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Yee-haw! Giddy up, cowgirls! Yee-haw! Dosey, go up in this motherfucker! Come on! It's a special Cowboy Vibe Check edition. We're here. I'm not Beyonce, but I'm Sam Sanders. I'm not Cowboy Carter, but I am Saeed Jones. And I'm not here just for fun, but I am Zach Stafford. And you're listening to Vibe Check, Cowboy Carter edition. ♪

And none of us are Jolene's. None of us are Jolene's. All the way on my 20s I was. Let's go. We've come a long way. We really have. It's called growth, baby. It's called growth. Anywho.

Well, as you can tell, this week on Vibe Check, we are giving you Beyonce. We're giving you our review of her incredible album. We're giving you conversations on the culture it's creating, the culture we're thinking about, and how it's moving us to think about the world in a lot of different ways. And we're just excited to have the space to dive in with you all, but with each other. We haven't really talked about it with each other. We've texted up a storm. No, we haven't.

done the dive. So I've been ready. I'm like weirdly nervous. I went for a long walk. I know. Oh no. I'm so excited for it. Because I like that the timing of it all meant that we had a few days to let it seep in. That's great. And my thoughts have changed over the course of the few days. For me, it's like whenever I think of like reviewing a piece of cultural work, there's two things that must be important and like top of mind. How did you first feel when you first experienced the thing? Mm-hmm.

And then how did that feeling change over time? And having these days to do that, it's made for a rich, I think, discussion. I'm so glad you pointed that out because I think that's one of the things about the kind of state of...

the music industry and really it's about media and also music criticism kind of being dismantled as newsrooms and stuff are closing their culture sections. We don't get to that second level very often with albums. It's kind of like, here's a new song by, and then like, there's a brief glimmer. And then, you know, a week later, no thoughts are deepened. And so if you don't, if you don't have like an idea about an album or a single that pops in the first day,

It's like you didn't say anything about it. - Exactly. - Yeah, and it just disappears on the charts too. We see that from like the data itself. These songs do not stand the test of time. And we don't have a lot of monoculture moments anymore. And we talk a lot about that here on Vibe Check. And I feel like this album for me, and I'm from Tennessee, you guys are from Texas. But for me, this is the first piece of culture in years that I've been texting my aunt about.

and talking to my family about because they're dealing with the cultural outcome in Tennessee. Like my family lives in like rural parts of Tennessee and they're like, this is a debate down at the church right now. And it's like, we haven't had that in so long. So it's so, so rich right now. Oh yeah. And it says a lot about

the stature of Beyonce that I was like, oh, when was the last monoculture? It was the Super Bowl, which she was also very much a part of. So yeah, it's pretty rare. Exciting. Yeah. Well, before we do all of that, we need to check in. So Beyond Loving, the album, or maybe not. I think we have some different opinions. I think we all love it, but we have different takes on it. We love it in different ways. In different ways. Well, Sam, how are you? Oh my God. My vibe this week,

is a deeply visceral reaction to a piece of reality TV that has stirred up a more noxious reaction in my soul than I have had around TV content for years.

I'm rarely offended by things I watch. I just like it or I don't, and I can tell you why. I was offended by this show, and I only watched the pilot. Zach, I think you did too. Gerard Carmichael's new HBO reality show, the Gerard Carmichael reality show. Gerard is a very handsome black comedian who made waves in the comedy world when he used his comedy special, Rothaniel, to come out.

It was in many ways hard to watch, but beautiful and poignant. This reality show is the next step on his journey to being a fully embodied black gay man in the industry. But girl, it's there's oversharing, I think, to no good end.

At one point, you see him bringing over grinder hookups. And before you know it, he's on the couch with a grinder hookup sucking this man's toes on camera. Yeah. I could not. So I haven't watched the show because I'm like, y'all know how I feel about reality TV. Yeah. We talk about love is blind and all of that. So I wasn't going to watch it. But I have seen some clips on TikTok, one of which I know you're about to get to. But when I saw the – like he's literally on the couch sucking a man's toes. And like half the foot, baby. I could not believe. Half the foot.

And it's like, share whatever you want, but is it leading us to some greater truth, some greater point, some epiphany? No, he's just sucking toes, baby. Then the part of the pilot that was the most egregious to me and really kind of manipulative. So for years, Gerard has been really good friends with the rapper Tyler, the creator, who also came out a few years ago.

Apparently in 2021, via text message, Gerard confessed romantic feelings for Tyler. Tyler brushed it off. But then once Gerard begins to film his reality show, he hangs out with Tyler on camera and brings it up again and is basically like, why don't you love me? And...

It felt like a really mean thing to do to your friend. Yeah. And I hated it and it was so cringe. And at the end of that, I was just like, who is this show helping? It's not helping Gerard, not helping his career, not helping the folks around him, not helping queer people feel accepted by the world. It's just people.

Zach, you watched it. Tell me your thoughts. I watched it. I have very similar thoughts. I haven't watched something in so long that I was so angry that I wanted to turn it off, but I couldn't turn it off. I just had to keep watching and keep going. And the foot thing really sent me. I was like, what is going on here? And no shaming kinks. Like, get your feet on. But let it serve a purpose? Yeah.

But girl, how did we go from you coming out to your best friend to then you sucking the toes of someone in the Beverly Hills Hotel? Like, I just don't. Like, where are we going with this narrative? Anyway.

So, Ruth Daniel was groundbreaking. It won an Emmy. It was an interesting way to do a coming out story and to have a bigger conversation about what do secrets do to a body when not told? What's it like to live in a closet and to never have the air outside the closet reach you? And how do you deal with the process of opening that door? It was really interesting, really cool, a new way of thinking of coming out. He has now flipped this on his head and is like, what's it like to live a life with zero secrets, with zero boundaries, with zero anything? Yeah.

And that was a step too far. And he said himself, you know, I came out in my 30s. I feel like I'm 17 in gay years. And this show is self-indulgent. It's not as productive as you think it is. And you think you're doing something that you're really not. It's not profound. And I just worry about him. Yeah, it's not profound. I agree.

I don't like it and it pissed me off. That's it. That's my vibe. I think there is something to the idea that when a person comes out, that's an expression of endured trauma. And trauma does kind of have a way of at least temporarily locking you in the age that you were at. And so though he's probably in his late 30s, I get the sense. It's like he is kind of acting like a teenager. We'll see. I mean maybe he has some concept that will be revealed with time, but I will never know.

