Dolly Parton Offers Genius Answer to Beyoncé CMA “Snub”
There are many legitimate reasons that Beyoncé’s recent album Cowboy Carter was not nominated for any 2024 CMA Awards, probably most notably that Beyoncé herself has said unequivocally that it is not a country album.
Nonetheless, Saving Country Music has confirmed that the CMA voting population that includes some 6,600 artists, musicians, DJs, and industry professionals did consider the Beyoncé album and certain songs for the CMAs, and that Beyoncé did make it on certain ballot entries as the nomination process moved forward. She just didn’t make it onto the final ballot when the nominations were to whittled down to five entries per category.
This is not to let the Country Music Association or the CMA Awards off the hook for not letting outsiders into the process. As many fans of independent country artists with massive fans bases like Zach Bryan and Tyler Childers can attest, the process is not there to truly recognize the best or even the biggest in country music. It’s there to re-affirm the mainstream industry’s dominance on the direction of country.
Last week when Dwight Yoakam received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Americana Music Association and offered a teary-eyed acceptance speech, it underscored just how difficult CMA Awards are to come by. Dwight Yoakam—a bona fide country music legend—never won a CMA Award in his career. This speaks to just how insular the process is. Beyoncé and her fans should feel special that she didn’t receive a nomination.
Race continues to be brought up as the reason that the CMAs excluded Beyoncé, but that doesn’t really make sense in a year when Shaboozey received two nominations, and his “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” has become one of the longest-running #1 songs in country radio history. It spent 7 weeks at #1, tying Carrie Underwood’s “Jesus, Take The Wheel” as the longest-running #1 debut ever on country radio. The CMA was founded as a trade organization to promote country radio.
One of the big endorsements Beyoncé and Cowboy Carter received when it was first released on March 29th was from Dolly Parton. Not only did Parton praise the album and Beyoncé’s re-imagined version of her song “Jolene,” she appeared in a voice memo as part of the album.
But when it comes to criticizing the CMAs for “snubbing” Beyoncé, once again Dolly Parton is the most rational voice in the room. When speaking to Variety about the alleged “snub,” Dolly Parton said,
“There’s so many wonderful country artists that, I guess probably the country music field, they probably thought, well, we can’t really leave out some of the ones that spend their whole life doing that.”
This is such an important point to make, and one that many have been making about all the attention Cowboy Carter received from the press, along with the recent crossover album from Post Malone, F-1 Trillion. As so many deserving artists continue to struggle for attention in country, the issue is compounded when pop stars come in and take that attention from country music’s native performers.
Then Dolly Parton continued,
“I think everybody in country music welcomed her and thought that, that was good. So I don’t think it was a matter of shutting out, like doing that on purpose. I think it was just more of what the country charts and the country artists were doing, that do that all the time, not just a specialty album.”
Once again, this is a genius, cool-minded, and informed response from Dolly Parton. In fairness, it’s a stretch to say “everybody” in country “welcomed” Beyoncé. But despite Cowboy Carter‘s big debut, the album has since cratered in a way that can only be characterized as catastrophic from a major star.
Cowboy Carter slipped from #133 to #138 on the Billboard 200 Album chart last week, even amid the controversy of the supposed CMA “snub.” It has also been a very competitive year in country music as the genre is currently in a popular resurgence.
There continues to be a lot of misinformation and misunderstanding about Beyoncé and Cowboy Carter. Beyoncé’s original intent was to release an album that “bends and blends” genres to illustrate how genres can be restrictive to artistry. Compartmentalizing Cowboy Carter as a “country” album is actually insulting to Beyoncé’s artistic intent.
As Whoopi Goldberg said on The View after the unveiling of the 2024 CMA Award nominations, “I don’t think she was snubbed, I think they just didn’t… it wasn’t for them.”
As Dolly Parton said, country music needs to cater to the performers who’ve spent their whole lives plying the craft first before recognizing performers like Beyoncé. Unfortunately, that still doesn’t happen enough, even with that lack of nominations for Beyoncé.
September 22, 2024 @ 11:11 am
Saint Dolly again being the voice of reason.
September 22, 2024 @ 12:23 pm
Dolly is no dumb blond. She always manages to speak good sense.
September 22, 2024 @ 2:33 pm
Can we please stop pretending that the Shaboozey song has been at 1# because it has any legitimate artistic merit within the parameters of ‘Country’ music? It’s a popular dance-based song that is largely boosted by Tik-Tok fame. If you look up the longest “country” songs at 1# it’s from Bebe Rexha/ Florida Georgia Line, Sam Hunt, and Morgan Wallen. Shaboozey should have been rejected as a country artist too.
