Beyoncé may like to “hold ‘em” in Texas, but I won’t be joining

During Super Bowl LVIII, Beyoncé and Verizon teamed up to make a smashing Super Bowl commercial entitled “Can’t B Broken.” The commercial was comparing Beyoncé’s ability to break the internet to Verizon’s new high speed wireless service. At the end of the commercial, she announces into the phone she’s holding to drop her new music. 

The two songs Beyoncé dropped are called “Texas Hold ‘Em” and “16 Carriages,” and they are labeled as country music. Once they were released, the nation was in an uproar, seeming to respond well to her choice of genre and the songs overall. I, however, cannot say that I had the same response.

When I had initially seen the songs were out, I was honestly not surprised nor enthusiastic. Beyoncé wore Western attire to both the Super Bowl and the Grammys the weekend before. The same Grammys at which her husband received the Lifetime Achievement award while complaining about how she has never won Album of the Year at the highly-regarded ceremony.

I immediately knew that this entire release, and even her new album, are simply just her latest plays at whatever awards she doesn’t have in her vast trophy case. However, I didn’t want to completely write everything off before I heard the songs. 

I listened to “Texas Hold ‘Em” first. I’m truly sorry to all those that believe this song was so revolutionary, but it was honestly so uninteresting to me. It sounded really stereotypical and didn’t present anything extraordinary to the ear. The aesthetic of the song was giving “catch-all gimmick.” 

My first thought of comparison was to this song from “Hannah Montana: The Movie” entitled “Hoedown Throwdown.” I think we’d all agree that my comparison of a Beyoncé song to a song from an imaginary pop star says enough.

Within a minute of listening, I turned off “Texas Hold ‘Em” and braced myself for “16 Carriages.” I think this one would be my favorite out of the two, but not by that far of a margin. I enjoyed the vocals on the song and I could appreciate the lyricism as well. I just still wasn’t getting a country song from it. It sounded as if she took what she thought was a country beat and then slapped an R&B song on it, somehow making it country, at least in her mind.

I listen to a lot of country music, old and new, and her two singles just don’t match up with the likes of the songs in that category. For her sake, I truly hope that she does a better job at capturing the essence of country in her album. I think what disappointed me most about the release was the apparent reasoning behind it.

It became painstakingly clear, after Jay Z’s Grammys speech, that Beyoncé believes that it’s her time to win Album of the Year, especially after winning the most Grammys in history. 

While others may see it as resilient or empowering, I see it as desperate and unnecessary. Beyoncé has achieved so many wonderful feats as an artist, activist, actress and so much more. This attempt at a win via genre shift is truly a pointless endeavor, from many standpoints.

Once Beyoncé’s new singles began getting some flack, people, in particular members of Beyoncé’s fandom, began to revert to their typical “if someone like Taylor Swift would’ve done it” comparison to avoid confronting the mediocrity of the music their idol has produced. In my humble opinion, the Taylor Swift comparison is done to death.

Why is it that people can’t just accept that they are two separate artists and leave things be? Why can’t people accept that Taylor Swift just simply translates better globally than Beyoncé? Why can’t people just let the two of them be great? My guess is that they’re all too busy thirsting for gossip to quell how mundane everything else is.

Taylor Swift started out in country music at the age of about 16 and switched to pop fairly soon after her first two albums. Yes, she dabbles in other sounds every now and again, but a Taylor album will always sound as such. The same basic formula of wanderlust, heartbreak and femininity gets us every time.

Honestly, I think Beyoncé spends too much time and energy on trying to get us to like her music rather than making something truly real. 

I, personally, feel like I could relate to more of her younger music than her newer stuff. 

I mean she’s played every angle she could have, from rapping with her husband to making songs “for the culture” to being the newest icon of the LGBTQIA+ community.

My point is that I believe she has lost her authenticity and relatability as an artist. After all, I truly believe that those are two main ingredients to success as an artist. Think of all the new artists that have come up over the last ten years: Billie Eilish, SZA, Summer Walker, Kacey Musgraves, Jelly Roll, etc. 

These people captivated us by producing music that made us all sit back and retrospectively ponder all of our mistakes. From my perspective, Beyoncé doesn’t really make music like that anymore and that’s why she hasn’t collected the accolades she seems to covet so dearly.

Unfortunately, I believe that popularity and notoriety alone will make way for her new music to sky rocket in the charts and amass her even more of a fortune. She’s already become the first Black woman to top Billboard’s “Hot Country Songs” chart, with “Texas Hold ‘Em” debuting at #1. 

There’s no telling how well her new album, supposedly entitled “Act II” will fare once released, but let’s hope that if it blows up, that it be because it was actually worth a listen and not because she’s Beyoncé.