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    Beyoncé’s ‘Cowboy Carter’ Spends a Second Week at No. 1

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    “Cowboy Carter” tops the Billboard 200 for a second week, boosted by physical sales of her album on CD and vinyl.Beyoncé’s “Cowboy Carter” holds at No. 1 for a second week on the Billboard album chart, fending off new releases from J. Cole and the K-pop group Tomorrow X Together.“Cowboy Carter” stays at the top of the Billboard 200 with the equivalent of 125,500 sales in the United States, according to the tracking service Luminate. That total includes 133 million streams and 20,500 copies sold as a complete package. It is the first time Beyoncé has repeated at No. 1 since her self-titled “visual album” in 2013, which notched three consecutive times at the top and was initially available only as a download from iTunes.As in its opening week, Beyoncé’s total was helped by sales of physical copies of her album on CD and vinyl, which for the album’s first two weeks were available only through her website. Since then, retailers have started stocking “Cowboy Carter,” and — as she did with “Renaissance,” her last album, in 2022 — Beyoncé herself showed up for an in-store promo in Los Angeles, where fans could buy autographed LPs. (They quickly appeared on eBay for $2,000 and up.)“Might Delete Later,” a surprise release by the rapper J. Cole, comes in at second place with the equivalent of 115,000 sales, largely from streaming. The album got some attention for a diss track, “7 Minute Drill,” targeting Kendrick Lamar, which J. Cole promptly apologized for and removed from streaming versions of the album.Tomorrow X Together, a five-man South Korean group, opens at No. 3 with “Minisode 3: Tomorrow,” a seven-track mini album, which had 107,500 sales and was offered in 17 collectible CD editions. Also this week, Future and Metro Boomin’s joint album “We Don’t Trust You,” released three weeks ago, falls to No. 4 (a sequel, “We Still Don’t Trust You,” came out on Friday), and Morgan Wallen’s “One Thing at a Time” is No. 5. More

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      Wyatt Flores, a Rising Country Artist, Has a Superpower: Tapping Emotions

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      The 22-year-old singer and songwriter makes music that touches listeners deeply. But his own trauma — coupled with his rapid rise — has thrown some bumps in the road.In early February, the singer and songwriter Wyatt Flores relaxed on a green room couch in Nashville before headlining the 1,200-capacity Brooklyn Bowl for the first time. The show had sold out nearly instantly, thanks in part to “Life Lessons,” his seven-song EP filled with raw, emotional country songs that added fuel to the “blowup” — his word for the last year of his career and life.Flores, now 22, had been playing professionally since age 16 and releasing music since 2021 when his song “Please Don’t Go” caught fire on social media in early 2023. The spare track, written by Flores as a plea to a loved one not to take their life, features a simple fingerpicked guitar arrangement, centering the song on his raw vocals. His emotion resonated with fans, helping Flores stand out among the young, stripped-down singer-songwriters that country music is rapidly embracing.“I’ve always talked about mental health, and that’s what that song is,” Flores said, “so I made a video explaining it — me sitting there in the studio doing a little acoustic of it. Next thing you know, it just started spinning. I could not believe it. I went from doing lives on TikTok at 2 in the morning, and there’d be 24 people in there. Next thing I know, I’ve got a thousand, then 1,500.”Suddenly, he found himself included in discussions about the future of country music. The rise left Flores, who had always struggled with anxiety, in a constant state of near panic.Less than a week after the Nashville show, he broke down during a gig in Kansas City, Mo., telling the crowd in a lengthy address that he felt numb despite his musical dreams coming true. The next day, his managers made the call to pull him off the road.“I had to focus on being me, and finding things that I love, and putting myself back into my own skin, honestly,” he said in March, chatting once again on a backstage couch — this one in a tiny green room at Wooly’s, a rock bar in the heart of Des Moines, Iowa. Downstairs, fans at the sold-out venue were filing in for his first club show back. During his break, Flores cut his long hair, and was now wearing it in a mop covering his eyes.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Beyoncé’s ‘Cowboy Carter’ Opens at No. 1 With the Year’s Biggest Sales

