Speaker 1: Already and this is the Daily ARS. This is the
Speaker 1: Daily OS. Oh now it makes sense.
Speaker 2: Good morning, and welcome to the Daily OS. It's Friday,
Speaker 2: the twenty ninth of March. I'm Emma Gillespie. I'm the
Speaker 2: editor of the Daily OS.
Speaker 1: I'm Lucy Tassel, I'm the fact checker.
Speaker 2: That's right, a different cast today, where the cat's away
Speaker 2: the mice will play. Happy good Friday, A good Friday indeed,
Speaker 2: because we're here to talk about Beyonce's new album dropping today,
Speaker 2: the twenty ninth of March, and Lucy, you're joining me
Speaker 2: to talk all things Beyonce's foray into country music, why
Speaker 2: some country fans aren't as excited as we are about
Speaker 2: the new album and what it all means and where
Speaker 2: it's all come from. Yance has made history again or
Speaker 2: for her new song Texas Hold'em the song his debut
Speaker 2: in the number one spot.
Speaker 3: And I just don't country music, beyoncew afied, I want
Speaker 3: country music to go backwards, not forward.
Speaker 1: That's right. M It's not just a good Friday, it's
Speaker 1: the best Friday. But first, what's making headlines?
Speaker 2: The Australian government has announced an inquiry into the nation's
Speaker 2: live music industry will go ahead. It comes after Splendor
Speaker 2: in the Grass confirmed the festival will not be going
Speaker 2: ahead this year, just a week after tickets went on sale.
Speaker 2: It follows a series of music festival cancelations due to
Speaker 2: high costs and low ticket sales. Chair of the Communications
Speaker 2: and Arts Committee, Brian Mitchell said the industry is facing
Speaker 2: considerable operational challenges, particularly after COVID. The inquiry we'll look
Speaker 2: into what's preventing the industry from growing and the potential
Speaker 2: for more government funding to ensure future festivals can go ahead.
Speaker 1: Many young Australians and low income households are now spending
Speaker 1: around a quarter of their income on groceries, according to
Speaker 1: a survey of over thirteen thousand people conducted by the
Speaker 1: Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, the a Triple C. It
Speaker 1: also found people are opting for frozen food over fresh produce.
Speaker 1: The survey is part of the A Triple C's inquiry
Speaker 1: into supermarkets and will continue to gather data until the
Speaker 1: second of April.
Speaker 2: Jetstar has announced it'll begin flights from Singapore directly to
Speaker 2: Broom in Western Australia in an effort to encourage regional tourism.
Speaker 2: The airline is expected to run two return flights per
Speaker 2: week in a service supported by the WA government's Aviation Fund.
Speaker 2: Flights will run from the twenty fifth of June to
Speaker 2: late October in a seasonal service and will pick up
Speaker 2: again in April twenty twenty five. WA Tourism Minister Rita
Speaker 2: Safiotti said the new route offers an entirely new gateway
Speaker 2: for tourists into the state.
Speaker 1: And in some good news, a sixty four year old
Speaker 1: man has become the first person to swim from Newcastle
Speaker 1: to Sydney unassisted. Dean Summers swam for over thirty one hours,
Speaker 1: enduring stings from swarms of blue bottled jellyfish. Newcastle is
Speaker 1: about one hundred and seventy k's north of Sydney, or
Speaker 1: two and a half hour drive. He said. The swim
Speaker 1: aims to showcase our own coastal largely pristine waters.
Speaker 2: Now any opportunity to talk about pop culture, but stay
Speaker 2: with us. We promise there is a smart take on
Speaker 2: this one today, very smart. Last month, Beyonce dropped to
Speaker 2: pretty country singles during the Super Bowl or shortly after
Speaker 2: the Super Bowl. We got Texas hold him.
Speaker 1: Saints Texas hold them as are cut down, Down Down Now.
Speaker 2: And sixteen carriages.