Let's leave it there for now. And let's go to Saeed Jones. Because we could talk about Gerard for a while. And that may be another episode. Yeah. It's giving yaya over here. It's giving we gonna make it do what it do. You know? I'm feeling good. I'm so excited. Listen, and what a blessing to be able to announce some career news on the same day that a Beyonce album comes out last week. Yeah.

But I'm excited. The word is out. I can share my forthcoming book, Home Out There, will be coming to y'all in the next couple of years. I'm so excited. I've been working on it almost a year now, like since Argentina. That's really where I started getting focused. And it's a book about

How particularly black queer people, we leave home in order to find ourselves. And then in the process of journeying out on the highways and byways of this country and the world, we also begin to realize that we're constantly attempting or reckoning with the idea of home. We're trying to make home with our chosen families, with our new people. Maybe we make home with our careers. Right.

And so it's kind of a call and response. And it's as much about me as it is going to be about black queer artists like Langston Hughes in Harlem. Yeah. Audre Lorde in Berlin. So it's been fun. I'm so excited. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Also, Saeed's kind of bearing the lead here. And not just a one book deal. It's a two book deal. They said, we love this man so much. Yeah.

We're going to prepay for two. We're going to lay away that second book. Lay away. I was going to say that. Lay away.

Lay away. Lay away. Yes. We're so proud of you. Yeah. The second book will be my next poetry collection. And I'm just so happy. I mean, you know, Zach and Sam know because we've been talking about it privately, but if y'all will remember, we're moving into spring and spring for Saeed Jones last year was really rough and very difficult and like every way. And so, um,

So, you know, I just want to say to people, I've been down in the depths with you. And I know those moments where you're like, am I going to make it? Like, what is the point? And it is always so affirming. And I hope everyone listening, I hope you've had a few examples of this where you can look back at one of those moments when you were down in the depth and you said, I did make it. And I did remember what the point was. And so that's what it feels like. I love it. Yes. I can't wait to read. Thank you. Zach, what's your vibe?

My vibe.

in regards to going home, but my home is going to be called Sex and the City because Netflix has just released it. Wow. You said my home is a white woman in a pink t-shirt and stilettos. My home is Manhattan, baby. Manhattan, baby. The Village. Late 90s, early 2000s. So I stumbled. I have been at a deep Criterion Collection thing, which I can talk about later. I've been watching Criterion Collection. I'm becoming a better student of film, and that's a personal project here at my house with Craig.

But I needed a break, and I turned on Netflix, and I was surprised last night to find that Sex and City is now streaming on Netflix. It's been on HBO and Max River. Which one are you? Which one are you? I would say that I don't think anyone's one person. I think you're an amalgamation of a few. But because I started my career off as a columnist, people always call me Carrie. I get that. Carrie is awful. Carrie is so awful, so I hate that. None of them are great, right?

They all have their own issues, which makes it interesting. They have dynamics. They're not perfect people. They're all, it's kind of, I mean, Sex and City is one of the best examples of the rise of the anti-hero. But it's a really, you know, interesting text in that it is very much about the 90s and early 2000s before phones were really accessible, social media. So I'm bringing it up because I am nervous to see how Gen Z responds to this because like Suits, when it hit-

That took off with Gen Z, so this will too. And it is a problematic show. I bet they're going to love the fashion. Oh, yeah. They'll love the fashion. I do wonder, to your point, I mean, yeah, because you're right. The whole, like, which of the four are you was, like, such a big idea even before BuzzFeed brought those damn quizzes. Yeah.

Because it used to be, like in the 90s, it would be a quiz in Cosmopolitan magazine. But I wonder if Samantha will emerge for new viewers as not even an antihero, but a truly heroic. Do you think she'll come out even better? I know people, you know...

I'm interested in that because the first episode is about all the women contending with having sex like men. So it's a very gendered episode. It's very binary driven and it's very much of the moment. I'm interested because I'm not Gen Z, but from what I read and talk to others about, their relationship to sex isn't the same as we millennials have formed around the show. So I think there's a world in which she does become this radical sex positive symbol, but I also could see her being dragged for being too

focus on binaries and kind of reducing the role of women and male. And just focus on sex. Yeah, and focus on sex, really. I can't wait for the, like, why is there so much sex in Sex and Women? Yeah, why is there going to do that? Inevitable discourse. I don't think the kids are ready to see a show in which sex was so central to all of these people's

Yeah. Like what I would tell people now if you're going to start rewatching Sex and the City is something people don't realize is that the show is about a sex columnist. Her job is to write about her sex life. Each episode is the beginning of her asking a big question about her sex life and the episode is her writing the column.

So you should think about that when you begin the episode. It helps you understand the show better. But to Sam's point, that means every episode is about sex. So that's why it exists. And it's amazing. So that's my vibe is I'm going to be stuck in this hole for the next few weeks. So if you don't hear from me, I'm with Carrie Bradshaw. Oh, but the thing I was going to say is, guess how old she is in season one.

35? Aren't they in their early 20s? No. No, she's 32. Jesus. Oh, wow. They're all our age range. Why did I think they were in their mid-20s? Nope. Samantha's older. Samantha's 38, I think. I'm Samantha. So they're the age range of this show. Okay. Yeah. So if you watch it now, Sam, it's like... Don't you make that face and be like, I am Samantha. I mean, girl, don't tell your business, but you can be Samantha. There it is. There it is.

It is an interesting thing to watch now in my 30s and being like, these are my friends. These are the things we are going through. And it does feel very similar in many ways. So that's the vibe. After all those vibe check-ins, before the Beyonce of it all, I have an announcement. I'm going to drum roll on this kitchen table right now. So excited to announce, dear listeners, we now have a Patreon.

Patreon. Patreon. Patreon. Patreon. Yeah, yeah. We started it. Zach set the whole thing up because he's a tech girlie.

And we have this space now where our listeners can talk right to us. Our Patreon is going to have a group chat for anyone who wants to be in it. We're going to share info and details about the show and live events and maybe even merch. We're going to talk with you about ideas for the show as well. It's already popping. We already got people in there. The chat is hot. Come join us. Patreon.com slash live.

Vibe check. Come find us. Subscribe. Support us. And literally, we expanded our group chat, our kiki, for y'all. I'm so excited about it. It's already on and popping for people who are already part of Patreon. You've seen some of the TikToks analyzing Beyonce's album that I've been watching. I'm so excited to talk more about poetry there, for example, and everything. So it's exciting.

