The Country Heart of Cowboy Carter

Who can force a nationwide conversation about musical genre for a whole damn month? Beyoncé can. And I knew I wanted to be several weeks into that discussion — and several weeks into my own relationship with the album — before I dove in myself. I also knew I wanted to talk about it with someone else with a similarly deep and ambivalent relationship with country music: the good, the white, the cold-beer-nation-building, all of it. So I was absolutely thrilled when Elamin Abdelmahmoud agreed to come on the show and engage in what he calls one of his favorite hobbies: “talking about Beyoncé at length.” You’re gonna love the show and you’re gonna love Elamin and it’s gonna make you think a lot more about Cowboy Carter, even if it’s not (yet) your fav. I can’t wait for your thoughts (and to argue more about Jolene in the comments).

Show Notes:

• Follow Elamin on Instagram and Twitter, and listen to his excellent show, Commotion (also read my interview with Elamin on Culture Study here from a few years ago here!)

• The episode of Into It with Sam Sanders and Tressie McMillan Cottom on country music and race

• A few of the country self-referential songs I mentioned: Tim and Faith, Damn Straight, She Had Me At Heads Carolina

• Watch Beyoncé and The Chicks perform at the 2016 CMAs (and also watch the crowd shots)

• Natalie Maines of The Chicks talked about the performance on The Howard Stern Show in 2020

• Elamin references Dr. Jada Watson’s studies on race in country music— check out “Redlining in Country Music: Representation in the Country Music Industry (2000-2020)” and the follow-up on representation in 2021 and 2022

• Read Doreen St. Félix’s piece in The New Yorker: “Beyoncé Won’t Burn Down the Barn with Cowboy Carter”

• Read Julianne Escobedo Shepherd’s review of the album for Pitchfork

• And just because it never gets old, revisit Miley Cyrus’s cover of “Jolene”

We’re currently looking for your questions for future episodes about:

• How we talk about the royals today (especially looking for some questions from people outside of the U.S. here!)

• The State Of The Food Blog in 2024

• Your strong opinions on things that, in the grand scheme, don’t matter much

• For our continuing series on romance novels: QUEER ROMANCE and ROMANCE BOOKSTORES

• The future of reality TV

• What’s the deal with JEANS right now (alternate title = Jeans: Help)

• The Contemporary Jennifer Lopez

• Ben Affleck (specifically within the framework of Ambition)

• The cultural force that is nostalgia (especially interested in how it functions in different generations)

• Anything you need advice on!

• You can submit them (and ideas for future eps) here (and here’s the subscriber-only priority form)

For today’s discussion: Which songs on Cowboy Carter are your favorite? What are your favorite references and throwbacks? And… is Jolene a skip?

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