Beyoncé’s ‘Cowboy Carter’ is here

Beyoncé has gone country, sure … but it turns out that’s only the half of it.

For months, the superstar, who made her name in R&B and pop, has been telegraphing her version of country music and style. There was the “disco” cowboy hat at her Renaissance World Tour last year, and her “Western” look at the Grammys in February, complete with a white Stetson and black studded jacket. Then, on the night of the Super Bowl, she released two new songs, and sent one of them, “Texas Hold ’Em” — with plucked banjos and lines about Texas and hoedowns — to country radio stations, sparking an industrywide debate about the defensive moat that has long surrounded Nashville’s musical institutions.

At midnight Friday, Beyoncé finally released her new album, “Cowboy Carter,” and the country bona fides were certainly there. Dolly Parton provides a cameo introduction to Beyoncé’s version of “Jolene,” Parton’s 1972 classic about a woman confronting a romantic rival. Willie Nelson pops in twice as a grizzled DJ, who says he “turns you on to some real good [expletive],” including snippets of Chuck Berry, Sister Rosetta Tharpe and blues singer Son House.

Yet “Cowboy Carter” is far broader than simply a country album. Beyoncé does a version of the Beatles’ “Blackbird” and, on the track “Ya Ya,” draws from Nancy Sinatra and the Beach Boys’ “Good Vibrations.” “Desert Eagle” is glistening funk, and the upbeat “Bodyguard” would not be out of place on a modern rock radio station. The album’s range suggests a broad essay on contemporary pop music, and on the nature of genre itself.

That theory is made clear on the partly spoken track “Spaghettii,” featuring the pioneering but long-absent Black country singer Linda Martell, who in 1970 released an album called “Color Me Country.”

“Genres are a funny little concept, aren’t they? Yes, they are,” said Martell, 82. “In theory, they have a simple definition that’s easy to understand. But in practice, well, some may feel confined.”

Of course, Beyoncé herself indicated that a week ago when she posted a note on social media saying: “This ain’t a country album. This is a ‘Beyoncé’ album.”

Still, the theme of simultaneously celebrating and transforming country music extends to the album’s cover art, featuring Beyoncé seated sideways on a white horse, dressed in red-white-andblue rodeo gear and hoisting an American flag.