Get the latest gossip

How Did Beyoncé’s ‘Cowboy Carter’ First Week End Up Out-Performing Her ‘Renaissance’ Debut?


Beyoncé's 'Cowboy Carter' debuts with the best first week of 2004 and a better opening number than Bey's 'Renaissance' -- we look at why.

The fact that Cowboy Carter is 11 songs longer than Renaissance undoubtedly helped its streaming totals, as did the incalculable number of casual listeners who had heard about Beyoncé releasing her version of a country music album and pressing play with their interests piqued. Beyoncé takes the 1968 Beatles’ classic, which Paul McCartney said he wrote about the civil rights movement, and reinvents it into a glorious testimony, with the help of rising Black women country artists Tanner Adell, Tiera Kennedy, Reyna Roberts and Brittney Spencer. Shaboozey – who appears on “Spaghettii” and “Sweet ★ Honey ★ Buckiin” — is launching a new album next month (titled, Where I’ve Been, Isn’t Where I’m Going, out May 31), which gives him a nice window to convert the initial Cowboy Carter boost into a larger fanbase that tunes in to his own releases.

Get the Android app

Or read this on Billboard

Read more on:

Photo of Renaissance

Renaissance

Related news:

News photo

Here’s How Beyoncé’s ‘Cowboy Carter’ & ‘Renaissance’ Are Connected

News photo

Beyoncé Initially Planned to Release ‘Cowboy Carter’ Before ‘Renaissance,’ but ‘There Was Too Much Heaviness in the World’

News photo

How Beyoncé Shaped ‘Cowboy Carter’ Around the Pandemic, ‘Renaissance,’ and Martin Scorsese