It's going to be really fun. Oh, yeah. And it does go to all of our phones. So it's been fun to get like our Vibe Chat group chat and then also see the Patreon group chat. So it's all like it does feel like it's in the same universe as, you know, our private life. So it's really exciting to have that space with everyone. And we also, as you'll notice, if you haven't, we have an Instagram now for the show. So if you're not ready to sign up for Patreon and want a free version, our Instagram will also be a place where we'll be kicking some. Zach came in last week and was like, I'm getting this Patreon done. I'm getting this Instagram done. He said women Instagrams.

STEM, science, let's go. It's really because if y'all want to know the truth and how LA I've become, we got a lot of storms this weekend. And I said, well, honey, if it's going to be raining, I might as well do something. There you go. So I just set up a nap. It was gorgeous. We appreciate you, Zach. Anywho, listeners, find us in that expanded Kiki. I can't wait to talk to y'all there. All right. Last thing before we get into this episode.

As usual, per usual, thanks for all the fan mail. Thanks for the love on social media. We love hearing from you. We read every email and now every Patreon chat. Keep it coming. Vibecheckatstitcher.com. Vibecheckatstitcher.com. Also, if you want to join that kiki, patreon.com slash vibecheck. With that...

Yee-haw, motherfuckers. Let's ride. Man, we said get in formation. Get in formation. We have action points for our listeners this week. Yee-haw. Saddle up. Let's ride. All right. So, listen, we're going in all things Cowboy Carter on this episode. The three of us are so excited. Basically, how this conversation has gone to unfold, the three of us each are going to kind of take on—

Sam is putting on a tiny silver cowboy hat. It's my redesign. Zach, can you take a picture? Can you take a picture of this? We need to... Oh, that is so precious. Oh, it reminds me of one of the skits from In Living Color. Men on Film. It's giving men on film. You didn't just call me Men on Film. No. It is. That's a hate call. We need to

Don't be mad at me. Take it up with the Wayans brothers. Wow. So the three of us are going to kind of each give our own reviews, our own kind of lens in terms of how we've approached the album. And then we're just going to let it play out as we kind of

talk about our different takes. We might disagree. In fact, I know we disagree in several of the ways we love the album differently. And then, you know, focus on different details. So I hope this conversation is rich and we just give you everything you've been desiring because listen,

The state of music criticism out there... It's bad. It's in the fucking gutter. It's bad. It is a mess. And if you've been seeing things like the review from the Washington Post, you know what I'm talking about. But this ain't the Washington Post. This ain't Texas. This is Vibe Chat. So let's get into it. Amen. Okay, so a couple of days into listening to Cowboy Carter, as Sam pointed out, it's been so great to have time to sit with the album before recording. I kind of settled on the thesis that...

Cowboy Carter is Beyonce's great American novel. And I wanted to kind of break that down. So in that,

American literature writers are often kind of pushed to understand that if they want to cement their legacy in the canon, at some point they should publish something that takes on the idea of the great American novel. And I would say that makes sense for Beyonce at this point in her career in her 40s. I saw someone point out that this might be analogous to Prince. Of

creating musicology when he was in his 40s. Just this moment where you're like, I'm going to talk about the legacy, the canon itself. In literature, these novels would be, I always start with Toni Morrison's Beloved, and I'll explain why I do that. The Grapes of Wrath, The Scarlet Letter, The Great Gatsby, To Kill a Mockingbird. You certainly recognize at least a few of these novels from school, and that's intentional. Because these are novels that,

that are argued to examine the very essence of America. And that's why we teach them to students. It's actually incredibly political, but it's the idea that you're not just teaching literature, you're teaching students what America is or supposed to be.

And I always say, you know, one of the reasons that Beloved is so exceptional is that the great American novel is violently considered to be the domain of white artists, in particular straight white male artists. So even like To Kill a Mockingbird at its time was considered like a controversial idea. Can a woman, can a white woman even write a great American novel? Because the rest of us, it's like that genre for us, we're immigrants.

We're invaders. Like it's the domain of straight white men. The rest of us are like, what are you doing here?

So to take it to Beyonce, as she says, the big ideas are buried here in American Requiem. Can you hear me or do you fear me? And then later on she says, and I think this is basically the thesis for the album, used to say I spoke to country and the rejection came, said I wasn't country enough, said I wouldn't saddle up. But if that ain't country, tell me what is.

And just like Toni Morrison often said, Toni Morrison said all of her novels start with a question that she's trying to answer. I think this is the question that Beyoncé uses Cowboy Carter. I would say sometimes it's like, are you trying to answer it? Are you trying to reckon with it? Are you trying to dismantle it altogether? It's kind of something you see as you listen. And so just as the Great American Novel is about

Who we view as authors slash authorities on America. This album is very much about, I would say, country music, the genre, and the industry as it is about the country we live in. Does that make sense so far? Am I cooking? You're cooking. You're cooking. I love that. My second thing that I would just say is that, you know, is this country is like a question of citizenship. And then I was interested in how that kind of bears out because like,

Looking back at Renaissance, and I think the order that these albums come out is something we want to talk about, right? Renaissance, Act I. To me, Renaissance sonically is a vertical album, which makes sense. House, dance, that's the domain of urban center. So

To me, it's like about stacking sounds and remixes and interpolations on top of each other. That album took us from the subway, you know, kids voguing, you know, getting on the A train all the way up to some fancy penthouse. It's like Studio 54, up and down, up and down. Cowboy Carter to me is because it's about the country. It's horizontal.

It spreads out. It's even hopefully trying to challenge the concept of manifest destiny. I don't want to conquer this landscape. I want to welcome this landscape in. And so it spreads out as she maps the genre. I would say she's unseating some capitals. She's tearing down borders. And she's also going international. I love this idea you bring up because –

daughter and spaghetti are dealing with the idea musically of the spaghetti Western, which was an Italian interpolation of the Western movie and like Western music. When these movies were made, they were made cheaply, but they were great. But Americans thumb their nose at them. Decades later, we realized they were great films. They were great films. So for her to have a song called spaghetti and reference that music, I get it. I get it. It's big horizontal.