For the love of God can you stop trying to randomly use popularity as a measure of quality? It’s also ok to blatenly critisize the product of someone who isn’t white. The Bipoc-rainbow police aren’t going to bang on your door.
Dolly’s point is intelligent, diplomatic, and historically correct. Even Tom Jones had a country album in the early 80’s, but he was not a country artist. Dolly is probably the best artist ever with presenting her image and her genre’s image to the media. Also Dolly’s praise is not that of an objective gatekeeper. She is never going to say anything mean or bad – like most peoples’ grandmother.
September 23, 2024 @ 12:32 pm
You are completely ignoring the “#1 on country radio for 7 weeks” thing aren’t you? By contrast, while Beyonce’s Texas Hold ‘Em was #1 for quite a stretch on the Billboard Country charts, it never cracked the top 30 on country radio.
“It’s also ok to blatenly critisize the product of someone who isn’t white. The Bipoc-rainbow police aren’t going to bang on your door.”
Your spelling errors demonstrate that you lack the level of erudition necessary to make a meaningful contribution to this topic. It is almost as bad as your white victimization act imported from the Tucker Carlson show.
September 23, 2024 @ 8:26 pm
Blatently
September 24, 2024 @ 12:21 pm
Lol got em.
September 27, 2024 @ 2:23 pm
When directly quoting another, most style guides value accuracy in quotation, and while it is acceptable to quietly correct typos, any corrections of just plain bad spelling must be called out to the reader. In this case, if rano had fixed the misspelled quotation, it would have read:
“It’s also ok to [blatantly] [criticize] the product of someone who isn’t white. The Bipoc-rainbow police aren’t going to bang on your door.”
Other style guides would suggest that rano should have pointed out that they knew that there were mis-spellings, and quoted like this:
“It’s also ok to blatenly[sic] critisize[sic] the product of someone who isn’t white. The Bipoc-rainbow police aren’t going to bang on your door.”
Giving someone grief for accurately quoting someone else’s misspelling suggests that you also don’t have a cogent argument on the topic and perhaps should just stay quiet. But you do you.
September 22, 2024 @ 4:21 pm
Releasing a country album, or a few country or country influenced songs doesn’t make you part of the country music institution
Weird al released a few VERY country songs, trick driving song and good enough for now are both… VERY SOLID country instrumentation and Melodies
But weird al isn’t and shouldn’t be eligible for country music awards
Michael Jordan played a little baseball but isn’t eligible for the baseball hall of fame even though he’s a world famous sportsman and sometimes that sport was baseball
And if I suggested Michael Jordan for the baseball hall of fame everybody and their grandma would know that that’s a stupid thing to say
So… why don’t we have this same institutionalized understanding of music genres?
I think it’s because music is primarily consumed by people who wouldn’t know an oboe from a dobro.
To appreciate football you have to understand how the game is played. Same for baseball
And almost every American child has played one or both of those at least a little bit
Not so for music. People can listen to music with zero understanding of how it works and most of them haven’t been given any understanding or experience with playing music nor any meaningful history of music.
Meanwhile everybody knows about Joe DiMaggio and the streak of 47. Everybody knows about the greatest boxing matches in history.
Music history? Most people are lucky to know more than a few of their dad’s era’s songs and mostly just as the background noise at the supermarket
Is baseball reruns played at Walmart? No!!!
I think, therefore, this collective ignorance of music is a major societal pitfall that spreads like a mold in the walls of our collective understanding
Meanwhile ‘knowing about music’ is a weird thing to do because no one in the mainstream does that and playing an instrument is this childish thing people think that kids do to keep them busy and parents use to keep them off the Xbox, but ‘playing an instrument’ isn’t understood as a normal hobby for an adult.
And the end result is a whole lot of ignorant people who have no idea what music is or what the genres are, who in turn don’t realize that the people they make fun of for being odd or into obscure stuff are actually way more educated on the subject than they are.
And I think the availability and access to a wider variety of stuff is causing a change, and people are being exposed to more stuff
But the solution isn’t ‘give the ignorant people better options’ any more than give the man with untreated anger issues a job that lets him work it out of his system.
The solution to our current musical crisis is regular, factual music education at even a rudimentary level just so people can be exposed to enough stuff at an early age that they can recognize what they’re listening to.
