Beyoncé doesn’t just drop albums, she drops incredibly dense, multilayered bodies of work that pull from decades of musical history across genres and regions to fashion something wholly new and idiosyncratic from the legacies of those who came before her.
With the release of her eighth solo studio album, Cowboy Carter, on Friday (March 29), Queen Bey added yet another culturally immersive record to her illustrious catalog. Across the album’s 27 tracks, the “Texas Hold ‘Em” singer square dances her way across a sprawling soundscape that incorporates samples, interpolations and production motifs that nod to country, ’70s rock, trap, house, Brazilian funk, opera, blues, gospel, R&B and pop.
“I did a deeper dive into the history of Country music and studied our rich musical archive,” Beyoncé wrote in a March 19 Instagram post detailing the album’s creation. “It feels good to see how music can unite so many people around the world, while also amplifying the voices of some of the people who have dedicated so much of their lives educating on our musical history.”
In order to fashion her very own Western epic out of the roots of country music, Beyoncé chose to sidestep the concept of genre — “a funny little concept,” according to country legend Linda Martell — and completely reimagine classics from the likes of Nancy Sinatra, Fleetwood Mac and the Beach Boys in the process. Cowboy Carter follows directly in the footsteps of its predecessor, 2022’s Renaissance, in the way that Beyoncé looks to the past to fashion new futures out of the different styles she’s experimenting with.
Here’s a list of the samples and interpolations throughout Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter.
