying to say I've been watching and you as if not been really limiting who gets to call themselves country except for certain people. And so I'm now sort of admitting myself into this canon as well. Well, and here's the thing country music is obsessed with itself. And I mean that like it is so incredibly self referential right now on if you listen to contemporary country you will hear songs that are about like a song that is about George straight.
And so that is a song that is explicitly about Tim McGraw and Faith Hills love for one another right correct a song that is about finding someone in a bar who is listening to a 90s country song. And it reworks that country song as the song right I think you're referring to a head Carolina tails California.
And so it's been like recently reworked to say like oh actually like she had me at head Carolina which is to say you know like this guy's like just shows a bit of bar and then she started singing the song and I you know for her karaoke song and he fell in love with her. But he uses the chorus of the original song to say this right.
So for a for an additional is you know is country music bread and butter so not only is Beyonce doing this with cowboy Carter right there are so many different ways that she is referencing country music but she's also expanding the palette. Yes to be like oh I can do that too but also maybe you miss a couple people like isn't it interesting.
How is that you're right exactly I also saw like sounds should have been like somewhat obvious to include but that have not you know have not made it to the mainstream yet like I think of the beginning of tyrant for example and you hear that fiddle and then the fiddle gets a trap drum immediately I'm like okay so we've just invented fiddle trap let's go I'm ready for many artists to explore the sound river dance which is one of my favorite songs on this record is just like taking.
Old Irish a riff of old Irish folk music and be like what if a house beat on this then what you know yeah and again that's how a genre moves forward it sort of borrows from the moment to say to recast itself is something new and in that way that's about as country as you can get is trying to
try to take something from the past and saying this is how it speaks to right now I think country music is very discursive in that way and I think like a lot of other genres don't have that quality and I think I really love be also contribution to that dimension. She also we should just for people who are like I think most people know a lot of the very obvious references but like there's a moment where she does a bit of patty clients I fall to pieces which I just love she does this duet.
She does this duet with Miley Cyrus who also very interesting country artist right and also has like a place in the country music lineage she's dolly pardons goddaughter she has a very famous cover of Jolene and then we haven't talked about yet. I love that you just didn't mention she's a daughter of country royalty.
And then there's the fact that she also has like the explicit I don't know like the blessing of both dolly parten and Willie Nelson who play prominently in the various interstitials and I love how she does like this play on like the crackly country music and radio with with with well in us and as your house but even that like the way that it moves through that is like so interesting because
you hear these snippets and you and you again those snippets can move past you pretty quickly like I don't know this interstitials doing here but if you slow down to pay enough attention like you got like blues legend sunhouse followed by you know sister Rosetta Tharp you know followed by you know I think it was like Roy Hamilton that you hear in there you hear Chuck Berry like again she's saying the history of American popular music that is being introduced to you by people like Willie Nelson rests on the music.
And I think like Willie Nelson as a choice is interesting to me because Willie Nelson is very old and I don't mean this you know in a in a dramatic way literally mean he would have been alive while he exactly right he would have been alive all these people were working he would have been alive during the segregation of black artists and white artists from one another I think having him as a link is a very explicit choice of like the people that you hold up for the music.
You hold up now the people are on your mount rush more of country music now they remember this history you should take their word for it because if you're not going to take my word for it so like it's it's like the ultimate you know what you're trying to get keep me I'm going to bring you the guy who actually built this entire house because his endorsement means everything in this moment.
He talked a little bit about how what's the lead single. I went to the top yeah how went to the top of the charts right in the first time for a black artist who isn't Tracy Chapman being covered by the combs.
Black woman specifically oh yeah. Darius Rucker has had some hits he's had a few hits here in there. I was going to say that I think the country music like mainstream country music uses Darius Rucker as like we can't be racist we got hoody right there's there's a long history of country music being like well there can be one yeah one per generation and you know for a while Darius was that guy you know I think they hide a little bit behind came brown for example you know and for little while Jimi.