Yeah. And it's also like in moments like that, she's also speaking to, you know, multiple histories at once with spaghetti, the dish itself being something that black people have made their own food due to Italian Americans or Italian immigrants being treated as a minority status for many years and having to live in community with black people. And there was a cultural sharing that happened that produced,

of food that no one thinks of as black, but we as black people grew up eating lots of spaghetti. In Louisiana, you have it with fish, but it's because of this kind of geography that that happened, and Beyonce lays bare to that in her America, as you're saying, Saeed. Yeah, and it was funny. I was going to say, I grew up, it drove me crazy as a kid because I was like, this is too much food, but yeah, it was fried catfish with a side of spaghetti. And some bread.

Thin some bread. I'm like, I'm full. Yes, that was a very Memphis dish. It was like, Jesus Christ. So yeah, I guess just to kind of wrap up, my thing is like, you know, Beyonce is a notoriously rigorous, you know, she's been criticized at times of being like perfectionist to the point of being robotic. I mean, their entire...

out there, like literal, like in school theses that people have written about her being a cyborg, which I actually find actually pretty disrespectful that she's inhuman. And so one of those examples is I was like, oh, how interesting, you know, this album is 20 years old.

27 tracks. I went through and I counted all of her studio albums. This is about six to seven tracks longer than anything she's done. And I was like, why would she do that? And I just would argue that I think the abundance, even, and as Zach pointed out one point over the weekend, it's like, you might get whiplash.

with the different sounds and styles on the album. It's abundant, it's rich. Some people might say overstuffed and we can talk about that and we will. But I think she's arguing that healthy countries and healthy genres are diverse, democratic, and dynamic. And then just one little thing I wanted to point out just to close out this idea of the map and how she changes it. In Yaya, she does some, I just love what she does in Yaya. She says, we gonna bust it down from Texas,

To Gary, which is Indiana. That is where Michael Jackson and his family are from. All the way down. She goes so heavy on that. All the way down to New York City. And so that's what I mean. She's unseating capitals. So she's really changing the way we look at our map. We look at our country. And I would say she wants us to look at ourselves. That's my spiel. I love it. That's my spiel. All right. My review...

is a bit of a counterpoint because I loved this album and I've loved pretty much every Beyonce album since Self Titled, but I think this one is a little bit bloated and overstuffed and I'll tell you why. To start, I gotta say, when I review a Beyonce album at this point, I'm not reviewing a Beyonce album

in conversation with other albums from other pop stars because she's on a higher level. All I can do is review her works to her other works. And so the way that I'm thinking about how to review this album is to hold it in comparison to part one, which I really, really loved. And I think my first response to you, Saeed, is that like with this album, Cowboy Carter, I feel like Beyonce is making it a point to convince everyone that this is the great American novel.

Whereas I would argue that self-titled, Lemonade, and Renaissance were three great American novels that didn't try that hard to convince me of it. Mm-hmm.

And I think that the parts of the album, Cowboy Carter, that I dislike the most are the parts where it feels like she's trying to convince Grammy voters, look at how smart this thing is. I think that opening track is meant to establish that she is serious. But it's not a song that I find myself humming after I hear it. And then after that, I think every interlude...

I don't want to hear it after the first listen. And this is my beef with all great albums that have interludes in them. Interludes work once, then they don't work, then you skip them. And even Beyonce can't escape that. I don't love the interludes. And I think that some of the things that seem smart are actually just like,

paint-by-number plays to get the Grammys to notice. You know, she has a few of the interludes where you hear a radio dial turn. And in one of the interludes with the dial turning, it's turning between historically popular black country musicians.

And at first you're like, oh, that's cool. But then you realize a lot of artists do that radio crank thing on their albums. And these are artists that I feel like with one Google search, you know, exist. And so it's like this performance of being profound that just gets in the way of like the actual songs. And so if I were to give a review of this album, I would say that in the parts where Beyonce is not convincing us about

of all the work that went into this album and she's just having fun. It's great.

And I actually narrowed down an ideal track list for what would be my perfect Cowboy Carter. I would take away all the interludes, and the tracks I would keep in would be 16 Carriages, Protector, Texas Hold'em, Bodyguard, Spaghetti, Two Most Wanted, Levi's Jeans, Ya Ya, and Oh Louisiana, Desert Eagle, Riverdance, Two Hands to Heaven, Tyrant, Sweet Honeybuckin'. That's like 14 or 15 songs, still a full Beyonce album, but all of them.

But all the things that got in the way of me just having fun would be gone. And this is why I think part one works better for me. It's really remarkable to have an artist like Beyonce design an album that is an hour-long DJ set. You don't stop dancing the whole time. There are no ballads. She wants you to move. That is a simpler album structure.

but i find it more rewarding than the deeply complex structure of cowboy carter i find the complexity of the structure of this album to get in the way of the great songs

Whereas with Renaissance Part I, I just dance for an hour. And I don't want to underplay how great this album is. I think Bodyguard is one of the best Beyonce songs she's ever made. Oh, it's so good. I think Two Most Wanted is great. I love Sixteen Carriages more every time I hear it. Sweet Honeybuckin' is wild. But I just – I wanted that more than I wanted –

the performance of great American novel because Beyonce has been making great American novels. I don't need to be convinced. That's a fair point. And listen, I disagree, but I, but I do, I get it because what I've realized is, and this is preference. And this is what's so great is that she's,

With the three acts of Renaissance, I think she's ultimately going to be like, you know, choose your adventure. But it's almost like with the Renaissance tour, which I think between the three of us, we went to 25 times each. Yeah. In the documentary, she makes a point of how the structure of the tour in terms of the stage and the crew, like the crew comes out in literally like silver reflective clothing. So like the work of Renaissance, she wanted us to see

how many people and how much work it takes to make a world tour. And I think some people don't want to see that. They're like, put the crew in black. I just want to focus on the performance. That's a fair preference. The thing that worked with part one, the music is just as sonically dense and layered as Cowboy Carter. Yeah.

It's just as profound musically, but she doesn't spend a second to explain it to you. She's just, let's go ahead and fucking dance, right? And I found there to be a bit of over-explanation in this album that just got in the way of me having fun. I even think American Requiem...

Lyrically is over explaining itself to Academy voters. Oh, I love American. I love it. I liked it enough. I think it's one of her best introductions. Yeah. I just think that like there are several moments where part one, I always felt she was talking just to me and Beyonce fans. Part two, I feel like she is talking to Academy voters. She even references directly losing out of the year last year. I think she's talking to the Academy. I think this is her time where she's like, I'm getting this out with the award. And that's that. And I find that gets in the way of the party.

