The Country Heart of Cowboy Carter

Culture Study Podcast

Arts, Society & Culture

4.5 • 789 Ratings

🗓️ 17 April 2024

⏱️ 36 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

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 raceA few of the country self-referential songs I mentioned: Tim and Faith, Damn Straight, She Had Me At Heads CarolinaWatch 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 2020Elamin 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 2022Read 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 PitchforkAnd 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 2024Your strong opinions on things that, in the grand scheme, don’t matter muchFor our continuing series on romance novels: QUEER ROMANCE and ROMANCE BOOKSTORESThe future of reality TVWhat’s the deal with JEANS right now (alternate title = Jeans: Help)The Contemporary Jennifer LopezBen 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?

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey everyone, it's Anne. Just a heads up to the last part of our conversation. This is a 17-minute
0:06.8	discussion about Beyonce's cover of Jolene and where we think Cowboy Carter will rank in her discography
0:11.4	and why Elamine thinks that Jolene is the only skip on the album. This is exclusive to paid
0:17.7	subscribers. So if you already know that you want to hear that, head to
0:20.9	culturestudypod.substack.com and subscribe. I also just want to say that if you can swing it,
0:26.5	a yearly subscription is so helpful for us as we try to figure out our budget and continue to plan
0:31.2	out the show. It's normally $50 for a year, but if you already subscribe to the culture study
0:35.6	newsletter, you can add the podcast for just $30 a year.
0:39.2	Just throwing that out there. Okay, on with the show.
0:43.3	Beyonce shows up at the CMAs, and she's performing with the chicks.
0:48.1	To any reasonable and rational person, you would think, the stage is currently, you know, occupied by a lot of royalty.
0:55.9	Perhaps I should be rising to my feet.
0:57.5	Perhaps I should be celebrating the presence of Beyonce and the presence of the chicks and the
1:02.0	presence of this combination in front of me.
1:04.4	And what do the CMA do?
1:05.7	But not much, honestly.
1:07.6	Yeah, we're at the CMAs.
1:09.3	And like, yeah.
1:10.8	The Country Music Awards, and they're kind of like, who is this lady?
1:14.1	Why is he here?
1:15.3	I think there's a, I should be fair to the CMAs and say, like, a couple of people were quite excited by Beyonce's presence.
1:21.3	Yes.
	...

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