The Ladies of 2024
#1 – Beyoncé – Cowboy Carter
I don’t think there was any suspense over which album would end up in the top spot. Beyoncé’s latest opus has left all competition in the dust on its way to what — God willing — should be her first ever Album of the Year Grammy.
The icon has now delivered four straight albums of emotionally resonant, genre-bending work, starting with her 2013 self-titled album, then 2016’s Lemonade, 2022’s Renaissance, and now Cowboy Carter, part two of a planned trilogy. For my money, this is the best of them.
Billed as her country album, the record does dabble in some traditional sounds from the genre, and features cameos by Willie Nelson, Dolly Parton, and Linda Martell, plus a quartet of up-and-coming Black women country artists.
But Beyoncé is more interested in exploring the concept of genre in general. She includes rap and opera, surf rock and folk, blues and R&B. She reclaims ground ceded by Black artists over the years while staking her own claim on all of modern popular music.
It’s a dazzling feat both intellectually and viscerally, a capital-A album that makes you think while it makes you dance. Yeehaw!
High tides in the city, I’m in too deep
And I’m runnin’ on fear
Oh, dear, you and your alligator tears
Works me over and through
[Chorus]
You say move a mountain
And I’ll throw on my boots
You say stop the river from runnin’
I’ll build a dam or two
You say change religions
Now, I spend Sundays with you
Somethin’ ’bout those tears of yours
How does it feel to be adored?
[Post-Chorus]
You and your alligator tears
You and those alligator tears
You
Somethin’ ’bout those tears of yours
How does it feel to be adored?
[Verse 2]
Sunrise in the morning, you’re all I need
And all I need is rain or the roots get weak
Sweet things need time to grow
Thinkin’ ’bout leaving? Hell no
Squeeze every ounce of love from my body, yеah
[Chorus]
You say move a mountain
And I’ll throw on my boots
You say stop the river from runnin’
I’ll build a dam or two
You say changе religion
Now, I spend Sundays with you
Somethin’ ’bout those tears of yours
How does it feel to be adored?
[Outro]
I adore you, I adore you, I adore you, I adore you
Those alligator tears
I adore you, I adore you, I adore you, I adore you
Your alligator tears
I adore you, I adore you, I adore you, I adore
Alligator tears
I adore, I adore you, I adore you, I adore, I adore (How does it feel to be adored?)
Alligator tears
Meet Me In Montauk 
Nope, no suspense on this one. Maybe we can get Beyoncé to run for president.🤪
YEEHAW indeed!