Last point. My rule for covers of songs is...

is that if you're a great, smart artist, a cover needs to take the song to a new place. When I think of my favorite covers, Whitney covering I Will Always Love You, she made that a new song. The Fugees covering Killing Me Softly, she made that a new song. The cover of Blackbird is in the same key, the same voicing, the same pacing. It feels like it takes that song nowhere new. Blackbird singing in the dead of night

Take these sunken eyes and learn to see all your life. You are only waiting for this moment to be free.

And I feel the same way about Jolene. There's a new bridge, but it still feels like, oh, Jolene. Okay, so my issue with Jolene, your argument on that, it's literally a different song. If your point is make it a different song, it's literally a different song. She added a bridge, but no, the sound of the song is not different. The sound of the song is not different to me. She literally changes the, I feel like she's changing the lyrics. It can't be considered a cover. I don't think sonically it feels different to me. Jolene, I know I'm a queen, Jolene.

I'm still a Creole Benji bitch from Louisiana. Don't try me. I would love to hear Beyonce reinterpret these songs in a way that sounds different and new. And I just don't, like, you had an opportunity, especially with Blackbird, to go wild. Because no one can do vocal arrangements like Beyonce does. And she keeps it kind of like on the nose. But I would argue Beyonce historically doesn't really change covers too much. I mean, even in the last album.

I feel love the Donna Summer cover isn't different. It's her version of it. So I think she has this deep respect to history and the artists themselves to where she wants to give her spin on it, but it's never this massive departure. Like I would be confused if Blackbird was radically different. I wanted to hear her saying Blackbird similar to how the Beatles sang it. And that's me personally, but I told you, I hear you. I hear you on these points. I've gone too long. Zach, what's your review? So,

I'm going to try to do a different review and be a little kooky here. And I would argue that. Zach said, I'm a Pisces. I'm a Pisces. And I'm going to be real Piscean. So I have a lot of feelings about the album. But one that really came to light this morning while I was walking around was that I do think this album is maybe just as queer as Renaissance was.

and more queer and how it's structured in the project she's deploying through making it. So what I mean by that is, you know, Renaissance was obviously house music is about queer people, queer people of color, especially 80s, surviving the AIDS epidemic, all of those things. And it's very clear and on the nose. She talks about her uncle John, et cetera.

However, with Cowboy Carter, I'm thinking of queerness more of as like a theoretical framework of how we as minorities live on the edges of society and we have to fight this normative power to be seen, to be heard, and to create histories and stories. And queer theory as a theoretical practice is really obsessed with what we call counterpublics,

places where mainstream doesn't look and her album is obsessed with counterpublics the places where she grew up going places where she knows black people lived where they survived and where they create it whether it was you know in the chain gangs as we hear in 16 carriages the chitlin circuits like these are counterpublics and beyonce is revisiting them and shining light on them and for me that's a very queer project that she's doing there i like that um and then i

And then to continue that idea, I think you can listen to this record and you hear Renaissance very clearly in its composition. Especially that back third. Oh, yeah. There's a lot of Renaissance. Oh, that's Renaissance.

So the fact that she was making a country album and thinking of house music, like when you go back to listen to Texas Hold'em, that final few seconds, the outro part where you hear the piano, that's house music right there. And she's putting it with a twang, which I've never heard done before. And I love how, I'm a student of house music. I love it deeply. And I grew up in Nashville around country music. So to hear that blending is so incredible. And that's also what makes this queer to me is that so much about

queerness and our understanding of queer theory and queer histories is for us to all look back in time and to know that we existed even if we had not been seen. And that's what she's doing in this album is saying, we were there, we were seen, we were erased.

We were pushed out, but yet we kept going. And I'm here to really bring power to that work and honor those ancestors. And I just love that so much. And I think I'm thinking a lot about this quote from Alice Randall, the songwriter. And she was on Today Explained last week with Noel King. And she said, the foundation of country music is this idea that the past is always better than the present. And I think when you're black,

that is not the case when Beyonce looks back at the past it is not better than the present but what makes this then a queer black project is that she's saying well my future can be better than all of that and I'm going to show you how I do that so that's for me I think I'm like more of a theoretical level I love the work she's doing the storytelling the complexities the

over explaining the proving that she knows what she's talking about. And that's why I think I have more compassion to her with the over explaining you're saying Sam, because I'm like, well, you know, we've all as black gay men had to really show up.

4X everyone else and show our work and show that we know the canon. We show that we know everything. And then within knowing everything, we have to then create something new. And I think that's this album is I know everything and here's the new. And that to me is very queer. Hearing you say that, I think what's hitting for me the most when I compare part two to part one, Renaissance part one felt incredibly intimate.

It felt like it was just me and Beyonce on the dance floor. And I think Cowboy Carter is Beyonce giving a lecture to America. And it feels more public. And I find that my favorite version of Beyonce is when she's just dancing with me. And I think the albums of hers that I love the most feel like that. Like B-Day and 4. Those are very intimate albums.

Four especially. Yeah. And so I guess what I'm saying is like, of course, this is a masterwork from one of the greatest pop stars of our time. But if I had my druthers, I would strip it down, take everything away except the bangers and just bang, baby. But I get it. Beyonce is doing something else and she can. All right. It's time for us to take a quick break, but stay tuned. We'll be right back.

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All right, we're back, and we're giving you more of our thoughts and reviews on Cowboy Carter. This is so beautiful. Look at us. Look at us. Friends. Friends. Because Sam and I were fucking fighting. I wasn't fighting. I was speaking my truth, girl. So we went to our quarters and thought about it. But no, I love this. And, you know, I think...

I'm fascinated to see where we go with the third part of this trilogy. I think it'll be really important because my sense is that when we look back, and we will, I'm so excited to get to that point and to be able to do that vibe check conversation. I think Beyonce's going to say you don't have to choose, that the entire point of this trilogy is...

Is that I'm going to give you, like Sam said, my Beyonce is where it feels like Beyonce is just talking to me. It's not like we're in an amphitheater and she's at the lectern. And mine is. I love Professor, the historian Beyonce, the historian of music. One thing I wanted to point out that I just love, two things actually, is the counterpublics that Zach points out.

