Beyonce walks on stage to accept the Innovator award during the iHeartRadio Music Awards at Dolby Theater in Los Angeles, California, US, April 1, 2024. (Reuters)<\/p>\n
Beyonce\u2019s blockbuster country album \u201cCowboy Carter\u201d has debuted atop the Billboard 200 chart \u2014 the eighth number one album of her storied career.<\/p>\n
She also became the first Black woman to top Billboard\u2019s Top Country Albums chart with the 27-track second act in her \u201cRenaissance\u201d trilogy.<\/p>\n
\u201cCowboy Carter,\u201d which dropped on March 29, debuted with 407,000 equivalent album units earned in the United States in the week ending April 4, according to Billboard and music industry data provider Luminate.<\/p>\n
It is the best debut of 2024 so far and also the biggest since Taylor Swift dropped \u201c1989 (Taylor\u2019s Version)\u201d in November 2023, Billboard said.<\/p>\n
\u201cCowboy Carter\u201d is a rowdy, wide-ranging homage to Beyonce\u2019s southern heritage and features a constellation of music stars, from country legends Dolly Parton and Willie Nelson to current hitmakers Miley Cyrus and Post Malone.<\/p>\n
Parton introduces the album\u2019s take on \u201cJolene,\u201d drawing parallels between her own original tale of a lover fearing betrayal with Beyonce\u2019s personalized version, and appears with Nelson as radio hosts of a fictional broadcast.<\/p>\n
The album, which has been lauded by critics, was already the \u201cmost-streamed album in a single day in 2024 so far\u201d on Spotify.<\/p>\n
Nashville\u2019s gatekeepers have long tried to promote a rigid view of country music that is overwhelmingly white and male.<\/p>\n
But Beyonce shatters that notion, taking listeners through country\u2019s evolution from African American spirituals and fiddle tunes.<\/p>\n
She dropped the album\u2019s first two singles, \u201cTexas Hold \u2018Em\u201d and \u201c16 Carriages\u201d during the Super Bowl in February and announced the full album\u2019s release date.<\/p>\n
She also Paul McCartney\u2019s Beatles song \u201cBlackbiird,\u201d stylized with the double-i spelling to match \u201cAct II.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI think she does a magnificent version of it and it reinforces the civil rights message that inspired me to write the song in the first place,\u201d McCartney said in a statement when the album debuted.<\/p>\n
Beyonce previously topped the Billboard charts with \u201cDangerously in Love\u201d (2003), \u201cB\u2019Day\u201d (2006), \u201cI Am\u2026 Sasha Fierce\u201d (2008), \u201c4\u201d (2011), \u201cBeyonce\u201d (2013), \u201cLemonade\u201d (2016) and \u201cRenaissance\u201d (2022).<\/p>\n
The only women with more number ones are Swift, Barbra Streisand and Madonna, according to Billboard.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Beyonce walks on stage to accept the Innovator award during the iHeartRadio Music Awards at Dolby Theater in Los Angeles, California, US, April 1, 2024. (Reuters) Beyonce\u2019s blockbuster country album \u201cCowboy Carter\u201d has debuted atop the Billboard 200 chart \u2014 the eighth number one album of her storied career. She also became the first Black […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8514","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newzdiscover.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8514","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newzdiscover.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newzdiscover.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newzdiscover.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newzdiscover.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8514"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/newzdiscover.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8514\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8515,"href":"https:\/\/newzdiscover.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8514\/revisions\/8515"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newzdiscover.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8514"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newzdiscover.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8514"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newzdiscover.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8514"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}