Beyoncé exposed for never listening to country

[PartySick 175,380]

55 minutes ago, Ladle Ghoulash said:

Idk I feel like the only way Joanne is cosplay is if you think of it as a trying to be a country record as opposed to just being a classic rock/americana record. Gaga clearly has an affinity for those genres (frequently cites Springsteen and Young) and I don’t really see Joanne is being sonically or aesthetically insincere.

 

38 minutes ago, Bronco said:

I personally disagree, as the classic rock is deliberately country-fied which drags the tracks down at the start of the album. 

And the latter half feels disjointed and at times phoned in. 

I've always felt like its an album where she's out of her depth with the genres she's experimenting with. 

Joanne has literally never struck me as remotely close to being country music but I grew up in the south and was raised on classic country and hillbilly music. Like, at best it takes inspiration in the same way Mayhem occasionally sounds like something that crawled out of the 70s and 80s then mutated.

It's always hit me as more rock coded and her chosen aesthetic was "halfway-to-the-west southerner".

I'd put anything on Joanne as closer to tracks like Perfect Celebrity and Vanish Into You than anything on Cowboy Carter or any country album

[Ziggy 14,373]

3, 2, 1 before this gets racist af.

 

Cowboy Carter was not about "making a country album" the same way renaissance wasn't about making a dance one. It started from being gatekept from something in her lineage as a black person (despite also being told she talked like a hick, was too country, etc.) and evolved *with research* (Es Devlin did an interview noting this) that became an album inspired by the research she did into the history of black country culture bc she realized she didn't know very much). The music, as anyone with ears could surmise, is very obviously not a genre album, something that album addresses as well. In the text of the album, she goes on to say that genres are imaginary and that genres have historically been used to box Black people out of spaces (which she has personal experience with both after the CMAs performance of Daddy Lessons and with always being called "urban R&B"). When she says she's "been country", she means in the sense of her Black ancestry.

 

So no she wasn't exposed for anything. People either A) want to deliberately want to misread her very clearly stated intentions with her work because they're racist and/or jealous people or B) are ignorant enough and lacking appropriate media literacy to even understand surface text.

 

Now, how you like the music or not is a very different discussion. Personally, I think it's mostly good, seldom great, but I see what she's trying for.

Edited August 18 by Ziggy

[Bronco 28,699]

1 minute ago, PartySick said:

It's always hit me as more rock coded and her chosen aesthetic was "halfway-to-the-west southerner".

I mean halfway to the west southerner is outlaw country territory 👀😂

I definitely agree it should be a rock or americana album (not that it can make its mind up).

I just think with the aesthetic, the cowboy references and the odd vocal accent she was using at the time just takes me out because it lands way off that mark. 

[Ziggy 14,373]

1 hour ago, Ladle Ghoulash said:

Idk I feel like the only way Joanne is cosplay is if you think of it as a trying to be a country record as opposed to just being a classic rock/americana record. Gaga clearly has an affinity for those genres (frequently cites Springsteen and Young) and I don’t really see Joanne is being sonically or aesthetically insincere.

I didn't read the aesthetic of Joanne as insincere. Gaga never is that. She's sincere sometimes to a fault lololol but she definitely had some sense of mind that she was being less aesthetic which I think in hindsight she would agree is untrue. I think Joanne is just as aestheticized as any of her albums, but dressed in a sort of "authenticity" drag.

Edited August 18 by Ziggy

[Ladle Ghoulash 55,401]

4 minutes ago, Ziggy said:

I think Joanne is just as aestheticized as any of her albums, but dressed in a sort of "authenticity" drag.

Completely agreed and I think, honestly, as much as I understand why she did it (pandering to people who never understood the meta nature of her persona and only respond to broad gestures of “authenticity”), I kind of wish she had just owned the campiness of a Manhattanite embracing an Americana aesthetic for her “roots” record. Give us Coyote Ugly, give us Versace cowgirl! Give us “western” Gaga! John Wayne’s MV is probably the closest she got to that approach, which is why I think it’s probably the strongest vid from the era (tho I enjoy PI), but I think the album would’ve been easier for her fans to digest (and more holistically sincere) had she approached it more in that vein.

Edited August 18 by Ladle Ghoulash

[Ziggy 14,373]

1 hour ago, RaveMonster said:

Beyonce cosplayed both country and dance music but managed to release good albums both times. Anyone who knows Beyoncé and how she operates can tell you she did not care for country or dance music before she decided to venture into the genre. It’s fun she did it and the narrative behind it is unique but you’re never going to convince me she cared about these genres before she decided to make a project based on them 

but that doesn't make it cosplay, that makes it evolution. This is something always attached to women in pop, that they're dishonest and sneaky when the reality is Beyonce never once said she was all about these genres. Though, I do contend she was very about dance music, just certain specific parts of it which you can see on tracks like Virgo's Groove and POTS and Summer Renaissance where she's clearly *very* at-home and some of it is reminiscient of her first two albums since RnB and pop has always had a close relationship to dance. ALL THE SAME, her deciding to research and make these eras and albums doesn't mean she's dishonest or some genre charlatan. She became interested in something, did obviously thorough research, and made great work from these efforts.