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      The pop superstar’s new album also reigns on Billboard’s Top Country Albums chart, the first time a Black woman has led that tally in its 60-year history.Beyoncé’s genre-bending “Cowboy Carter” has become her eighth No. 1 album, opening with the biggest sales of any release so far this year.“Cowboy Carter,” billed as “Act II” of a trilogy that began with Beyoncé’s dance-oriented album “Renaissance” almost two years ago, had been expected by fans, and the music industry at large, as primarily a country project. And indeed it features banjos, lyrics about hoedowns and a remake of Dolly Parton’s classic “Jolene.” But Beyoncé’s new release turned out to be a much broader take on modern pop music, with a kaleidoscopic array of references to the Beatles, Nancy Sinatra, Chuck Berry, rap and mellow rock, and critics praised it as a bold vision and a challenge to the historical segregation of pop genres.“Cowboy Country” arrives with the equivalent of 407,000 sales in the United States, and in addition to topping the all-genre Billboard 200 chart it is also No. 1 on the magazine’s Top Country Albums chart, the first time a Black woman has led that tally in its 60-year history. Each of Beyoncé’s eight solo studio LPs, going back to “Dangerously in Love” in 2003, has hit No. 1 on the Billboard 200.Of its composite total sales figure, “Cowboy Country” sold 168,000 copies as a complete album, including 62,000 on vinyl versions sold through Beyoncé’s website. The 27-track full album also racked up 300 million streams, according to the tracking service Luminate — a blockbuster number, but less than Future and Metro Boomin had for their new joint release, “We Don’t Trust You,” which opened at No. 1 last week with 324 million clicks. (That album falls to No. 2 this week, with its overall numbers down 48 percent from the opening.)As impressive as Beyoncé’s numbers were, they may not hold for long as the year’s biggest, with Taylor Swift’s latest, “The Tortured Poets Department,” set for release next week.Also this week, Morgan Wallen’s “One Thing at a Time” is No. 3, Ariana Grande’s “Eternal Sunshine” is No. 4 and “Hope on the Street Vol. 1,” a six-track release by J-Hope of the K-pop giants BTS, opens at No. 5. More

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      Beyoncé’s ‘Cowboy Carter’ Is a Vivid Mission Statement. Let’s Discuss.

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      The pop superstar teased a move to country, then tackled so much more. Three critics and a reporter explore her new album’s inspirations, sounds and stakes.BEN SISARIO I don’t usually say this about news releases, but since Beyoncé says so little about the making of her art, the “Cowboy Carter” announcement was intriguing for noting that “each song is its own version of a reimagined Western film,” and that Beyoncé screened movies while she recorded, including “Urban Cowboy,” “The Hateful Eight,” even “Space Cowboys” (?!).My first reaction to hearing the album was surprised gawking at its range of genre and sound, after she head faked us all into perhaps more limited expectations of “country.” (Of course we should have known better.) Viewed only as a genre-hopping exercise, “Cowboy Carter” might be a confusing jumble. But the film frame puts narrative and character at the center of her message, and with that everything came into clearer focus for me.As a heroine, Beyoncé makes a big, bold statement of her quest in “Ameriican Requiem,” taking on nothing less than American history. She finds villains in Jolene and (ahem) the Grammys. Songs like “II Most Wanted” and “Levii’s Jeans” could be plot-break montages while our conquering cowgirl hangs with some sidekicks she meets along the way. By the final reel she’s recapitulating her complaints and declaring herself the victorious leader of a grand resistance (“We’ll be the ones to purify our fathers’ sins”).SALAMISHAH TILLET I’ve listened to the album so many times now — on a plane, in a spin class, and, as I think she intended, while I drove on the highway (sadly, 280, not the 405). Yes, Ben, she has gone big here! But, instead of longing for some lost past, she is taking on “History” — musical and American — with, as we say in academia, a big “H,” or those big narratives about identity, belonging and discrimination.I almost missed those lyrics, “Whole lotta red in that white and blue, ha/History can’t be erased, oh-oh/You lookin’ for a new America” because I was too busy Proud Marying, jerking and twerking to “Ya Ya.” I think that might be the point — it is as if she saying, “The times are so desperate, I am going to use all the vocal gifts and genres at my disposal to bring the country together and show you how good I am at doing them (again)!”Beyoncé onstage with the Chicks performing “Daddy Lessons” at the 2016 Country Music Association Awards.Image Group LA/ABC, via Getty ImagesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      ‘Cowboy Carter’ Review: Beyoncé’s Country Is America. Every Bit of It.

