Why Beyoncé may finally lasso Album of the Year Grammy with ‘Cowboy Carter’
What a difference a rodeo makes.
A mere eight weeks ago, Jay-Z made a controversial speech at the 2024 Grammys — while accepting the Dr. Dre Global Impact Award with eldest daughter Blue Ivy, 12, by daddy’s side — in which he called out the Recording Academy for wife Beyoncé’s failure to win the most prestigious of prizes: Album of the Year.
This, despite Mrs. Carter having snatched 32 of those golden gramophones — the most in Grammy history.
“I don’t want to embarrass this young lady,” said Jay-Z, referring to his cowboy-hatted wife as she stood to salute her visibly nervous hubby in the audience.
“But she has more Grammys than everyone and never won Album of the Year. So even by your own metrics, that doesn’t work. Think about that. The most Grammys, never won Album of the Year. That doesn’t work.”
Flash forward two months — and Beyoncé is already the front-runner to finally win Album of the Year in 2025 for “Cowboy Carter,” her countrified collection that serves as “Act II” of her “Renaissance” trilogy.
This became increasingly clear as — just three days after “Cowboy Carter” was released to rave reviews (including mine) and record-shattering streams — Beyoncé accepted the Innovator Award at the iHeartRadio Music Awards on Monday night.
Giddy-up garbed in a Versace black leather Western get-up adorned with gold accents — and matching cowboy hat, natch — she accepted the award from another Grammy legend, Stevie Wonder.
But while the 42-year-old “Texas Hold ’Em” singer has won seven more gramophones than the 73-year-old Motown legend, Wonder has scored Album of the Year three times: for 1973’s “Innervisions,” 1974’s “Fulfillingness’ First Finale” and 1976’s “Songs in the Keys of Life.”
It was as if the Grammy gods were saying “Enough already” by making the legacy connection between Beyoncé and the game-changing genius of Wonder, underlying the ambitious musical scope and vision that has already made “Cowboy Carter” her “Songs in the Key of Life.”
Indeed, at nearly 80 minutes, Bey’s latest is as long as a double album — in the tradition of Wonder’s magnum opus — but more importantly, it similarly challenges genre norms for all-time artists who refuse to be roped in by them.
“Now Beyoncé is once again changing music and culture, climbing in the saddle as a bona fide country music sensation with her latest masterpiece, ‘Cowboy Carter,’ which may end up being the most talked-about album in this century,” said Wonder as he presented Beyoncé with her award at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles.
Then Queen B bowed down to the music royalty sharing the stage with her. “Thank you so much, Stevie … I love you, and I honor you,” she said. “I want to thank you for making a way for all of us.”
In a surprise reveal, Beyoncé also thanked Wonder for playing harmonica on her “Cowboy Carter” cover of “Jolene,” the 1973 Dolly Parton classic.
Having a certified legend such as Wonder as well as country icons Parton and Willie Nelson appear on your album is the kind of divine blessing — crossing both generations and genres — that will be hard, maybe impossible, for Grammy to ignore.
But “Cowboy Carter” — which finds Beyoncé addressing her Album of the Year snubs on “Sweet Honey Buckin’” (“Take that s – – t on the chin/ Come back and f – – k up the pen”) — is also the kind of event record that was made to be celebrated on music’s biggest night.
While Beyoncé albums haven’t featured many A-list pop guests over the years, this time she’s rocking with both Miley Cyrus and Post Malone, whose respective duets with her, “II Most Wanted” and “Levii’s Jeans,” will no doubt broaden the appeal of this LP. Also boosting her artistic cred across voting blocs is Grammy-winning jazzman Jon Batiste — an Album of the Year victor himself for 2021’s “We Are” — on the opening track “American Requiem,” which fuses country and classical music with blues and gospel.
And if you can do the kind of honey- and harmony-coated cover of The Beatles classic “Blackbird” that Beyoncé does on “Cowboy Carter,” you are going to win over some of the older white male voters who wouldn’t exactly have been voguing to “Break My Soul.”
Then there are the country voters — with Nashville making up a powerful contingent — that just wouldn’t have ever cast their ballots for any of Beyoncé’s previous Album of the Year nominees: 2008’s “I Am … Sasha Fierce,” 2013’s “Beyoncé,” 2016’s “Lemonade” and 2022’s “Renaissance.”
Even if Bey gets from 15% to 20% of the country vote, that’s going to be significant.
And timing may finally be on Beyoncé’s side. Taylor Swift just earned her record fourth Album of the Year Grammy in February for “Midnights.”
After Swift’s second win in three years in that category, it’s pretty unfathomable that “The Tortured Poets Department” will repeat that feat after it drops April 19 — no matter how good it is.
And we already know that “Cowboy Carter” is that good.