Speaker 3: Sixteen characters driving away dreams.
Speaker 1: Or two great songs. We loved them. But fast forward
Speaker 1: a couple of weeks and Beyonce ended up saying she
Speaker 1: hopes that quote years from now, the mention of an
Speaker 1: artist's race as it relates to releasing genres of music
Speaker 1: will be irrelevant. So pretty interesting comment to make as
Speaker 1: you're beginning to make country music. Where could this have
Speaker 1: come from? So lucy.
Speaker 2: We're going to get into how we got to a
Speaker 2: place where Beyonce was making a statement of that nature,
Speaker 2: But first I wanted to touch on this relationship between
Speaker 2: politics and country music. It's not the first time we've
Speaker 2: seen an artist kind of caught up in a political
Speaker 2: debate about the genre, but interestingly, that's tended to happen
Speaker 2: in the opposite direction when an artist who is known
Speaker 2: as a country musician leaves the genre and transitions into
Speaker 2: making different kinds of music exactly.
Speaker 1: Well, we've seen Miss Taylor Swift move towards pop around
Speaker 1: the same time as she took her first political stances
Speaker 1: in the mid twenty tens, and actually just last year,
Speaker 1: Maren Morris, who's a huge country star, recently said she
Speaker 1: was actually moving away from country music. She wanted to
Speaker 1: leave the quote toxic parts of the industry behind her,
Speaker 1: and she's someone who is quite political.
Speaker 2: But back to Beyonce Lucy, who, as you mentioned, has
Speaker 2: made this shift towards country music, a move that's managed
Speaker 2: to really stir up controversy about the genre and what
Speaker 2: it means in its identity. The title of this new album,
Speaker 2: Cowboy Carter reference of course, to Beyonce's marriage name yea
Speaker 2: about what you would call it, her marital surname, her
Speaker 2: married name Sean Carter, akaj Z, Queen Bee, Beyonce Knowles,
Speaker 2: whoever she is to you, the undisputed FACTSA. She reigns
Speaker 2: from Houston, Texas, a state in America's South where country
Speaker 2: music has thrived for decades. So it shouldn't really be
Speaker 2: that surprising that this is an artist who wanted to
Speaker 2: make music that sounded like the music she grew up with.
Speaker 1: Right and yet people were surprised.
Speaker 3: Only eight of the one hundred and fifty stations that
Speaker 3: report to Billboard's Country Airplay chart reported having play Texas
Speaker 3: hold them in its first day, and none said they
Speaker 3: had put her other single sixteen carriages on the air.
Speaker 1: The lefties in the entertainment industry just won't leave any
Speaker 1: area alone, right, They just have to seize control over
Speaker 1: every aspect, don't they.
Speaker 2: I think a few of us probably saw at least
Speaker 2: one of those grubs on our Instagram feeds some viral
Speaker 2: conservative news moments that maybe took us by surprise, but
Speaker 2: it's opened up a bigger conversation about this political identity
Speaker 2: that is associated with country music. Then there was this
Speaker 2: backlash to that backlash, people talking about how black people
Speaker 2: are really integral to the history of the Jean of
Speaker 2: country music. What do they mean? Can you explain a
Speaker 2: bit of the history to us?
Speaker 1: Well, you wouldn't necessarily know that this is true were
Speaker 1: you to look at a country chart. You know, if
Speaker 1: we list country music stars all day, we're going to
Speaker 1: be here for hours before we name a non white person.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: There's one really amazing black country artist that I can
Speaker 1: think of off the top of my head. Her name's
Speaker 1: Mickey Geiton, and she's had to really fight for legitimacy.
Speaker 1: When you think of country music, what kind of instruments
Speaker 1: do you think of?
Speaker 2: I'm thinking banjos, fiddles, maybe even a violin, strings, stomping barns.
