2024 shaping up as another big year for the pop girls
The females are busy concocting up important albums. The hip-hoppers, Drake, Metro Boomin, Kendrick Lamar, plus more are firmly entrenched in the hit lists. Not so the guys elsewhere. With no peep heard from Harry Styles or Morgan Wallen or others, it looks like 2024 is shaping up as another big year for the pop girls. Take a look at what Beyoncé and Ariana Grande have already accomplished.
Cowboy Carter is Beyoncé’s eighth studio album and is the second act of her Renaissance Trilogy, and what an accomplishment this is. Those who thought that the Bey would be singing Patsy Cline and Loretta Lynn in her announced country album must be flabbergasted by now. Well, she has Dolly Parton and Willie Nelson but not in any way anybody would have imagined.
Truth to tell, Cowboy Carter is imagination taken to great heights in a move to extol black talent in country music, to infuse country music history into pop, and to honor legacy artists and their music. Her intelligence and sensitivity are evident throughout. Even if she does nothing else after Cowboy Carter, Beyoncé is already assured of a lofty place in the realm of not just country but of contemporary music in its entirety.
It would take a book to fully explore what Beyoncé had done, so it is best to just dwell on the surface, which is, of course, the music. And Cowboy Carter offers up an enjoyable variety of sounds, fused together to sound like a pop take on country but clearly so much more. As she says in the opener American Requiem, “Them big ideas are buried here. Amen.” Time to unearth some of them.
Blackbird is thrilling beyond belief. The album’s most beautiful track is a cover of the Beatles’ Blackbird and samples Paul McCartney’s original guitar work. Watch out, too, for bits of Nancy Sinatra’s These Boots are Made for Walking and the Beach Boys’ Good Vibrations in the perky Ya Ya. Country music legend Dolly Parton plays DJ to introduce Bey’s version of her Jolene and how nice that she also included a lesser known Chuck Berry tune, Oh Louisiana.
The early single releases Texas Hold’em and 16 Carriages hold up well, but more No. 1 singles are still sure to emerge from Cowboy Carter. There are the sexy Bodyguard with its great pop hook, a hard-hitting II Most Wanted with Miley Cyrus singing in full country mode and some slow jams in Levii’s Jeans from Post Malone. Cutest of all is a sort of lullaby, Protector, introduced by Bey’s daughter Rumi Carter.
With 27 cuts, it would take hours of fully concentrated listening to really enjoy Cowboy Carter. Every minute will be worth it. As Beyoncé says again in the last line of the closer Amen, “Them big ideas are buried here. Amen.”
Now, if you are in the mood for something lighter, there is Eternal Sunshine by Ariana Grande. This is the so-called divorce album, the culminating soundtrack to all those rumors — a cheating husband, Dalton Gomez, a homewrecker, Ariana, the eventual broken family, Ariana’s Wicked co-star Ethan Slater. And then divorce as the end.
Ariana minces no words, “Why do you care whose d---k I am riding,” or something like that. She loads the album with songs, 13 cuts, and all the elements of ‘90s pop R&B with dance traps here and there. What she holds back on are her usual vocal calisthenics and it is great to once again realize how incredibly sweet her singing is.
She opens with Intro (end of the world), “How can I tell if I’m in the right relationship? Aren’t you supposed to really know that shit?” From there she goes to Bye; Don’t Wanna Break Up Again; True Story; The Boy is Mine; Yes, And? We Can’t Be Friends (Wait for Your Love); and I Wish I Hated You.
Close listens should go to the bare Imperfect for You with Ariana’s gorgeous vocals; the melancholy Eternal Sunshine; the pop perfect Supernatural; and the cathartic Ordinary Things where her grandmother joins in with the final words, “Get out.”
We will not get out. Instead we will now wait for The Tortured Poet’s Department by Taylor Swift and new sounds from Dua Lipa, Billie Eilish, Doja Cat and all those other busy females with interesting sound ideas.
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