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      On the bold, sprawling “Cowboy Carter,” the superstar plays fast and loose — and twangy — with genre.The first song on “Cowboy Carter,” Beyoncé’s not-exactly-country album, makes a pre-emptive strike. “It’s a lot of talking going on while I sing my song,” she observes in “Ameriican Requiem” over guitar strums and electric sitar, adding, “It’s a lot of chatter in here.”That’s an acknowledgment that a pop superstar’s job now extends well beyond creating and performing songs. In the era of streaming and social media, Beyoncé knows that her every public appearance and utterance will be scrutinized, commented on, cross-referenced, circulated as clickbait and hot-taked in both good faith and bad. Every phrase and image are potential memes and hyperlinks.It’s a challenge she has engaged head-on since she released her visual album “Beyoncé” in 2013. For the last decade, even as her tours have filled stadiums, she has set herself goals outside of generating hits. Beyoncé has deliberately made each of her recent albums not only a musical performance but also an argument: about power, style, history, family, ambition, sexuality, bending rules. They’re albums meant to be discussed and footnoted, not just listened to.“Cowboy Carter” is an overstuffed album, 27 tracks maxing out the 79-minute capacity of a CD and stretching across two LPs. It flaunts spoken-word co-signs from Willie Nelson and Dolly Parton that interrupt its flow; it includes some fragmentary, minute-long songs. Its sprawl is its own statement of confidence: that even half-finished experiments are worth attention.The “Cowboy Carter” album cover is an opening salvo, brandishing western and American symbols: Beyoncé holding an American flag while riding a white horse sidesaddle, with platinum-blond hair proudly streaming. In a red-white-and-blue outfit, high-heeled boots and a pageant sash that reads “Cowboy Carter,” she’s a beauty queen and a white-hatted heroine claiming her nation — her country, in both senses. The politics of her new songs are vague and glancing, but the music insists that every style is her American birthright. As a pop star it is: Pop has always breached stylistic boundaries, constantly exploiting subcultures to annex whatever might make a song catchier.Beyoncé grew up in Texas, where country music has long mingled with styles from jazz to blues to hip-hop — and where, in fact, early cowboys were enslaved Black men. Beyoncé met a racial backlash when she performed “Daddy Lessons,” a country song from her 2016 album “Lemonade” about gun-toting self-defense, with the (then-Dixie) Chicks at the 2016 Country Music Association Awards. Presumably that’s what she alluded to when she wrote on Instagram that there was “an experience that I had years ago where I did not feel welcomed.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Beyoncé Fans Turn Out in Nashville to Celebrate ‘Cowboy Carter’

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      On Friday night, in the capital of country music, the artist’s fans showed up in force to celebrate “Cowboy Carter.”Beyoncé fans had spent the day racing from store to store, searching for their first cowboy hat or pair of white cowboy boots. They brought out the denim jackets lined with silver fringe, the brown and white cow print skirts and the silver rhinestones to stud just above their eyelid.Then on Friday night, they headed downtown to the famed strip of honky-tonks and bars on Lower Broadway in Nashville to listen to Beyoncé’s new album, “Cowboy Carter,” a tapestry of not only country music, but also contemporary pop music, funk and other genres.“I’ve never seen so many people that look like me in cowboy hats in my life,” Nia Blair, 24, marveled, dancing in her own pair of new boots. She added, “one album did all this.”There was no shortage of celebrations of the superstar’s new album this week: There were listening parties from Atlanta to Houston, a fan day at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland and a seemingly endless stream of on-theme posts from brands and politicians.Christian Nevils dances on Friday night.Liam Kennedy for The New York TimesSheldon Thomas, a singer, at the listening party.Liam Kennedy for The New York TimesSunset Wilson and Nadia Agahozo. Liam Kennedy for The New York TimesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Ariana Grande Beats Kacey Musgraves and Justin Timberlake on the Chart

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      “Everything I Thought It Was,” Justin Timberlake’s first new album since “Man of the Woods” six years ago, opens in fourth place.Ariana Grande holds the No. 1 spot on Billboard’s album chart this week with “Eternal Sunshine,” beating out new releases by Kacey Musgraves and Justin Timberlake.“Eternal Sunshine,” Grande’s first new studio album in almost four years, stays at the top for a second time with the equivalent of just over 100,000 sales in the United States, including 115 million streams and 13,000 copies sold as a complete package, according to the tracking service Luminate.Grande’s total was down 56 percent from its opening week, giving it enough — by a thin margin — to succeed over Musgraves’s “Deeper Well,” which started with the equivalent of 97,000. “Deeper Well,” Musgraves’s second LP since winning album of the year at the Grammys in 2019 with “Golden Hour,” starts at No. 2 with 38 million streams and 66,000 copies sold. Those sales included 37,000 copies of the album’s nine vinyl editions — among them a picture disc showing cardinals in a tree and another featuring “scented sleeves.”“Everything I Thought It Was,” Timberlake’s first new album since “Man of the Woods” six years ago, opens in fourth place with the equivalent of 67,000 sales. It is Timberlake’s first solo studio album not to make it to No. 1 since “Justified,” which went to second place in 2002.Also this week, Morgan Wallen’s “One Thing at a Time” is No. 3 and Noah Kahan’s “Stick Season” is No. 5. More

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      Sarah Shook & the Disarmers Took the Hard Path. The Music Kept Coming.

