Cowboy Carter: This Ain't Country

Many of us keep a journal, but few of us are able to turn our unvarnished thoughts into cultural moments touching on love, death, and guitars quite like Phoebe Bridgers. Her new album Lost Weekend isn’t just throwing the pages of her personal life into song, it’s much more than t ...  Show more

Madonna has returned this summer with Confessions II: an album full of huge hooks, pounding bass, and sincere emotion. It’s the queen of pop's first record in seven years, and serves as a sequel to her 2005 smash hit, Confessions on a Dance Floor. The record ties together threads ...  Show more

'Cowboy Carter' is here, marking Beyonce's foray into country music—or has she been here all along? Nora and Nathan talk about the breadth of this 27-song album (1:00), the array of influences that Beyoncé pulled from for this project (39:13), and some of their favorite and least ...  Show more

Beyoncé has a new country album. The first single has already broken records and drawn criticism from those who think of country music as a “white” genre. Except it’s not. Author and songwriter Alice Randall tells the story of country music’s very Black roots. This episode was pr ...  Show more

In this episode of Riffs on Riffs, join Toby and Joe for a lively discussion about Beyoncé's latest single, "TEXAS HOLD 'EM.” They discuss Beyoncé's career and celebrate her work ethic and talent, particularly her ability to transcend genres and challenge musical conventions. The ...  Show more

When Beyoncé took the stage at the 2016 Country Music Awards, alongside the Chicks, the racist backlash was immediate.  Eight years later, she alluded to that experience when she announced her new album, Cowboy Carter.  In recent years, we’ve seen some pushback against the genre’ ...  Show more