Act II: Cowboy Carter was released on March 29th
Beyoncé continues to make history with the release of Act II: Cowboy Carter, released on March 29th via Parkwood Entertainment/Sony Music. The project topped the Billboard Top Country Albums chart, making her the first black woman to capture the feat in its 60-year history. The album also marks the R&B and rap superstar’s eighth career No. 1 on the all-genre Billboard 200.
Luminate reports the country-inspired album earned the largest sales week of the year with 407,000 physical and streaming units sold. It’s the biggest-selling album since Taylor Swift’s 1989 (Taylor’s Version) was released in November 2023, selling 1.653 million units, and the biggest-selling country album since Taylor Swift’s Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) was released in July 2023, capturing 716,000 units sold during its first week.
Cowboy Carter also marks Beyoncé’s biggest launch week since Lemonade landed atop the chart in May 2016. Beyoncé also claimed the most-streamed album in a single day in 2024 on Spotify and Amazon Music. The project also marks the fourth-largest streaming week for a country album.
The Texas native’s eighth studio album features “Texas Hold ‘Em” and “16 Carriages.” “Texas Hold ‘Em” landed across nine different genres on US music charts including pop, hot AC, country, rhythmic, urban, and R&B, and making history with Beyoncé becoming the first black female artist to reach No. 1 on the Hot Country Songs chart and No. 1 on the Hot 100 chart with a country song. It also spent four weeks at the top of the UK music charts.
Beyoncé’s version of Dolly Parton’s “Jolene” debuted at No. 7 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, outperforming Parton’s 1973 original. The singer reinvented the track with alternate lyrics that warn the song’s subject not to steal her man instead of pleading against it as Parton originally wrote. Beyoncé’s take is the first version of the song to land within the Top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100, while Parton’s landed at No. 60 on the same chart. However, the song became Parton’s second No. 1 on the country charts.
Cowboy Carter, executive produced by Beyoncé, is about genres, while deeply rooted in country. This is the work of an artist who thrives in her freedom to grow, expand, and create limitlessly. It makes no apologies and seeks no permission to elevate, amplify, and redefine the sounds of music while dismantling accepted false norms about American culture. It pays homage to the past, honoring musical pioneers in country, rock, classical, and opera.
The album is a cornucopia of sounds that Beyoncé loves and grew up listening to, between visits and eventually performances at the Houston Rodeo – country, original rhythm & blues, blues, zydeco, and black folk. The album wraps itself in pure instrumentation in a celebratory authentic gumbo of sounds using among others, the accordion, harmonica, washboard, acoustic guitar, bass ukulele, pedal steel guitar, a Vibra-Slap, mandolin, fiddle, Hammond B3 organ, tack piano, and the banjo. There are also plenty of handclaps, horseshoe steps, boot stomps on hardwood floors, and yes, those are Beyoncé’s nails as percussion.