Maybe that's what I love so much when she says we're going all the way down to New York City, right? Because typically American culture, like New York is supposed to be like the high point of culture. So we're supposed to go toward New York City. But her New York, Black Cowboys New York is different. She's like, we'll go down to that little border town, New York City and say hello. And the other thing I love, and because you pointed out like the flow of house music, Riverdance does feel like on the tour would flow right into Pure Honey. Yeah.

I think I could see how that goes. And the reason I love Riverdance, which I think for some listeners, they might have been like, Irish music, huh? That's country too. If we look again at a map, if we go back to, be a nerd with me, geography, the mountain range that Irish people worked on as miners in Ireland was

is actually the same mountain range that becomes Appalachia in the United States. When they immigrated to the United States, many Irish people actually settled in Appalachia and became miners. And so they're working. And so that's like such an unexpected way to kind of emphasize, oh, honey, it's all connected. I love it. It is nerdy. It's heady. I totally understand the love. Like with Renaissance, I mean, the first time I listened to it, I think I was fascinated

four tracks in where i was like wait where's the end of the song because it flows just so well but this is very different i will say though one pet peeve of mine and i'm just like how did this end up on the album because what the hell is this i keep trying to like alligator tears i can't i like alligator tears okay so why don't you like it

I don't like the delivery. Well, one, it's like what I love about Beyonce lyrically is that every song she's putting on a costume. And very rarely you'll see Beyonce just doing Beyonce. And I think what I loved about Protector in 16 Carriages, those were like narrating her life.

her life as a young girl going to work and tour, and then her life as a mother of these kids. And that felt very personal. But throughout the rest of the songs on the album, she's putting on hats. You know, she's cosplaying a murderer, a juke joint mistress, etc. This cosplay just didn't work for me. Beyoncé would never do that. She would never let a man control her that fully. If you tell me to lose a religion, I'll hang out with you on Sundays. If you tell me to build a mountain, I'll put on my boots. Girl...

The cosplay of Beyonce that works the least for me is when she performs a powerful woman debasing herself for her man.

I'm just like, why do you keep doing this? Why do you keep doing this? Changing religions is actually pretty wild. It's a lot, yeah. Though there's a long history of that. I mean, I guess I do like Alligator Tears. I don't know why. I will say it's not because of the lyrics. I think it's the guitar. There's something about the sound of that song. It's almost hypnotic for me. It really is. Zach, what do you think about Alligator Tears? Put me to sleep too. I...

I like it, but it's not the one that I've been repeating over and over. For me, a song that just surprised me and I keep returning to would be Just For Fun. I'm going all out just for fun. I am the man I know. And everywhere I go, they know my name.

It like moves me to tears. I don't know why I love it so much. So, so much. And I just keep playing it over and over. And then after that, you know, the transition and Beyonce lately has become the queen of a transition between songs. Especially Renaissance was proof of that. How those songs just flow together. And that is incredible. And going from Riverdance to Two Hands to Heaven is beautiful. Beautiful.

It's like really profound to me what she's doing there. And that's where I've been texting a lot of different friends and a few of them, especially like queer folks in New York were like, that's my favorite part of the album, that transition. That transition. I will say my favorite part sonically, the bass line on Bodyguard. And sometimes I hold you closer just to know you're there.

When it gets to the chorus, the bass line gets funky. And that bass line is coming from one Raphael Sadiq, who has produced a lot with Beyonce. And he also does the bass guitar for the Salon song, Cranes in the Sky. That's Raphael Sadiq as well. That man knows the bass line. He's also on Desert Eagle, which has, I mean, a sexy bass. Sexy. Also, I've learned last night while watching the iHeart Awards that Stevie Wonder played the harmonica on-

I heard her say that. On Jolene. She said, thanks for playing the harmonica on Jolene. And I was like, what? So there's like little, I love that about her. There's like, he doesn't have a credit to my knowledge, but like she called in all these friends to do it. Speaking of friends being there, can I just take one second and say that song with Miley Cyrus. I love it so much. Wow, what a moment. Two Most Wanted. I read it as a queer text. I imagine the two of them singing to each other. It feels that way. I love it that way. I love it.

I love it that way. To me, it's like the best friend anthem. I was like, oh, I said in the group text, I was like, me and Isaac could sing this to each other badly, but we could. So the one thing I want to say about, I'm not going to argue about the covers. My thing with Blackbird is Paul McCartney has said, you know, it was written about a black woman. It was very much about the civil rights movement. And my relationship to covers is a little different because I,

I feel like so many Black artists, I'm thinking about like Nina Simone, for example, they covered white songs. They would cover songs by the Beatles because they felt they needed to, to cover them, to earn an audience. It was like literally a way to like win over a white live audience. And the way that Beyonce does Blackbird to me is,

i'm not gonna say it made sense but i'm gonna say i think it's very beautiful that she didn't feel the need to change it she was like the song was written about a black woman and so i'm gonna sing this song like paul mccartney wrote it for me i don't need black to do anything different with right with three or four i'm gonna push back and say that when i think of black women in the 60s covering white songs my favorite of that is aretha singing bridge over troubled water and she turns that folk song

a soul song. Yeah. I love when an artist puts their stamp on it. That's what I want in a cover. Someone as talented as Beyonce, I always want to hear where her head's going to go. And I was waiting to see where her head was going to go with Blackbird and it just stayed there. That's my beef. I mean,

Listen, it's a preference. It's interesting to hear. So you're like the point of the cover is to transform. It's got to transform the text. Totally. Totally. I think for me it's like I found – and this is just my bigger review of the album. In part one, all of Beyonce's energy and focus is just on making the music.

