Beyoncé’s ‘Cowboy Carter’ Is a Sprawling, Endlessly Entertaining Tour de Force: Album Review

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic What does “going country” mean to Beyoncé — musically speaking? That’s a mystery that really had to wait until this week to be solved. We’d already picked up a good idea of what country means to her culturally, in her few public statements in advance of “Act II: Cowboy Carter,” amplified in the one trillion thinkpieces published during the last two months, many of which really did help spur a vital conversation about Black exclusion and reclamation in one of America’s most important indigenous artforms.

But now “Cowboy Carter” is in front of us as a real piece of music, not just a conversation piece. So what does what might already be the most talked-about album of the 21st century actually sound like? It sounds pretty magnificent, if a short answer is required.

But if it’s genre we all really want to get into, “Cowboy Carter” sounds kinda country, and kinda not — in a way that feels wholly country. Because what is modern country music if not a cornucopia that’s a long way past being defined by a single sound? “Act II” feels a lot like a 27-course meal, difficult to describe in whole, but endlessly easy to digest, serving by serving.

There are moments throughout where she’s embracing the tropes and traditions of country as we’ve known it, and just as many where you’re thinking she decided to abandon the concept, until suddenly Willie Nelson or Dolly Parton pop up for one of their intermittent spoken cameos, or there’s a fleeting Patsy Cline interpolation, and suddenly she’s veered back into C&W mode again. No one will mistake this sprawling set for ever following a straight path, or having a remotely dull moment.