Beyoncé, Black Country & the Long Road to Cowboy Carter (With Dr. Francesca Royster & Taylor Crumpton)
Pop Pantheon
DJ Louie XIV
4.7 • 630 Ratings
🗓️ 28 March 2024
⏱️ 66 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Tonight, Beyoncé will drop her eighth studio album, Cowboy Carter, her first explicit full-length foray into country music. As with every Bey project, there's a ton of meaning and history to unpack.
DePaul University professor and author of Black Country Music: Listening for Revolutions, Dr. Francesca Royster, and writer and editor Taylor Crumpton, author of TIME piece Beyoncé Has Always Been Country, join the show to explain the long and often under-sung history of Black women in country: from the birth of many of the genre's core aesthetics and tenants during slavery, to 20th century recording artists who have attempted to break Nashville's white and male mass co-option, to recent breakthroughs from stars like Mickey Guyton.
Dr. Royster, Taylor & DJ Louie attempt to position Cowboy Carter in this long and arduous lineage, unpack the details and gestures of singles "Texas Hold 'Em" and "16 Carriages", and parse how Beyoncé's country pivot is tapping into a much larger story than may appear at first blush.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to Pop Pantheon, the podcast where we completely overanalyze all of your favorite pop stars and then rank them in the official Pop Pantheon. |
| 0:17.8 | This is your host, DJ Louis X. Louis X. |
| 0:19.9 | Reminding you to please rate, review, and subscribe to Pop Pantheon wherever you is your host, DJ Louis the 14th, reminding you to please rate, review, |
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| 0:26.5 | DJ, L-O-U-I-E-X-I-V. The podcast is at Pop Pantheon Pod. And we have merch available at |
| 0:32.7 | Poppantheon.com. And our Patreon channel, Poppantheon, all access, is available at patreon.com slash Poppanthian |
| 0:38.7 | or by subscribing directly in Apple Podcasts. This week, we were discussing Casey Musgrave's fantastic |
| 0:45.9 | new album, Deeper Well. We have weekly bonus episodes there, plus a ton of other perks. Again, |
| 0:50.5 | that's at patreon.com slash Pop Pantheon. Also, our upcoming live show in New York City is sold out on April 22nd, but our dance party, |
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| 1:02.4 | That will be on Friday, April 19th at Parkside Lounge on the Lower East Side. |
| 1:06.4 | You can buy tickets for that in the show notes of this episode. |
| 1:10.5 | The following night will be gorgeous, |
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