por 
THE BAJA POST
NEWSROOM
SOURCE: PR NEWSMEDIA
Beyoncé’s eighth studio album is available worldwide now. act ii COWBOY CARTER arrives today following the successful release of two lead singles, «TEXAS HOLD ‘EM» and «16 CARRIAGES» on February 11, Superbowl Sunday.
«TEXAS HOLD ‘EM» landed across nine different genres on US music charts including Pop, Hot AC, Country, Rhythmic, Urban, and R&B, and making history with Beyoncé becoming the first Black female artist to reach No. 1 on the Hot Country Songs chart and No. 1 on the Hot 100 Chart with a Country song. It also spent four weeks at the top of the UK music charts.
The album is a cornucopia of sounds that Beyoncé loves, and grew up listening to, between visits and eventually performances at the Houston Rodeo – Country, original Rhythm & Blues, Blues, Zydeco, and Black Folk. The album wraps itself in pure instrumentation in a celebratory authentic gumbo of sounds using among others, the accordion, harmonica, washboard, acoustic guitar, bass ukulele, pedal steel guitar, a Vibra-Slap, the mandolin, fiddle, Hammond B3 organ, tack piano, and the banjo. There’s also plenty of handclaps, horseshoe steps, boot stomps on hardwood floors and yes, those are Beyoncé’s nails as percussion.
The album is an experiment indeed. Each song is its own version of a reimagined Western film. She took inspiration from films like «Five Fingers For Marseilles,» «Urban Cowboy,» «The Hateful Eight, «Space Cowboys,» «The Harder They Fall» and «Killers of the Flower Moon,» often having the films playing on a screen during the recording process. Some aspects of the percussion were inspired by the ‘O Brother, Where Art Thou?’ soundtrack, where it was more Bluegrass. This body of work undulates from singing cowboy and Blaxploitation to Spaghetti westerns and fantasy with Beyoncé weaving between personal experiences, honoring Black history, to exaggerated character building. The limited-edition vinyl depicts a microphone in the shape of a gun ala Thelma and Louise running from the law, but the gun is invisible, hyper exaggerated reality.