Beyoncé and dolly are both talented women.
But they have entirely different skill sets just like DiMaggio and Michael Jordan.
DiMaggio and Michael Jordan both have to run in their careers.
Usain Bolt’s career IS running.
And when people can have the same understanding of music that they do of sports we won’t see these weird logical fallacies and generalized widespread misinformation that are basically spread by people who were given no musical education to people who were given no musical education
September 23, 2024 @ 7:53 am
…”Releasing a country album, or a few country or country influenced songs doesn’t make you part of the country music institution.” well, in 1996 comedian jeff foxworthy was nominated at the 30th cma awards twice. it’s a fuzzy world out there.
September 23, 2024 @ 4:30 pm
Just as with the “but Post Malone got nominated!” Beyonce crowd who conveniently ignore that his nominations began and ended with his song with the oft-nominated Morgan Wallen, you are leaving out Foxworthy’s nomination being on a track with Alan Jackson. Had Beyonce done a song with Lainey Wilson, Kelsea Ballerini or Miranda Lambert instead of Miley Cyrus, she easily beats Shaboozey for song of the year and also gets actual country radio airplay. More important, thanks to the creative input of any one of those three talented country artists, it would have actually been 2 things that are in very short supply among the 27 Cowboy Carter tracks: an actual country song and a good song. Beyonce for whatever reason chose to “take on country music” without actually involving anyone in country music with a singing, songwriting, instrument playing or producing reputation sufficient to actually demand creative input. The result is an album that was not only ignored by country fans but will be her worst performing one in over 20 years as a solo artist. Even the people indulging in performative outrage over its lack of CMA nominations not only didn’t buy it but had stopped streaming it a mere 4 months after its release. These people want to cram the idea that even a bad failed pop album is better than the best that country has to offer in a very strong creative and commercial year. Well let the country haters at the Grammys be the ones to endorse that idea while the CMAs remain fuzzy enough not to hate its own genre, industry, performers and fans. Country music actually had the first soundtrack for a Hollywood blockbuster in decades with Twisters and is going to have the best chart performing singles with Tipsy and I Had Some Help for the second year in a row while – thanks to Ariana Grande, Billie Eilish and Taylor Swift albums not having staying power – the mainstream music press is trying their best to turn carnival sideshow act Chappell Roan into a mainstream star. Beyonce picked the wrong year – perhaps even the wrong era – to troll country music.
September 22, 2024 @ 5:11 pm
I think it befuddles a lot of people that country music is still a genre that is somewhat insular, looks after its own, and isn’t apologetic about it. Emphasis should perhaps be given to “still a genre”; I don’t want country to be a “vibe”.
September 23, 2024 @ 4:51 pm
Country does this no more than rock, R&B and hip-hop do. Good evidence? The slings and arrows that Post Malone still gets to this day from R&B and hip-hop types, even if Malone did bring SOME of it on himself. Better evidence? The Drake/Kendrick Lamar nonsense that is solely over cultural gatekeeping against the biracial performer from a middle class Canadian background, and Drake was one of the top rappers in the world for almost 15 years. The same people trashing country music over Beyonce would be filled with outrage if Jason Aldean and Morgan Wallen were to team up on a blues and jazz fusion album.
September 22, 2024 @ 6:59 pm
I finally listened to Beyonce’s version of Jolene.
Um, what? It’s a totally different song the way she does it. Doesn’t deserve a CMA.
Feh.
September 23, 2024 @ 12:33 am
do artists themselves submit nominations to the CMA’s if so did beyonce or her team do that
September 23, 2024 @ 3:25 am
She’s not a country. Get over it 🙄
September 23, 2024 @ 5:46 am
The funniest thing about this controversy is that Beyoncé herself said Cowboy Carter was not a country album. What kind of stupid controversy is that the artist herself doesn’t really care she was “snubbed” by the award association? This seems like yet another instance where the demand for racism far exceeds supply.
September 23, 2024 @ 6:44 am
DOLLY 2024!!!
September 23, 2024 @ 6:50 am
Trigger:
I definitely agree with your assessment that Beyonce’s album was to blend genres on the notion that genres can be restrictive (something that Linda Ronstadt proved so well time and time again in her own career).
I would also add that the album probably also reflected her way of being something of a musical bomb thrower as well. I’ve always believed that COWBOY CARTER was a way of Beyonce, historically know for being a musical bomb thrower of sorts, to gas light the country music community. When you say it is a stretch to say that that community embraced her. that may have been made evident back in 2016 at the CMA Awards, so the album itself may have been a form of payback.