And in part two, it feels like there's a lot of focus on the music and then also a lot of focus on explaining to you what it all means. And I think that is where I'm like, do I want or need all of that? Because part one is just as sonically deep. She's just not explaining. She's just dancing. But I would say, and I know we have to wrap up with this, but I totally hear it. And Sam, I think the reason why you may feel that way is that you are a musician.

a music historian in many ways. You are a person that understands music. I'm going to unpack it regardless. Everything. And she is making an album for people who had never even thought about whatever black people doing in these genres, how do they sound, what do they look like? So I think it's, you know, the audience is different and she, and that kind of, and I think if we think a lot about that, who is she making this for? That begins saying, she's making pop. Yeah. Cause it's like in terms of writing, like if you write above a third grade writing level,

you're alienating like 40% of American listeners. So when you're like, you know, we would all know these country people if we were gone. I'm like, no, we wouldn't. Like, I think that, you know, she's kind of like kind of going, I've got to meet listeners where they are to a certain extent. Well, and like also even just thinking of Blackbird, I knew the issue of that song. I bet most Americans didn't. Yeah. Cause people were like, people were like, why is she singing this Beatles song? And then they Google and they're like, oh, it's,

It's similar to when people are like, why is Kanye West sampling Strange Fruit by Nina Simone? And then you Google and you're like, oh my God. And actually this feels like a perfect point to like wrap up is that listeners learn about Linda Martell, who's also invoked on the album and is on, I think,

two interludes. She was the first black solo country artist to perform at the Grand Ole Opry and was treated so poorly after her debut album that she disappeared for about 30 years. There's a great Rolling Stones profile of her that was done in 2020. But to Zach's point, one of the ways that Kanye, before he lost his damn mind-

One of the nobler things he did, I think he did kind of bring Nina Simone back into like a mainstream. A lot of us knew about her, I'm clear. But a mainstream kind of cognizance, awareness. And for Linda Martell, I think it's been really beautiful to see that. But it depends on your purpose. And to just like circle the wagons on this.

Beyonce was shunned at the CMA similar to what Linda Martel went through. And she went to the Grand Ole Opry and dealt with singing there. And Beyonce decided to say, I'm going to use that rejection and make something really beautiful. And I think we just cannot. Yeah, it's incredible. It's really something. It's her villain origin story. I love it. She's like, oh, come on.

Listeners, thank y'all for all of the Cowboy Carter ideas you've sent to us. Emails and voice notes. We love it. Keep it coming. On the Patreon, we have a lovely discussion going on about our favorite song from the album. You can find us there as well. But any bodyguard stans out there, support me. Oh, what a song. It's a fucking good song. I'm literally going to copy and paste my notes and put them in the

Patreon as opposed to... And I think that whatever thoughts will be... It's so fun to have Patreon where we can kind of keep these conversations going. So if you want more, that's the place to go. Office hours. Yeah. All right. With that, we love you, Beyoncé. Here's what I want. And Chantel, leave this in. I was playing Bodyguard again last night and I was like, oh, I want Beyoncé and Raphael Sadiq to make a 70s funk rock.

Oh, wow. Because this is the thing about Beyonce, and leave this in too as another point. The decade that Beyonce most wants to live in is the 70s. Clearly. It's the 70s. And let me tell you, there's a third act, and we can just begin to dream with that. Yes. And Yaya is very much like kind of Chuck Berry moving us for rock. Yaya is 70s. Bodyguard is 70s. Cuff It is a disco song.

She loves the 70s. Half of B-Day was in the 70s. It was 70s funk. I really want not just the disco album from her because that decade was bigger than that, but like a melding of...

rock, funk, and disco with a 70s lens. Like a kind of Chaka Khan 70s. And I think we are right because if you look at the datelines of the country music she's referencing, Willie Nelson, Dolly Parton, these songs that she's referencing are 70s. Beyonce is a 70s artist. Chantel, leave it in. That was a good leave it in. Now we're quick to take a break. Now.

Do not go anywhere. We'll be right back with this week's recommendation.

This message is brought to you by McDonald's. Did you know only 7.3% of American fashion designers are black? Well, McDonald's 2024 Change Leaders Program is ready to change the face of fashion. The innovative program awards a monetary grant to five emerging black American designers and pairs each with an industry professional to help them elevate their brands.

I know specifically and distinctly how McDonald's can support and empower not just black Gen Z but black people. My first job was McDonald's. I learned a lot there about customer service and how to relate to people. I still love that place and go there very often. Look out for the change of fashion designers and mentors

at events like the BET Awards and the Essence Festival of Culture. And follow the journey of the 2024 McDonald's Change Leaders on their Instagram page, WeAreGolden. You were made to travel the world and the seven seas and countless lakes and innumerable rivers and one perfect pond. Get travel ideas from Chad GPT on Expedia. Made to travel.

Listeners, we are back. And before we end the show, we'd each like to share something that's helping keep our vibes right this week as always. And to get us going, I'm going to my sister, Sam Sanders, to get us started. Call me LeVar Burton, baby, because it's a book this week. He's been so excited about this book. You are so cute. Call me LeVar Burton, baby.

I met him once. He's so sweet. He seems so sweet. He is very nice. I've met him a few times. He is a sweet, charming, handsome man. That man. He is handsome. Zadie. Zadie. The original. The blueprint. In fact. Cowboy Mike Carter. Whoa. You've been Zadie all our lives. Cowboy Mike Carter. Let us focus. Oh, my God. LaVar, we are so sorry. We are so sorry. I'm sorry, Mr. Burton. I'm sorry. Ooh.

Okay, my recommendation is a novel just released from Percival Everett. Y'all know Percival Everett's name because we've mentioned him on the show because he wrote the book Erasure, which became the film American Fiction, which won our friend Cord Jefferson an Oscar. Percival Everett's new book is called James.

My friend Tracy over at the Stacks podcast was like, you must get this book. So we had lunch last week and then went to a bookstore and I bought the book there and she's right. James is a retelling of Huckleberry Finn through the eyes and mouth of Jim the slave. But here's the twist. In this retelling, Jim can read. He can read and he's been hiding it from all the white folks his whole life.

I find this one really hard to put down. The chapters are short, so it feels very propulsive. And there's a lot of plot. They're moving and doing things. And it's just a smart satire. And just you never would have expected anyone to retell Huck Finn because you're like, oh, it's Huck Finn.

But he did and it works. It's so good. This is like my nighttime flashlight book. I love it. I love that it's your recommendation because it goes with our conversation. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain. Another example of the great American novel. And what you're saying with Percival Everett. Why would he take this on? Yeah, because he's like, yeah, this great American novel is racist as fuck.

There you go. We need to talk about it. Yeah, I've done that. No, it's so good. And the book is coming in the wake of a recent controversy in the art world. People follow this, but there was a statue, I think the Whitney had it, of Huck and Jim, the two characters in the book, and they're naked. And they had to take the statues down. I think they've been hidden because they were like people who don't understand the reference or the book or what this is. Why is there this huge black man? Yeah, next to this white child. There's a big controversy for a while.

Well, James doesn't have that. Go get the book, kids. Oh, God. All right. Well, Saeed, what about you?