Speaker 1: Well, the banjo was actually developed by enslaved people in
Speaker 1: America who'd been brought over, generally from West Africa during
Speaker 1: the hundreds of years of the Atlantic slave trade. So
Speaker 1: per the Smithsonian Museum, from the earliest references in the
Speaker 1: seventeenth century and throughout the eighteen thirties, the banjo was
Speaker 1: exclusively known as an African American tradition with a African heritage.
Speaker 2: I thought it was Irish. I think, you know, maybe
Speaker 2: that's because of like Mumford and Sons, who are British.
Speaker 1: Wow, well, there's still a European influence, right, because it's
Speaker 1: kind of melding traditional West African instruments with European instruments
Speaker 1: like guitars that had been developed specifically in Europe. The
Speaker 1: banjo is kind of a physical representation of the country genre, right,
Speaker 1: Like it's this melting pot. It comes out of all
Speaker 1: these different strands and influences over these hundreds of years.
Speaker 1: Really reflects the nature of American history in the South.
Speaker 1: You've got enslaved people forced to come to America, you
Speaker 1: have people coming from Europe seeking a better life. You
Speaker 1: have people already established from that first wave of colonization.
Speaker 1: All of these people have their own musical traditions and
Speaker 1: their own musical instruments, and their own stories that kind
Speaker 1: of come together in this mixed up genre of country.
Speaker 2: How do we get from the idea of country music
Speaker 2: being so richly diverse to being a place where today
Speaker 2: we know it's a genre dominated by white artists, a
Speaker 2: place where a global superstar like Beyonce exploring their country
Speaker 2: heritage becomes this huge political issue.
Speaker 1: I want to shout out an article I read. It's
Speaker 1: by a musician and self described armchair historian called Rhiannon Giddons,
Speaker 1: who is the one who actually plays the banjo on
Speaker 1: Texas Hold'em Wow So good trivia, great trivia, great person.
Speaker 1: So she draws this connection in this article between the
Speaker 1: beginning of music being recorded and the selling of those
Speaker 1: recordings and the disenfranchisement of non white people from country.
Speaker 1: So in the nineteen twenties, that's when recorded music and
Speaker 1: the sale of recorded music becomes like a viable economic proposition.
Speaker 1: That is a time when there are many many places
Speaker 1: that black people in America are barred from legally or
Speaker 1: otherwise just not welcome. So music became incredibly segregated, and
Speaker 1: country music ends up being a genre that is more
Speaker 1: dominated by white artists just at an inflection point in
Speaker 1: music recording history.
Speaker 2: I'm thinking about the history and the story of someone
Speaker 2: like Elvis in this who very famously he was a
Speaker 2: very palatable white artist of the day.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean the story of rock and roll is
Speaker 1: like a hyper condensed version of the story of country
Speaker 1: where it's like very explicitly black and white. Literally of
Speaker 1: like this was an art form by one group of
Speaker 1: people and then another group of people just skimmed off
Speaker 1: the top and made money off that basically, So.
Speaker 2: Jumping forward to the twenty first century, I want to
Speaker 2: talk about how that history of segregation has kind of
Speaker 2: impacted the country world that we see today. I have
Speaker 2: one specific event in mind, and it's back when Beyonce
Speaker 2: actually first dipped her toe into country music. Song Daddy
Speaker 2: Lessons of the absolutely iconic album Lemonade.
Speaker 1: Great album, so Daddy Lessons really really country song. Lemonade
Speaker 1: is probably her most political album. I think she's responding
Speaker 1: to the first wave of Black Lives Matter protests. It's
Speaker 1: coming out in twenty sixteen, in the lead up to
Speaker 1: Trump's election. Music videos to accompany that album really had
Speaker 1: some very strong political statements and the response to it, which,
Speaker 1: in my opinion, it's an incredibly country song. But a
Speaker 1: source told the Associated Press at the time that the Grammys,
Speaker 1: so the music industry awards, didn't consider that song country
Speaker 1: enough to be nominated in country categories.
