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3.8/5

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Beyonce brings in second act of cowboy carter – but the country-tinged theme hangs on by a thread.

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Worth an estimated $540 million (£461 million) with eight studio albums to her name alone, the bonafide superstar has become so much a staple name in our 21st Century culture, that she can pretty much do whatever the hell she wants at this point.

Despite the animosity one can have when you dabble in country as an outsider (especially being a self-made millionaire), Beyonce has garnered a community-spirited project that is both genre-fluid as it is expansive in style and sound. Wheeling in golden legends of Willie Nelson and Dolly Parton to do some spoken word interludes to almost give the genre traditionalists some assurance that it is really okay to not be boxed in to a genre’s definition.

Linda Martell, the first Black woman to perform at the pinnacle of country music, also weighs in on the topic of music elitism via the record, “Genres are a funny little concept, aren’t they? Yes they are. In theory, they have a simple definition that is easy to understand. But in practice, well, some may feel confined.”

If there’s one artist that doesn’t feel confined to anything and anyone, it’s Beyonce.

COWBOY CARTER is not a traditionally Country and Western record. But then again, I don’t think it’s trying to be. Opener AMERIICAN REQUIEM is a pop purist address to the nation with Beatles’-esque worldly instrumentals, while latter SPAGHETTI is a nutty hip-hop letting-out. YA YA is a soul-influenced trope that can be heard in Beyonce’s work as early as Destiny’s Child, while II HANDS II Heaven leans on the house music backdrop that first in trilogy RENAISSANCE delved heavily in.

It’s an album very much not confined to the parameters of a genre’s definition, that much is certain.The album treads a wafer-thin line of a country album with many songs featuring heavy acoustic swathes, swooning vocals that are categoric in delivery and dark piano notes. You are reminded throughout on occasions that the idea is country when moments of drinking whiskey, sitting in the saddle and driving through Texas are thrown in.

Truth be told, the results are varying in success. Perhaps it didn’t need to be strewn over 27 tracks to get the message across, but you can’t say you’re not getting your Beyonce worth for her next “ah, throw that in there too” era.

The tribute covers of Blackbird and Jolene are a nice reflection on the fact that nothing is as big as the music (not even Beyonce) and there’s moments of real beauty in here.

Above else, it’s a telltale sign that Queen Bey holds the directory for our music’s future. Whether you like it or not.