Saddle Up...with Beyoncé

A couple of weeks ago I wouldn't have thought I would post an album (or rather, a variation thereof) from 2024 and I would have even less thought it'd be an album by Beyoncé. I probably haven't thought about Beyoncé in fifteen years, because in 2009 "Single Ladies (Put A Ring On It)" was everywhere and had the potential to annoy the heck out of you. The last time I looked forward to hearing Beyonce is probably about twenty years ago (sheesh...) when "Crazy In Love" came out, which was a great single, no matter how you slice it. So color me as surprised as you are by what ended up our One Buck Record of the day. 

Beyoncé released Cowboy Carter at the end of last month as part of an ambitious multiple album project (this is seemingly 'Act II', so all i's in the songtitles are doubled. Artistic or silly, you ask? Both, I'd say!), this time venturing into country territory. And, as you all by now, you can always lure the One Buck Guy with something country-related. When I posted my little Hick Hop compilation a couple of weeks ago, I was probably unconsciously pushed to do so by having heard "Texas Hold 'Em" a couple of days before, which in turn reminded me of Bubba Sparxxx' "Deliverance" which in turn...well, you know. So rather than just letting that spark of inspiration lay where it came from, I decided to dive deeper into Beyoncé's so-called country record. And boy, is there some diving to do. Because Cowboy Carter (I'm sure the title has some gender-critical point to make that I can't care to bother with) suffers from what I called in the comment thread of my Hick Hop platter the rap album problem, namely a tendency to overstuff their albums with too many songs and a number of skits and interludes. Cowboy Carter might not be a rap album, but it suffers from that exact issue, running a rather unreasonable 78+ minutes over a whooping 27 tracks, including skits with country outlaws Dolly Parton and Willie Nelson, plus a bunch of other guests. 

Cutting through all the clatter and filler was the first issue. There is some very good, and some very interesting music on that record, but it gets bogged down by too much of everything a bit everywhere. However, the idea of saving the highlights and have a much more streamlined alternate album took root almost immediately. The idea was to keep mainly the vaguely country-related stuff and build around that. Cowboy Carter isn't strictly speaking a country album, it is rather - like hick hop - a hybrid between beats, country instrumentation and imagery, and Beyoncé's background in modern r'n'b. But the country stuff does give a through line to what is now Saddle Up, a leaner by more than half collection of some of the strongest Cowboy Carter material, including her covers of the Beatles' "Bluebird" and Dolly Parton's "Jolene", complete with new lyrics. 

Highlights written by Beyoncé and her collaborators are the two singles, "Texas Hold 'Em" and "16 Carriages", the sultry "Alligator Tears", the beautiful ode to her daughter, "Protector" and "American Requiem" which is both personal and political ("Can we stand for something? / now is the time to face the wind", while interpolating Buffalo Springfield's "For What It's Worth"). Cowboy Carter runs for more than 78 minutes, Saddle Up runs a vinyl-era appropriate 38 minutes. If it were a vinyl record, tracks 1-7 would be the a-side, and tracks 8-13 the b-side, for all you nerds (like me!) out there. 

                                                    Like a rhinestone cowgirl...

In order to get the music into a shape I like and enjoy listening to, I mercilessly cut things down to the bone, both in terms of tracks used (I think "Ya-Ya" and "II Hands II Heaven" are great songs on their own, but they didn't fit what I wanted to do with Saddle Up) and the tracks itself. "American Requiem" is entirely re-edited to eliminate some parts I didn't like, "Sweet Honey Buckin'" lost more than half of its running time (and the, uh, 'buckin' part, thus the title change), I didn't much care for the opera stylings in the second part of "Daughter", so turned it into a medley with" Flamenco" and so on and so forth. Cowboy Carter is ambitious and overstuffed, and deserves credit for the former while the latter is now being taken care of. The album's overreaching is actually to its favor, as Beyoncé reckons with country music, its history, its meaning - especially on a personal and family history level - and its makers and listeners. 

A part of the project was seemingly to counter the harsh rejection of parts of the country establishment (you can easily guess which ones) to her first country foray, "Daddy Lessons" in 2016. This is what she is referring to in "American Requiem" when she sings "Used to say I spoke 'too country' / and the rejection came and said I wasn't 'country enough' / Said I wouldn't saddle up". But saddle up she did, ain't no doubt about that. 

Cowboy Carter is one of the most talked about albums of the year, if not the last years, or if you believe Stevie Wonder (one of the cast of thousands who played on this thing), "of the 21st Century". Yet I imagine most of you probably haven't heard it, because it's not your jam. I didn't think it was mine, either, but now, as Saddle Up, maybe I can get some of you to check out what Beyoncé's ambitious, messy, complicated take on country is about...

So, folks, let's all saddle up...