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Beyoncé: Texas Hold ’Em and 16 Carriages review – country gets brilliantly Beyoncéfied
In a left turn after the house and disco of Renaissance: Act One, Beyoncé gets out the banjo and pedal steel – and makes a compelling case for her place in country music
And sure enough, two very enjoyable new songs suggest the “second act” of Renaissance – a new album due on 29 March – looks set to lean towards country, with its tropes doubly rhinestoned by Beyoncé’s glamour, poise and anti-ironic feeling. Texas Hold ’Em is made for do-si-doing on a dusty dancefloor, with banjo, line-dancing commands, and exclamations of “woo hoo!” that might as well be “yee haw!” There’s a whisper of another recent pop-hoedown, Jonas Brothers’ What a Man Gotta Do, to the firmly resolved melody, but also something much more rootsy and authentically country to the arrangement, with its closely harmonised backing vocals and admirably restrained feel. The imagery from the Renaissance tour – elegant robotics, sci-fi exploration – positioned Beyoncé as superhuman, and her dancers’ breathtaking choreography enhanced that, their martial rigour offset by individual expressions of freedom.
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