Speaker 2: She actually performed that song Daddy Lessons at the Country
Speaker 2: Music Awards with the Chicks then the Dixie Chicks, very
Speaker 2: iconic country music group. What happened at that performance.
Speaker 1: That's a lightning rod moment, you know, for those who
Speaker 1: don't know, the Chicks basically had to disappear off the
Speaker 1: face of the earth for a couple of years in
Speaker 1: the early two thousands. I mean, it's hard to overstate
Speaker 1: how big of a deal this was. So lead singer
Speaker 1: Natalie Mains on stage said the group were unhappy with
Speaker 1: America's upcoming war in Iraq. This is two thousand and three,
Speaker 1: and she also said that she was not proud that
Speaker 1: then President George W. Bush was from Texas like she is,
Speaker 1: like Beyonce is.
Speaker 2: So she basically came out and said, I'm not proud
Speaker 2: that our president is from the place I call home.
Speaker 2: I'm not proud of what our country is doing, and
Speaker 2: I disagree with this conflict in Iraq. It was a
Speaker 2: really really big deal. Like if you've ever heard the
Speaker 2: bridge to this song and wondered why so angry or upset,
Speaker 2: this is what that was talking about. So the Chicks
Speaker 2: got death threats, people burning their CDs, country radio stations
Speaker 2: refused to play their songs. This is a version of
Speaker 2: kind of when Taylor Swift began to upset country music
Speaker 2: by talking about politics or kind of becoming more of
Speaker 2: a publicly facing ally. This reaction to the Chicks was
Speaker 2: in tense. Basically, a lot of people never forgave them.
Speaker 2: So for Beyonce to say, not only am I coming
Speaker 2: to your awards show, I'm going to perform with your
Speaker 2: most controversial act, that was pretty major.
Speaker 1: So interestingly, last week, in a post promoting Cowboy Carter,
Speaker 1: Beyonce said, quote, this album has been over five years
Speaker 1: in the making. It was born out of an experience
Speaker 1: I had years ago where I did not feel welcomed
Speaker 1: and it was very clear that I wasn't. But because
Speaker 1: of that experience, I did a deeper dive into the
Speaker 1: history of country music and studied our rich musical archive.
Speaker 1: So people have read this. Certainly, I read this as
Speaker 1: referring to that performance at the CMAS, and I think
Speaker 1: it's interesting that at the end of that post she says,
Speaker 1: this ain't a country album, this is a Beyonce album,
Speaker 1: and that almost feels like she's trying to get ahead
Speaker 1: of the idea that she's trying to court country music's approval.
Speaker 1: She's just like, this is what I'm doing, and Beyonce,
Speaker 1: I can do what I want, and I want to
Speaker 1: dive into the country music archive.
Speaker 2: Which I think art is subjective and art is fluid,
Speaker 2: and whether you're a musician or any other kind of artist,
Speaker 2: I think to say that your music transcends one genre
Speaker 2: makes perfect sense. So we've got this context for the controversy,
Speaker 2: the inspiration maybe for Cowboy Carter, Beyonce as the country
Speaker 2: artist and all that that means. But in terms of
Speaker 2: the success of these new releases, it's not as though
Speaker 2: any of this controversy has slowed her down. Beyonce became
Speaker 2: the first black woman to have a number one song
Speaker 2: on the country charts with Texas Hold Them. So, like
Speaker 2: I said, it hasn't slowed her down, Lucy, does that
Speaker 2: tell us anything about the genre. Do you think that
Speaker 2: maybe country music has welcomed her more than these headlines suggest.
Speaker 1: I wish I could say that, but I just don't
Speaker 1: think so. And the reason why is about how the
Speaker 1: charts work. So for about ten years give or take,
Speaker 1: the Billboard Charts in the US, so that's the organization
Speaker 1: that manages the music charts has included streaming and YouTube plays.
Speaker 1: So that to me says more about the fact that
Speaker 1: the hive, the Beyonce fans are you know, pressing plays.
