Beyoncé has announced spectacular and surprising new music in the middle of the Super Bowl. The teaser quite unexpectedly suggests country influences.
The country flair that Beyoncé exuded with her song “Daddy Lessons” in 2016 was so impressive, it could easily have been an album-length song. At that time, a version with the US band The Chicks even attracted fans of Western music. Nevertheless, no one expected a country album from Queen Bey anymore. Especially not since she dedicated herself comprehensively to house and dance music with “Renaissance” as a tribute to the black queer community.
On Monday night, the superstar undoubtedly pulled off a surprise between football and Taylor Swift. In the middle of the two halves of the Super Bowl, Beyoncé made an announcement via an elaborate commercial for the telecommunications provider Verizon: The musician is striving to “break” the Internet, which means something like taking over the network with a message and closing the lines with a colossal rush overwhelm. Of course, the same network provider withstands all attempts (comedian Tony Hale serves as the face of the company), and Queen Bey goes to the last resort: “Drop the new music”.
At the same time, a reference to “Act II” appeared on their website with the date March 29th. And a heavily country-leaning forerunner of the album: “Texas Hold ‘Em”. A second appears to be a more delicate Americana single, “16 Carriages”. Two very different numbers, but the look is quite uniformly cowboy-esque. Wearing a glittering Stetson hat, like the one she wore on her Renaissance World Tour, Beyoncé starts the sensitive ballad, which later swells into a lush orchestral arrangement.
“Texas Hold ‘Em,” on the other hand, begins with a quickly plucked banjo, and the vocals are accompanied by a stomping beat, to which you can easily imagine a few cowgirls line dancing (“It’s a real-life boogie and a real -life hoedown / Don’t be a bitch, come take it to the floor now”). In the visualizer (a short video clip) Beyoncé wears a fancy gun belt; the weapon is a finger gun (with perfect nails, of course) from which sparks shoot.
The album follows her work “Rennaissance”, which was released in 2022. When it first appeared, she presented it as the first part of a three-part act. And because the first act is deeply rooted in the black queer community, Beyoncé is likely to continue the story in the second act. This is also supported by the inclusion of Rhiannon Giddens as a guest instrumentalist on “Texas Hold ‘Em”, who has made it her mission to educate music fans and the general public that the banjo, for example, has its roots in black culture.
Country on the big stages
A good four years ago, rapper Lil Nas After closer inspection, however, he was thrown out of the ranking again. After closer inspection, they came to the conclusion that the song certainly had references to country music, but not enough of it to start in these special charts, they explained to Rolling Stone.
Musician Lana del Rey just announced an album with a country influence in January. The musician who has so far dedicated herself to sadcore. The new album is appropriately called “Lasso” and is scheduled to be released in September. So Beyoncé is early. And at least visually, this has recently been announced. At the Grammys in a white cowboy hat.
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