By Charlie Gainor, Staff Writer

Invention, thy name is Beyoncé.

Over her illustrious music career, 42-year-old superstar Beyoncé has gone through what has felt like countless eras of genre reconstruction and in the process established her own Midas touch. From pop-R&B fusion to feminist rock to infectious modern dance, everything she has touched has turned to gold. So when the Queen of Music journeyed into country music with her album COWBOY CARTER, fans like myself were more surprised by how she dropped her singles through her own Super Bowl commercial than by the genre shift itself.

Going into this album, the second act of Beyoncé’s three-album project following RENAISSANCE, I once again had any and all expectations and preconceived notions shattered. This album is so, so many things that labeling it as a “country album” is reductive in itself. COWBOY CARTER, like all of Beyoncé’s grand experiments, is something so explosively Beyoncé that the genre label fails to size up to it. 

Beyoncé’s music has always felt anti-genre — by that I mean taking the boundaries that come with a genre and smashing them with the snap of her fingers. Going through this album front to back takes you places you never expect to go. You could go from the charming, positively rootin-tootin hoedown anthem of “TEXAS HOLD ‘EM” to a mournful operatic ballad in “DAUGHTER” to a startlingly modern trap turn-up song in “SPAGHETTII” to a feminist reimagining of Dolly Parton’s “JOLENE.” Beyoncé has been the pinnacle of fearlessness in the modern music world, one focused on defining and clarifying what constitutes a genre. This is perhaps her most overt statement that she is above all that — Beyoncé is her own genre.

But perhaps most importantly, COWBOY CARTER is far and away Beyoncé’s most personal album. Following the release of the two lead singles in February, Beyoncé took to Instagram to announce the album title, saying, “This album has been over five years in the making. It was born out of an experience that I had years ago where I did not feel welcomed…and it was very clear that I wasn’t.” COWBOY CARTER features some of Beyoncé’s deepest cuts into her life, with songs like “16 CARRIAGES” detailing her childhood and “PROTECTOR” being an ode to her own children and motherhood. There are some truly breathtaking moments on this album, either through production or Beyoncé’s vocals, that make the personal threads in the composition of this project stand out even more.

However, despite the genre-bending ambition and passion imbued into the stories told, this album is not perfect. COWBOY CARTER is a monstrous 78 minutes, and I felt every single minute of the length. This album maintained a striking contrast to its 62-minute predecessor where the seductively catchy beats can make a listen-through feel like a breeze. That’s not to say that all good albums should feel like the easiest listen in the world, but the illustrious ballads and deep-cutting personal reveries pile on quick, and the lack of instrumental variation in the final section of the album leading up to the finale began to exhaust me more than anything else. At the end of the day, COWBOY CARTER is undeniably a deeply valuable masterpiece, but it is a lengthy listen that demands your undivided attention.

But the highs of this album stand with the very best of Beyoncé’s discography. “TEXAS HOLD ‘EM” is already becoming a household name in modern country, “DAUGHTER” has one of the most impressive vocal performances in Beyoncé’s entire career, “YA YA” empowered me in a way that only Beyoncé could and “AMEN” is a finale that gave me nothing but chills. Even though the weight of this album is heavier than ever before, Beyoncé always brings the witty, sexy and confident energy that  breathes life into every song she touches. And that unfailing charm uplifts this album  in parts where lesser artists would have failed.

I absolutely love this album. COWBOY CARTER feels like a personal victory that directly confronts the whitewashed elitism and racism ingrained in the country music industry and wraps the most of Beyoncé we’ve ever received. While RENAISSANCE will likely always stand as my favorite album from Beyoncé, the powerful moments she brings to life alongside the sheer ability this album has to change the landscape of country music makes COWBOY CARTER absolutely worth a listen. Now, we wait patiently for the Queen of Music’s next great invention.