All right. So I'm so excited because the poem I'm reading today comes from a book by Kim Adonisio titled Tell Me. It was published in 2000. I read it in college and this book is dark, sexy, and messy. And honestly, it made me change my major. I changed my major from English literature to writing because I was like, oh, we can do this. We can write poems like this, poems that get in trouble.

Kind of like going off my conversation about Cowboy Carter, you know, the way I think about literature a lot is actually informed by evolutionary biology. The idea that form follows function. The way a plant is shaped is because of how a plant needs to function in order to thrive. And so this poem is a great example of that. To be clear, it is a dark poem.

disturbing poem about addiction in this case. But you will notice that the style, the form of the poem is doing work. I would say it's seducing us, trying to get us addicted to it, even as the ideas and images that are presented are like, run away, run away. You should not like this poem. And yet Kim Adonisio uses all of her tools to make us want to like it. The

The title is The Divorcee and Gin. And again, it's by Kim Adonisio. I love the frosted pints you come in and the tall bottles with their uniformed men, the bars where you're poured, chilled into shallow glasses, the taste of drowned olives and the scrawled benches where I see you passed impatiently from one mouth to another, the bag twisted tight around your neck.

The hand that holds you, shaking a little from its need, which is the true source of desire. God, I love what you do to me at night when we're alone. How you wait for me to take you into me until I'm so confused with you I can't stand up anymore. I know you want me helpless, each cell whimpering. I give you that, letting you have me just the way you like it.

And when you're finished, you turn your face to the wall while I curl around you again and enter another morning with aspirin and the useless ache that comes from loving too well those who, under the guise of pleasure, destroy everything they touch.

Again, that's The Divorcee in Gin by Kim Adonisio. And the book is Tell Me I Can't Recommend. This dark, messy book enough. I love it. The line where she says, I know you want me helpless. It's almost like imagine listening to Bodyguard. And you're like, oh, this is great. And then by the end, you're like, the Bodyguard has ruined my life. This is terrible. This is terrible. Yes. Wow.

Zach, what's your recommendation this week? So I had to pick Solange as my rec just to give support and love to the sister of Beyonce, mainly because before Beyonce was doing full-throated cowboy aesthetics, Solange was doing it before. And now that we've learned that Beyonce began this project in 2016, we now can see that these two sisters have been in conversation for almost a decade trying to understand each

Cowboy Culture, Blackness, and Their Home, Houston. Her album, When I Get Home, and film is still one of my favorite albums ever. And the film is stunning. And I rewatched it last night in preparation for today. And I had forgotten that the entire thing, the plot is moved by cowboys. It's just black cowboys riding around Texas for an hour. And it's really, and she's in cowboy attire. Everything is cowboy centric, but it's cowboys in the urban landscape of Houston, downtown and then out

the country. So I think if you revisit some of her work now, knowing Beyonce has been working on this project, you can imagine the two sisters are probably at home with the mom talking about their own histories and their lineage. And I think it's just such a beautiful thing to think about. I love that. When I get home, I need to listen to that again. Cause that, you know, it's funny. Another tie when I get home kind of feels like Renaissance where the songs flow into one another. So seamlessly, it does almost feel like a DJ said, Oh,

Wow. Okay, I see the sisters. I think the New York Times said that it feels like, you know, if the first album, which Sam already referenced today on the show, was about, you know, words that we say to each other and words that we need to get through things, this album's about the feelings and the mood we need.

we need just to get through it all and it's a very moody kind of atmospheric thing yeah so that's our Rex but listeners what are you feeling this week what's keeping your vibe right let us know over at vibecheckatstitcher.com or on Patreon and

And I have one more note. I'm very excited. Our next episode will be a poetry episode. April is National Poetry Month, and we are so delighted that my gal pal, my good bourbon slinging friend, because she's from Kentucky and we love to have a good drink, Ada Limon. She's an incredible poet. I love her work. She's also, no big deal, the U.S. Poet Laureate.

So she'll be joining us for an episode. I'm so excited. I'm happy this is happening because I have been quietly pushing Saeed to just go...

balls to the walls on poetry. I'm like, poetry episode, poetry club. And Saeed's like, I gotta preserve my peace. This is happening with a friend of Saeed's, so we're ready for it. I'm so ready for it. I'm very excited. So yeah, and I'll take this to the Patreon as well, but you can also email us. Poetry questions, this is the time. I always say, I think I've been pretty welcoming in the way I talk about poetry on the podcast.

I would say Ada is even more so. So friends, if there's a long time question, I saw on blue sky the other day, someone said like line breaks and poetry. How am I supposed to read them? How do I pause? It always trips them up. I'm going to ask Ada about that. But if you have other questions about poetry, if you want to feel, I would say more welcomed in the country of poetry, this is your opportunity. So please, please send us questions.

I'm ready for it. It's going to be amazing. Cannot, cannot wait. That's the show. We can't wait to hear what you think of the album. Go to the Patreon. Zach got beat picks over there, y'all. Get up on it. I don't have any picks. Not yet, at least. The rent isn't due.

for another month so maybe then maybe then patreon.com slash vibecheck come get us come and get it well with that thank you for tuning into this week's episode of vibecheck if you love the show and want to support us please make sure to follow the show on your favorite podcast listening platform subscribe on apple podcast and leave a review and most importantly tell your friends yes yes

Huge thank you to our producer, Chantel Holder, engineer Rich Garcia, and Marcus Holm for our theme music and sound design. Also, special thanks to our executive producers, Nora Ritchie at Stitcher and Brandon Sharp from Agenda. I got to see Nora in person twice last week. She was in LA. It was so delightful. We love you, Nora. I'm so jealous. Nora, I could be your bodyguard. All right. Also, listen, don't forget, we...

I got to do something because I haven't gotten to see her. I got to bring it. I got to bring the heat. All right, listeners, of course, we want to hear from you. Don't forget, you can email us at vibecheckatstitcher.com. Keep in touch with us on Instagram. And now, of course, you can find us on Instagram at our new page at vibecheckatstitcher.

at vibecheck underscore pod. So follow us there. And of course, we have our Patreon where just $5, $5 gets you direct access to our group chat. It's pretty fun. We're going to keep the conversation going. And again, the page is patreon.com slash vibecheck. But for now, that's it. Stay tuned for another episode next week featuring U.S. poet laureate Ada Limon. Bye. Bye. Yeehaw. Stitcher.

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