#American Requiem

[prince-arthur]

favourite lyrics from every song: COWBOY CARTER (excluding spoken interludes)

[tani-b-art]

“…socially despised and yet artistically esteemed…”

This quote from Alain Locke can be applied to every non-Black person. Non-Black American people included.

Our subcultures, regional cultural characteristics (especially Southern Black American culture) are sooo extracted and copied, emulated and imitated, gleaned from while simultaneously being ridiculed, mocked and degraded.

Southern identifiers, dialect and accents are belittled yet are modeled after and mimicked.

The specific disdain and shame for Southern Black American culture is truly something (which has really been highlighted since the announcement of this album).

And yeah, Beyoncé soo country! Been country! Is country and never shied away from it!

[comradekarin]

REAL MUSIC IS BACK YALL !!!!!! WHERE ARE MY AMERIICAN REQUIEM STANS !!!!

[joestarbuckss]

They keep sayin' that I ain't nothin' like my father // But I'm the furthest thing from choir boys and altars // If you cross me, I'm just like my father // I am colder than Titanic water - Daughter by Beyonce

[forbidden-interlude]

🗣️🗣️🗣️🗣️🗣️🗣️🗣️🗣️🗣️🗣️“ If that ain’t country tell me what is??!!”📣📣📣📣📣📣📣📣📣🤬🤬🤬🤬

[bee-cried]

AMERICAN REQUIEEEEM

THEM BIG IDEAS

YEAHHH

ARE BURRIED HERE

YEAAAH

✨️AYE--YE-YE- MEN ✨️

[beyondthemic]

ACT II

I spent a lot of time with Beyonce's new album. I think it's just, .. it's impressive, in a way that only someone like Beyonce could possibly try and reach for (and then could actually achieve). You have takes on Buffalo Springfield, you have Beach Boys, Tina Turner, some R&B, I hear Prince, you obviously have Dolly and Willie.. but then it also throws in actual rap, and riverdance (!?) in a country sense, but then can still tie it all together? You get yours.. Slay Queen.

While the first track truly did GRAB ME (just love starting an album with such a proclamation: 'THEM BIG IDEAS BURIED HERE' - and my word, yes there are), really my attention was peaked when I hit YA YA and then I doubled back through the rest of it and began to truly appreciate what I think she was trying to do. And repeatability, you can continue to listen again and again and again and find more and more to appreciate - something I just didn't get on Renaissance.

My friend and I argued a lot about the 27 songs (Laughly, then, Taylor's new one..come on - 31 tracks!?). My original view/opinion was that it's because she really was just throwing everything against the wall and wanting to see what stuck… But.. i've changed my mind now. It's the 27 songs she needed to stretch this 'country act' genre to the fullest extent of her ability and and what she wanted this sound to be and what it COULD sound like. And like, I said, it's .. impressive. She does it.

Also, I personally hate covers of Blackbird. An old story.. Blackbird was the first fingerpicking song I learned on the guitar, and it's just so stunningly beautiful just that guitar alone that when I first heard lyrics over the top of it, I was flat out OFFENDED. And frankly, still kinda am to this day, even when I hear the original. I mean, I've grown… I get it, I like the whole thing now of course, and it's one the great songs of all time (side note: man, the Beatles were just truly prolific, weren't they?) OKAY sorry - so when I heard the decision to make an untouchable (at least to me) cover of Blackbird track 2 right after her claim THEM BIG IDEAS BURIED HERE, it's just.. the boldness. It's impressive. And it wasn't until I learned that John/Paul had originally intended for a black woman to sing that song in the first that you mind just melts a bit. Every choice on this album was just stupid intentional. It works. It's impressive. Slay Queen.

AND where do you go from here? Man, I have literally no idea, but it's clear she's got some insane skills, and insane range, and sign me up for Act III.

[uzumaki-rebellion]

One of my paternal great-grandfathers used to smuggle moonshine inside coffins back in the day, and every time I hear the line in American Requiem about a moonshine man, I giggle, like yeah, our great grandpappys took risks to survive. Fuck this country. All day every day.

[hereforsb]

Ameriican Requiem is truly one of the best album openers I’ve heard in my life, one of the best songs as well, you can hear and feel the Beatles, Queen, and Prince’s influences on the song.

[brukismusicblog]

HAPPY COWBOY CARTER RELEASE DAY!!!

Upon first listen, I'm really feeling BODYGUARD, ALLIIGATOR TEARS, YA YA, and RIIVERDANCE.

Now, stream.

