There’s a New Queen at the Rodeo
Rita Cynder said “Good girls are made of sugar and spice, cowgirls are made of whiskey on ice.” That’s a description you might apply to Beyonce’s new album Cowboy Carter. By now, there have been all sorts of laurels thrown at her new work, including dramatic adjectives like “redefining”. The reviews are almost in a universal agreement that this is nothing short of a pinnacle of modern country music in America. Of course, whenever I see reviews like that, it stirs a bit of a doubt. Apart from God, no one is flawless, and look at what he came up with: a huge intergalactic soup where a tiny little species called humans thinks it all started with them.
I’m not religious so you know I’m joking. Though hubris is one of those labels that stick when it comes to us. You might say, I’m not a part of the target audience. This is equally true of musicians like Beyonce, Taylor Swift or Katy Perry. Millenials put the roots of their taste into music much before any of these entered the playlists and much before streaming was even a concept. That usually means we had Madonna on our playlists since Like a Virgin and know how to use a Walkman. But we’re still in the era of New Vinyl. Billie Eilish announced her new LP will be a sustainable product.
While it is certainly true that Beyonce’s having a huge impact on the cultural landscape of the West and cashing on it abundantly, her artistic merits are peripheral to the big picture when it comes to comtemporary music industry. In her essence, just like the aforementioned ladies, she’s primarily a lucrative brand that’s branching out into everything where there’s potential for profit. It’s a carefully curated operation that’s all about celebrating an idea or trend without being a part of the original narrative. Her foray into country music hence is primarily a smart business move.
Through my own lens, it isn’t really about how she does something, but why and what it means for her because even in her own words, this isn’t about country music but herself (“it’s a Beyonce album”). Just another niche she still hasn’t stuck her flag in. The same goes for other American celebrities. They experiment with things beneficial to their brand. I’m not inventing the wheel here. It was Madonna who did it: with her controversies, the cone bra, the Sex book and burning crucifixes. It was the very definition of risky and triggered a reaction from the Catholic Church.
In the sanitized cultural climate of modern America, there’s no way mainstream-friendly acts like Beyonce would go the full monty like this. She’ll suggest something saucy, but she’ll never show it. This isn’t any kind of shade on the American superstar but rather a diagnosis of what the industry has turn into. Even Lady Gaga, who famously mistook a steak for a fascinator, is walking on the safe side of the rope between suggestive and scandalous. Don’t even get me started on Sinead O’ Connor’s little performance with the Pope’s photo which drove her career off the cliff.
I can’t possibly imagine the star of Cowboy Carter doing that. We live in an age where the platform on which celebrities operate is so big it requires a whole management team to avoid any inappropriate bumps in the road. Cancel culture has reached highs that put even Mc Carthy’s notorious witch hunts to shame. More money is pumped into damage control PR than music. Don’t even get me started about contradictions where anthems like Girls (Run the world) are primarily written by men. Whatever the message may be, it’s just the facilitator of the financial transaction between the consumer and the label. And there’s the goldmine called merchandise.
Whatever it is: clothes, cosmetics or accessories, it sells. Their name on a moisturizer jar is the cash grab. I hardly believe they prefer their drugstore-priced skincare brand over high-end stuff with a four-figure pricetag. A payday only turns into poop if it turns out to be anything but ethical, sustainable and cruelty-free. Brands like L’Oreal can’t boast with this, but they’re hardly trying to and I appreciate it. The thing standing between you and a caviar serum isn’t ethics, but your wallet. You know it just as well as I do. Heritage brands peel off layers of credibility built over decades through collabs with celebrities. No wonder quiet luxury is a thing again when you see Pharrell’s yellow million dollar bag for Louis Vuitton.
For her country debut, Beyonce famously did a cover of Dolly Parton’s hit Jolene. Unlike the Italian band Maneskin, this was a massacre that twisted the original narrative. Her girlboss persona doesn’t beg women to stay away from her man like Parton in the original. No, you don’t mess with this biatch. She doesn’t let anything stand in the way between her and the object of her desire. Parton endorsed it, and why wouldn’t she? Maybe she decided it would be beneficial for her brand too. The kitschy leather Stetson from Versace is like a crown: there’s a new queen at the rodeo and it’s Beyonce. Like it or not, that’s the verdict of Billboard charts.
Or at least, that’s how it’s going to be until her bulldozer decides to invade an another territory. Maybe it will be American native music? Polynesian Maori? Australian Aborigines? No one is safe any more. Jamiroquai caught some flack for wearing Native American feather crowns. But he’s a white dude from Europe whose success in the US doesn’t come close to what Beyonce is doing. Though Gwen Stefani was attacked for using Harajuku as a gimmick, I doubt the same would happen to Queen Bey, because of the roots of country music as such. Curiously, Madonna’s geisha costume from Nothing Really Matters didn’t really raise nearly as much noise as I’d have expected but that was in the 1990s.
Pairing up with big names from other genres is nothing particularly inventive: Pharrell and The Weeknd paired up with Daft Punk, Julio Iglesias with Whitney Houston. There was Madonna with Justin Timberlake and Lady Gaga with Beyonce. The duets are sometimes great, so what’s not to like. But, again, it’s not about the how but the why. It’s understood an A-list wouldn’t invite a B-list artist in need of a career revival to their platform. It does sometimes happen, but those are usually B-list only in the American market. Slimane is an R’n’B superstar in France, but I don’t think he’s big in the USA. Someone like Usher or Stevie Wonder might be a good match.
There’s no brand without a loyal fan base and that’s the foundation on which the success of Cowboy Carter was built. Her fans will chastise anyone trying to downplay its value and I wouldn’t be surprised if the comment section here would be littered with haters but I don’t care. My turf, my rules. It’s the one advantage I have over celebrities: my tweets don’t come with the same ramifications like Beyonce’s. She duitfully follows the lead of her fan base: it’s unlikey too many of those vote Republican, otherwise she wouldn’t be endorsing Democrats like Hillary Clinton. Luckily, it turned out that for better or worse, the voting booth is one of the few places her power of persuation doesn’t extend to.
All of this isn’t about her as a person. I don’t really care too much for that. Her persona though is something completely different. Music is only one of the many parts it’s made of. There’s movies like Dreamgirls, or the band Destiny’s Child. Still, the Spice Girls will always be my favourite girl supergroup when it comes to pop music. Her fans keep reminding us how preposterous it is that she still hasn’t won a Grammy for the album of the year. Kanye West invaded the stage to protest during Taylor Swift’s acceptance speech at the VMA in 2009. Now that awards are slowly losing the credibility they once had, it doesn’t really matter. There are important movie makers like Hitchcock who were only granted an honorary Oscar.
One thing is for sure. What she never fails to do is attract attention without sex tapes or controversial political statements. You could compare it to stevia. Very sweet yet good for your teeth, unlike the average candy. She might be bathing in a tub full of Don Perignon, but it’s likely alcohol-free. The perfect fit for 21st century America, or at least the part Democrats aren’t ashamed of. New projects are in the pipeline and I have no doubt they’ll be equally redefining. But if it only takes a magic touch from hit factory to do it, the value of the original is questionable. Dolly Parton’s Jolene is such an influential track for a reason. The hill where any country artist worth the name goes to die or thrive. In any case, you be the judge.