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      After a tumultuous childhood in an ultraconservative family, River Shook finally heard country music at 23. It prompted a long journey of self-discovery.River Shook warned their father: If the family left western New York for North Carolina, something awful would happen.Living at home at 19, Shook was the introverted middle child who had relocated to so many new towns, they’d given up on making friends. Their parents, Robert and Rita, had led rough and wild early lives, Robert playing lead guitar in lascivious bands and Rita escaping an abusive first marriage and descending into hard drugs. The couple met through church, married and vowed to shelter their kids — home-schooled and raised on classical and Christian music, with boys, booze and bad behaviors verboten. Whenever God told Robert to move, everyone obeyed.This, though, was different. At 9, Shook realized they were bisexual and began questioning the family faith. They hid both from their parents, living a Janus-like life of two faces for a decade. But Shook had found confidants at the Wegmans where they worked, friends who supplied secret mix CDs featuring the Gorillaz and Elliott Smith. They were interning at a local dance studio, teaching yoga to kids and unsteadily emerging from a miasma of childhood depression. And then, in 2005, the family headed South.“I went from 0 to 100, from having been kissed once to having sex to having a threesome the next night,” the singer and guitarist said during a series of video interviews in early February, grinning wryly from the porch of their rural North Carolina home. (Yes, they stayed.) “And then I married a guy I met on Myspace three weeks later and got pregnant two months later. Upending everything my parents held dear was an act of self-preservation, because their belief system taught me I could not be myself.”During the last 20 years, Shook, now 38, has slowly discovered who they are — a nonbinary, atheist, vegan single parent using incisive and honest country songs to unpack past baggage. The process has been arduous, even life-threatening. When their band, Sarah Shook & the Disarmers, played 150 shows a year, they would drink until they blacked out almost every night. But in July 2019, following a Canadian bacchanalia, Shook accepted their own ultimatum: Sober up or die trying.That epiphany led to therapy, daily walks in the woods, a new name, and, ultimately, the Disarmers’ new album, “Revelations,” due March 29. A stirring country-rock record that two-steps between Waxahatchee’s incisive beauties and Tom Petty’s winking classics, “Revelations” is the work of a songwriter relishing newfound clarity and confidence.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      On ‘Deeper Well,’ Kacey Musgraves Is Closer to Fine

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      The country singer and songwriter’s fifth album of original songs is a study in quiet thoughtfulness rooted in gratitude.Contentment makes for tricky songwriting territory. Songs thrive more often on extremes: desire, heartache, rage, despair, striving, longing, ecstasy. But Kacey Musgraves has now made two superb albums suffused with satisfaction: “Golden Hour” from 2018, which won the Grammy for album of the year, and her new one out Friday, “Deeper Well.”On “Golden Hour,” Musgraves sang about the gratification and relief of blissful romance in songs like “Butterflies.” With “Deeper Well” — which follows her divorce album, “Star-Crossed” — Musgraves finds more comfort in a wistful self-sufficiency. She savors small pleasures, personal connections and casual revelations, with a touch of new-age mysticism.In the album’s title song, Musgraves calmly notes how she’s setting aside youthful misjudgments. She’s moving away from people with “dark energy” and no longer getting high every morning (though her Instagram account is still @spaceykacey). At 35, she’s glad to be more mature. “It’s natural when things lose their shine,” she sings, “so other things can glow.”Musgraves grew up in a small East Texas town and she’s nominally a country singer. Her 2013 debut, “Same Trailer Different Park,” won a Grammy as best country album, as did “Golden Hour,” and she has won multiple Grammys for best country song.But while mainstream country has leaned into booze, trucks and arena-scale bombast, Musgraves prefers delicacy, detail and wryly upending small-town expectations. The title song of her second album, “Pageant Material,” explained: “It ain’t that I don’t care about world peace/But I don’t see how I can fix it in a swimsuit on a stage.”Her music prizes understatement, bypassing standard Nashville sounds and often harking back to 1970s Laurel Canyon folk-pop. Like that era’s songwriters and producers, Musgraves is steeped in folk music and seemingly diaristic, but also unassumingly savvy about pop structures and studio possibilities.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More