[PartySick 175,380]

10 minutes ago, Bronco said:

I mean halfway to the west southerner is outlaw country territory 👀😂

I definitely agree it should be a rock or americana album (not that it can make its mind up).

I just think with the aesthetic, the cowboy references and the odd vocal accent she was using at the time just takes me out because it lands way off that mark. 

Yes  

I feel the country inspiration comes from the same era of music where country was really diverging from rock n' roll and rock n' roll had just barely branched off from rhythm and blues which itself is a sister to jazz.

Even A-Yo has that bluesy ass guitar riff that stepped right out of the 50s  

And outlaw country was born out of a rebellion to Nashville's sound in that same era, it injected more honky tonk and folksy roots which Joanne can be said to borrow from a bit  

Anyway, the aesthetic? I love that part  she totally became a city girl wearing cosplay of a suburban Texas mom cosplaying Tennessee local  

I think the tour had the sweet spot of it though. A kind of Gaga-fying of the yeehaw stuff.

Cowboy hats? Yes, but also leather and muscle cars

(If I'm rambling it's 'cause I have a migraine )

[Ziggy 14,373]

1 minute ago, Ladle Ghoulash said:

Completely agreed and I think, honestly, as much as I understand why she did it (pandering to people who never understood the meta nature of her persona and only respond to broad gestures of “authenticity”), I kind of wish she had just owned the campiness of a Manhattanite embracing an Americana aesthetic for her “roots” record. Give us Coyote Ugly, give us Versace cowgirl! Give us “western” Gaga!

THANK YOU. I actually wish she just went further with it, too. Like imagine a sort of Showgirls + Coyote Ugly vibe? Immaculate. I think she wasn't aware how she was operating at the time, but had she been it would have been cool for her to push the aesthetic even further

[PartySick 175,380]

5 minutes ago, Ladle Ghoulash said:

Completely agreed and I think, honestly, as much as I understand why she did it (pandering to people who never understood the meta nature of her persona and only respond to broad gestures of “authenticity”), I kind of wish she had just owned the campiness of a Manhattanite embracing an Americana aesthetic for her “roots” record. Give us Coyote Ugly, give us Versace cowgirl! Give us “western” Gaga! John Wayne’s MV is probably the closest she got to that approach, which is why I think it’s probably the strongest vid from the era (tho I enjoy PI), but I think the album would’ve been easier for her fans to digest (and more holistically sincere) had she approached it more in that vein.

When Willie Nelson left Nashville he went to Texas and found a style of music that brought a bunch of rock loving hippies and redneck rebel types into the same rooms. Imagine if she sprinkled her "NYC bad bitch" onto that  

[Bronco 28,699]

6 minutes ago, PartySick said:

I think the tour had the sweet spot of it though. A kind of Gaga-fying of the yeehaw stuff.

Cowboy hats? Yes, but also leather and muscle cars

Honestly the tour fine tuned the issues I have with the album.

Still sad my show got canceled at the end. Would have been my first gaga show.

[Ladle Ghoulash 55,401]

5 minutes ago, Ziggy said:

she wasn't aware how she was operating at the time,

I think she was, but she was getting a little too method with it, imo. Like one of the best moments from 5FT2 is when she’s explaining the Joanne “uniform” to Ruth Hogben and Ruth is confused by Gaga donning an understated aesthetic and Gaga, as a way of subliminally communicating that she’s still the same theatrical provocateur underneath it all, takes off her bra and shows her tits to the camera while explaining why she’s dialing it back. Love, love, love ha.

[Ladle Ghoulash 55,401]

2 minutes ago, PartySick said:

When Willie Nelson left Nashville he went to Texas and found a style of music that brought a bunch of rock loving hippies and redneck rebel types into the same rooms. Imagine if she sprinkled her "NYC bad bitch" onto that  

BTW x JoanneGa? Oh, a slay to be SURE

[BrandyFinest 959]

that twitter account sucks, it's just barbz slop

[Ilia Malinin 3,194]

to be fair, the only true country songs i've ever willingly listened to are jolene and 9 to 5.

Edited August 18 by Ilia Malinin

[gagzus 26,564]

The clip is old so she could’ve gotten into it since. 
 

also the “ALWAYS BEEN COUNTRY” thing is clearly about the origins of Country coming from Black artists.