Just Because A Thing Sounds Good In Theory Doesn’t Mean That It’s Necessary
Sometimes, it’s only right that the ‘why’ trumps the ‘what’.
FOLK WISDOM, by definition, isn’t conclusively ironclad. The proof is in the handy somewhattruisms humankind has long been socialised into accepting as gospel, the most unwi ingly misleading of which, for me, is “Necessity is the mother of invention”. It’s true but not true; it paints a picture, but it doesn’t bulletproof it from tampering by placing it in a glass-fronted frame. What I’m crescendoing towards is this: We the people do not and will not need a country/countrytinged/country-chased/ country-anything album by the great and esteemed Beyoncé Knowles-Ca er.
Dear reader, I’m not taking gratuitous shots at Bey or her hive, or idly poking at her near-flawless oeuvre as some obnoxious display of self-impo ant contrarianism. This perilous a empt at truthtelling only has one aim, that of a iculating why, as the owner of my ears and eyes, I cannot join the caravan of stans and celebrate her recent countrydoused full-length LP COWBOY CARTER (emphasis hers) as a glorious and resounding cultural expression whose very existence is a fount for the teeming revelations it is engineered to inspire.
Beyoncé, topped with a white cowboy hat and dressed in a red-white-and-blue bodysuit and white boots, astride a grey-white galloping
steed and holding a goldfringed American flag, is the image that literally adorns the album. The whole thing is offered up as a critiqueproof, conversation-sta ing, history-interrogating, coursecorrecting experience whose existential audacity is as unequivocal as the force of its execution. It’s so highly tempting to say that all this is fine, that the very intentional and emphatic placement of Black voices within the larger corpus of American musics such as country is a commendable unde aking by a popstar, whose chops and a istry are beyond singular and cannons enriching.
The ‘why’ — that’s where the fumble is. Unlike the case for Michael Jordan’s baseball career, The Matrix Resurrections and any celebrity-fronted tequila brand, this iteration of the Beyoncé endeavour isn’t something to be scorned at from the very outset, especially since she has stated that this isn’t a country album but a Beyoncé album. But even with that caveat, she fuels the underlying implication that this is a so of pose, mere thematic guardrails with which to navigate another era (we have Taylor Swi to thank for unwi ingly exposing how this once-simple term has become a catchall for psy-ops-level marketing and exceptionally strategic reputation management).
As much as the human animal is a profoundly complex proposition — and as much as a , a ists and genre are the foremost signifiers of our glorious multifacetedness
— as much as we can enjoy something simply for what it is, we shouldn’t ever not be able to recognise whether or not something/someone is being disingenuous.
So, no. A hacky, ove ly simplified, sweeping statement about how music unites all, presented in the kitschy accoutrements of country by Beyoncé, is not necessary. And neither is ‘invention’ always the prize it’s made out to be.