[stillsuchathing]

Still Such A Thing Merry Go Round: American Requiem, Scoop, Augusta Savage

LAST FRIDAY, I listened to COWBOY CARTER during a gallery stroll.  Developed a hardcore crush on ‘II Most Wanted’.  ‘Ya Ya’ made me dance and think of Tina Turner.   Willie Nelson and Dolly Parton made me laugh.  I listened to ‘American Requiem’ but I didn’t hear it. I wasn’t emotionally ready for it. Until this morning:  

(Oh, no) Goodbye to what has been A pretty house that we never settled in A funeral for fair-weather friends I am the one to cleanse me of my Father's sins American Requiem Them big ideas (Yeah) are buried here (Yeah) Amen

The entire song is a gut punch of knowing how much the past impacts the future.  America’s grandeur and fuckery captured in 5:26 minutes.  Amen.  

Much of the discussion around COWBOY CARTER is centered around people questioning if Beyoncé has permission to do a country music. Or how she doesn’t have the voice for country (?!).    My heartfelt perspective is let Beyoncé explore and play with music and culture.  Let her find joyous collaborations.  Let her be an artist.   Because ‘American Requiem’ is worth her expanding the boundaries of what many gatekeepers say she must be.  

SPEAKING of gatekeepers, the British monarchy and British Broadcasting Corporation are at the top of that list.  Two institutions that demand people accept hierarchy and inequity as a norm and not cancerous rot.   This was the mindset that I brought to the film Scoop on Netflix.  The source material for the film is Sam McAlister, now former BBC booker who detailed her work life in Scoops.  Scoop details the  backstory of how BBC, Prince Andrew and their various staffers prepped and approached that fateful interview.

Two thoughts swirled in my head at this paean to serious journalism: 

1.    How telling is it that a disruptive streamer is platforming a tribute to BBC journalism and culture. 

2.    British monarchy and the BBC are still trying to catch up to a world where Netflix dominates.

Watching Scoop’s depiction of Andrew’s private secretary Amanda Thirsk push for the interview to reclaim his good name from his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein is a reminder of how insularity fails people.  The only voice of reason who can see that Andrew talking to anyone outside of his rarefied bubble would be an unmitigated disaster is an outside PR consultant.  And the consultant quit when he couldn’t break through the insularity.

Anyone who has watched The Crown knows that this is nothing new.  Anyone who has witnessed the ongoing tantrums, delusions, denials around Prince Harry and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex step away from cloistered repression of royal life knows this as well.  British monarchy is convinced that survival is based on denial.  

Recently, I finished the Spare audiobook and was struck by Charles failing his first meaningful test as King of the United Kingdom. Harry recounts the negotiations around him changing his role within the royal institution and his father (along with palace staff) were adamant that the options were leave or maintain the status quo.  A status quo that meant accepting media racism and harassment and his family’s complicit denial of racism and harassment. 

That first test for Charles’ kingship and his response was to force Harry to sacrifice himself for media predators.  Where I see predators, Charles and all the palace staff see collaborators and friends.  It makes sense that Amanda Thirsk would believe same.  Is it possible that Thirsk was convinced that BBC journalists would prioritise class solidarity over exposing Andrew’s insensitivity and obliviousness? Did working in an environment ruled by repressive hierarchy stop Thirsk from considering the emotional fallout experienced by anyone surviving dysfunctional people and/or systems?  Mmmmmmm.

FINALLY, there are too many women whose stories are overlooked and forgotten. Their contributions, their lives, their humanity overlooked because we live in a warped world.  Sculptor Augusta Savage is in that category.   From ArtNet:

The sculptor created the most buzzed-about work at the 1939 New York World's Fair. Then it was destroyed. 

Why isn’t Augusta Savage known to the world for her work and activism of promoting Black artists?   Watching Searching For Augusta Savage to know more. 

Until the next merry go round.

[mykingdomforasong]

She really said

TOGETHER, CAN WE STAND? LOOKA THERE, LOOKA IN MY HAND THE GRANDBABY OF A MOONSHINE MAN GADSDEN, ALABAMA GOT FOLK DOWN IN GALVESTON, ROOTED IN LOUISIANA USED TO SAY I SPOKE TOO COUNTRY AND THE REJECTION CAME, SAID WASN'T COUNTRY 'NOUGH IF THAT AIN'T COUNTRY, TELL ME WHAT IS? PLANT MY BARE FEET ON SOLID GROUND FOR YEARS THEY DON'T, DON'T KNOW HOW HARD I HAD TO FIGHT FOR THIS

[paperizzy]

COWBOY CARTER (part one)

[juliansdiary2]

My Little thoughts on Track 1 of Cowboy Carter American Requiem

[thevisualvamp]

Loving this Beyonce album