Speaker 1: Certainly Texas hold them has been on very high rotation
Speaker 1: in the TDA office. Oh yeah, all of those Spotify
Speaker 1: streams are adding up to boost her up the charts.
Speaker 1: I don't necessarily think that it means that country music
Speaker 1: radio stations are like, oh my god, amazing, so excited
Speaker 1: for this established artist to jump into our precious genre.
Speaker 1: I think probably it has more to do. I mean,
Speaker 1: it can't solely be streams, because streams and YouTube plays
Speaker 1: only make up us certain percentage of the chart calculations.
Speaker 1: But I just don't know that that necessarily says country
Speaker 1: music has welcomed Beyonce with open arms. And you know,
Speaker 1: the charts historically have not been very kind to black
Speaker 1: female country artists, and in fact, interestingly, that's something that
Speaker 1: Beyonce seems to be referencing on this album. So one
Speaker 1: of the tracks on this album is called the Linda
Speaker 1: Martel Show. Do you know who Linda Martel is? I didn't.
Speaker 1: I had to look her up.
Speaker 2: Okay, I'm relieved that you said that.
Speaker 1: Who is she? Well? I discovered she was the first
Speaker 1: black country pop star. So Linda Martel broke out in
Speaker 1: the late sixties and she had a moderately successful album
Speaker 1: called Color Me Country, but it never charted as high
Speaker 1: as Beyonce, you know, not even number ten, not even
Speaker 1: number twenty. And her career was really cut short by racism.
Speaker 1: So in twenty twenty, she told magazine Rolling Stone that
Speaker 1: when she played one of her first shows, she started
Speaker 1: singing and quote, they'd shout out names. You felt pretty awful.
Speaker 1: After her first album came out, her label basically stopped
Speaker 1: promoting her in favor of their white artists. If you
Speaker 1: feel like listening to any of her songs, I would
Speaker 1: say San Francisco is a lonely town or the wedding
Speaker 1: Cake were the ones that I liked.
Speaker 2: The track listers you mentioned Beyonce dropped in advance of
Speaker 2: Cowboy Carter. There are a lot of tracks on this album,
Speaker 2: whether or not all of those will be full tracks
Speaker 2: or interludes. I'm sure there is another track that caught
Speaker 2: your eye. I think I can guess.
Speaker 1: Well, yes, I mean there was a track called Joline,
Speaker 1: and obviously I freaked out, like so Dolly Till We
Speaker 1: Die Dolly Parton actually a couple of weeks ago said
Speaker 1: that Beyonce had recorded a cover of her song Joline.
Speaker 1: So frankly, if one of country music's greatest ever songwriters
Speaker 1: and performers gave Beyonce the go ahead to cover her
Speaker 1: most iconic song, who cares what anyone else thinks? Okay,
Speaker 1: she has a jolly button steal of approval. That's all
Speaker 1: that matters to me.
Speaker 2: Well, Lucy, I'm sure the listeners are unclear about how
Speaker 2: you feel about Beyonce. Lucy, thank you so much for
Speaker 2: breaking all of that down for us today a fascinating
Speaker 2: introduction to the history of country music. If you learn
Speaker 2: something from today's episode, please feel free to send it
Speaker 2: on to someone who you think might enjoy it or
Speaker 2: leave us a review and make sure you are following
Speaker 2: The Daily os so there's an episode waiting for you
Speaker 2: every weekday mornings. We'll be back on Monday, but until then,
Speaker 2: have a fabulous Easter.
Speaker 1: My name is Lily Maddon and I'm a proud Adunda
Speaker 1: bunge Lung Chalcotin woman from Gadigl Country. The Daily oz
Speaker 1: acknowledges that this podcast is recorded on the lands of
Speaker 1: the Gadighl people and pays respect to all Aboriginal and
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Speaker 1: first peoples of these countries, both past and present,