Alan before that the the long history of like everything that Charlie Pride gave us a Charlie Pride extraordinary career countries black for a superstar is a very well earned moniker but for some time country was like well there's one so why would we have to act on you know introducing another one there is sort of a complacency within the structures of country music there.
But sorry you were going to you were going to talk about I was going to ask you if you have heard Texas hold them on the radio because I listen to Canadian radio here on the border nice love this for me J.R. country 93.7 coming out of Vancouver. I love it it is that my favorite country station I've ever listened to and I have listened to many and because it lacks most if not all of the ideological positioning that comes out of most US country.
I know that there's stuff still like I'm not trying to country. I think this or what like they you know they will error PSA is about like restitution payments for indigenous schools and they will advertise gay Pride events which is something that you would very rarely if ever see on it in a United States. I love I love learning this about you that you listen to Canadian country radio that's that's a that's a delight to me.
It's on the dial it's on which is the best place to listen to country music is in car. 100% that's correct. Well you might not know though is that like Canada has what we call can con regulations which means that radio stations after I mean all radio stations have to play a minimum of 35% Canadian music. So you might get a lot of Canadian country. So you're being exposed to a lot of Canadian music but it's not at all you know you'd be like I don't know what the refer into.
It's so good and it's not just Shania like it's like here's this new Canadian artist it's so great. Oh yeah country is big here in the sense that we have a lot of people who create country and it's like it has own little ecosystem is the best. What I was going to say is that when the album single first came out they played it and they said and I was like oh geez they said text in your reactions.
And I remember I was driving into down and it's like oh gosh we're going to go as well and apparently they said 50 50 for and against and they read some I'm sure that there was some. Racist stuff that came in that they opted not to say not to show but they just said like some people are like I'm digging it I like it sounds like some other country and then some people are like I just don't know what I don't like about it and I'm like.
Do you want to maybe investigate that feeling a little bit more because I truly like Texas hold them is a soft pitch down the middle I mean this is this is a song that is like if you're not going to play this then I don't know what you're going to play.
Because you there's no reason for you not to play this it fits within everything you know that you do but even then like the choices that she's making that song which has two Canadian writers on which is incredible she also has rean and get ins on the banjo on that rean and get ins you know what the most respected artists in Americana at the moment and it's her that's her on the banjo and like it's such a delight if you know we're rean and get ins is to see that this is the voice and the sound the Beyonce's choosing to play with it's great.
Yeah so if you heard it on the radio I have not heard on the radio that's because I mostly listen to my music I'm not going to lie to you I'm so sorry to country radio listeners I when I when I'm out of the city I tend to listen to radio but when I'm in the city I'm kind of I got a lot of playlist pal you know yeah I mean you're much more sophisticated listener I go between the country music station and then the top 40 also from Vancouver radio station and also it's strong choices that's strong choices being made love this.
Okay so now we're going to have a whole conversation on Jolene which will be exclusive to our page subscribers so if you desperately need to hear our hot takes on whether or not Beyoncé's cover of Jolene is a skip had over to culture study pod dot sub stack dot com. So I mean this was such a pleasurable fantastic conversation and I hope listeners also felt that way. Oh my God thank you for having me to talk about Beyoncé at length one of my favorite hobbies in the world and country and country.
Yeah these are the two things I love you know Beyoncé country music combined together and then we just get to talk as long as we want about it that's amazing. Where can people find more of you on the internet in their podcast feed if they want to.
If you must come find me I am no please do I would like to be perceived I really like attention on Instagram at Elimine ELAN my show is called commotion you find commotion with Elimine up to my mood you can find it wherever you get your podcast and on Twitter I'm very sorry just to be tweeting I don't mean to be this way. But unfortunately I am while I'm deep programming myself to do that I'm on Twitter at Elimine 88 ELAN88 that's it that's me buddy amazing thank you so much.
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