Why Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter Should Finally Win Her Album of the Year at the 2025 Grammys

Beyoncé at the Grammy Awards in February 2024 in Los Angeles. PHOTO: KEVIN MAZUR/GETTY

Beyoncé deserves to finally lasso herself an album of the year win.

Late last month, the music superstar, 42, released her eighth studio album, Cowboy Carter, which serves as the second installment in a planned trilogy of albums following 2022’s Renaissance.

The LP, like many of Beyoncé’s works, blends a diverse mix of musical genres, and it is conceptualized as a radio broadcast by the fictional KNTRY Radio Texas, with country superstars Dolly Parton, Willie Nelson and Linda Martell acting as disc jockeys.

The 27-track album features collaborations with big names including Miley Cyrus and Post Malone — plus Beyoncé’s 6½-year-old daughter Rumi — as well as those from lesser-known Black country artists such as Tanner Adell, Brittney Spencer, Tiera Kennedy, Reyna Roberts, Shaboozey and Willie Jones. Stevie Wonder, Paul McCartney, Nile Rodgers, Jon Batiste, Gary Clark Jr. and Rhiannon Giddens, meanwhile, perform instruments on various tracks.

Looking at the album now, and looking ahead to the 2025 Grammy Awards, Nicholas Rice, a Senior News Editor for PEOPLE, highlights why Beyoncé deserves to take home the coveted album of the year honor for Cowboy Carter.

Beyoncé’s ‘Cowboy Carter’ album cover.BEYONCE INSTAGRAM

Beyoncé has been nominated for album of the year four times over the past two decades — in 2010 for I Am … Sasha Fierce, in 2015 for Beyoncé, in 2017 for Lemonade and in 2023 for Renaissance. (The nominees for the 2025 Grammys will be announced sometime later this year, following the eligibility period, which runs from Sept. 16, 2023, through Aug. 30, 2024, per Billboard.)

Beyoncé’s latest project has received universal acclaim from both fans and critics, who praised the star’s expansion into the country genre.

On Metacritic, a website that collects reviews of media through reviews from sources such as magazines and websites, Cowboy Carter scored an impressive score of 92/100 based on 20 critic reviews.

Rolling Stone, for example, praised the LP as having “Beyoncé’s best vocal work on record,” adding that the album was “produced flawlessly.” Variety, meanwhile, called Cowboy Carter a “masterpiece of sophisticated vocal arranging,” also describing it as “a 27-course meal” that is “difficult to describe in whole, but endlessly easy to digest, serving by serving.”

Beyoncé at the iHeartRadio Music Awards on April 1, 2024 in Los Angeles.MICHAEL BUCKNER/BILLBOARD VIA GETTY

The Bey Hive — as Beyoncé’s loyal legion of fans are collectively known — also have had high praise for the superstar and her latest musical project.

“The vocals on cowboy carter are INSANE. do not ever play with my sister!!!!” wrote one user on X (formerly Twitter).

“COWBOY CARTER IS SO GOOD I’M LITERALLY SCREAMING CRYING THROWING BEYONCÉ IS WINNING AOTY NEXT YEAR I’M CALLING IT,” said one other, as another fan added, “Cowboy Carter is really Beyoncé’s best album.”

“Cowboy Carter is such. an. insane. flex. If this doesn’t finally get Beyoncé AOTY…” one more fan wrote.

Beyoncé in New York City in February 2024.METROPOLIS/BAUER-GRIFFIN/GC IMAGES

While many praised Cowboy Carter for its impressive vocals, creative concept and clear flow, Beyoncé was also celebrated for stepping into what is seen by many as a heavily white genre as a Black woman.

In the LP’s first track, “American Requiem,” the mother of three reminds listeners of her country roots growing up in Texas, singing, “Used to say I spoke too country / And the rejection came, said I wasn’t country ’nough / Said I wouldn’t saddle up, but / If that ain’t country, tell me what is?”

Martell, 82, who begins “Spaghettii,” touches upon the idea that artists can only be limited to certain subjects, stating ahead of the tune, “Genres are a funny little concept, aren’t they? / In theory, they have a simple definition that’s easy to understand / But in practice, well, some may feel confined.”

Beyoncé not only highlighted her ability to be a musical chameleon with this project, but also used her space to uplift other Black artists, allowing them to showcase their own vocal abilities and stories while illustrating how music truly sees no color.

Beyoncé at the Atlantis The Royal Grand Reveal event in Dubai in January 2023.MASON POOLE/PARKWOOD MEDIA/GETTY

But the music icon still knew that not everyone in the entertainment scene — or larger world, for that matter — would be as accepting or welcoming of her trying to stray from the boxes that she has been put into throughout her career.

In a past Instagram post, Beyoncé thanked fans for their early support of Cowboy Carter and detailed how it came to be. According to the star, the project was five years in the making and was “born out of an experience that I had years ago where I did not feel welcomed.” (Many fans speculated the event Beyoncé was referring to was the 2016 CMA Awards, where she performed her country tune “Daddy Lessons” off her album Lemonade alongside The Chicks.)

“And it was very clear that I wasn’t,” Beyoncé continued. “But, because of that experience, I did a deeper dive into the history of country music and studied our rich musical archive. It feels good to see how music can unite so many people around the world, while also amplifying the voices of some of the people who have dedicated so much of their lives educating on our musical history.”

She added, “The criticisms I faced when I first entered this genre forced me to propel past the limitations that were put on me. act ii is a result of challenging myself, and taking my time to bend and blend genres together to create this body of work.”