Let’s get this part out of the way first: Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter fails as a country album. But then again, so do most country albums.
Beyoncé talks a lot about Texas on her new album, which isn’t an album of country music but an album about country music, one that has a lot more in common with ambitious Baroque-pop cycles such as Odessey and Oracle or Village Green Preservation Society than it does anything from the universe of Waylon Jennings.
Kevin D. Williamson is national correspondent at The Dispatch and is based in Virginia. Prior to joining the company in 2022, he spent 15 years as a writer and editor at National Review, worked as the theater critic at the New Criterion, and had a long career in local newspapers. He is also a writer in residence at the Competitive Enterprise Institute. When Kevin is not reporting on the world outside Washington for his Wanderland newsletter, you can find him at the rifle range or reading a book about literally almost anything other than politics.