And while Queen Bey has claimed time and time again that COWBOY CARTER is not a country album, I don’t think I’ve ever seen any indications of her stopping her Hive from saying it is. Whatever anyone thinks of what she’s doing (in my opinion, she probably doesn’t give a damn anyway), she and her Hive know what they’re doing by playing both sides, and antagonizing an already antagonized country music fan base. It’s no accident.
September 23, 2024 @ 8:41 am
For the record, we still don’t even have confirmation that the 2016 CMA Awards were the inspiration for this album, or that Beyonce felt “slighted” during that moment in any way. Just like we’re seeing in 2024, the Beyonce universe is full of canards that have no basis in reality. Generally speaking, Beyonce was warmly received by the CMA crowd in 2016. There were some negative comments posted on videos shared by the CMAs of her performance on social media, but you’re going to see that for ANYTHING posted on the internet. The official claim from the CMAs remains that they took the content down because they did not have permission from Beyonce’s camp to post it. But somehow, it became about how the CMAs were trying to “hide” her participation, which is beyond ludicrous. People saw her perform. They weren’t going to erase that from history.
And for all the “bomb throwing” (which you might be right about), those “bombs” have been ineffective at promoting this record. #138 on the charts and falling is not where an album from what’s supposed to be the biggest superstar in the world should be months after the release.
September 23, 2024 @ 3:36 pm
I’m not quite sure that Beyonce ever intended for COWBOY CARTER to be still selling like crazy months after its release. To me, it boils down to the attention that people are paying to her; it probably means even more to her than whether or not an alleged “country” album she made sells at levels not seen in anyone else other than Taylor Swift.
As P.T. Barnum once said: “I don’t care what the newspapers say about me, as long as they spell my name right.” And quite frankly, just on that score alone, Beyonce is winning this war like gangbusters.
September 23, 2024 @ 4:14 pm
I’m sure it’s as good as the crap that is now called country music. Sung by a butch of no talent posers.
September 24, 2024 @ 4:50 am
Sensible remark by Parton.
September 24, 2024 @ 8:01 pm
“As Dolly Parton said, country music needs to cater to the performers who’ve spent their whole lives plying the craft first before recognizing performers like Beyoncé.”
By this logic, Trigger, it was perfectly fine–if not downright laudable–for the late 1960s Nashville establishment (Ralph Emery et al) to shun or belittle the Byrds’ groundbreaking “Sweetheart of the Rodeo,” now considered a classic.
September 25, 2024 @ 9:29 am
I would strongly push back against this characterization. Both Gram Parsons and Clarence White had spent their whole lives playing country and bluegrass. Gram had always been there, and Clarence was happy to allow Gram to nudge the band in that direction. Also, that album had Lloyd Green, Earl Poole Ball, John Hartford, and other landmark country/bluegrass performers playing on it, and was recorded in nashville. Beyonce’s album has nothing of the sort except for cameos.
September 25, 2024 @ 1:17 pm
That’s true about the guys’ country bona fides, Trigger. But the Byrds were known mainly as a rock band, Emery attacked them as outsiders/interlopers in country music, their Opry audience was cool (to say the least), and “Sweetheart” never gained much commercial traction. But, forget the Byrds and Beyoncé. My point was, why should it always be preferable (like Dolly says) to award the old-timers over someone trying something new?
September 25, 2024 @ 1:44 pm
I have a lot of respect for Ralph Emery. Ralph Emery was wrong about The Byrds, and on other points in his career. Yes, we shouldn’t be so rigid as to not allow performers from other genres into the country fold if they come with respect for the music, and bring talent as opposed to opportunism. It really is a case by case business. And in the case of Beyonce, I think Dolly Parton is right. We’re not talking about who has a right to make country music. We talking about who has the right to win the genre’s top awards.
September 25, 2024 @ 2:07 pm
Got it. Thanks for your time, Trigger.
September 29, 2024 @ 10:37 pm
Emery wasn’t wrong about The Byrds.
It was one of the last times that Nashville stood up against carpetbaggers.
September 29, 2024 @ 10:55 pm
Carpetbaggers?
If that’s what The Byrds were, the jokes on them. “Sweetheart of the Rodeo” was a commercial disaster that lost money, and tanked The Byrds as a popular group. Country fans hated it, and psyc pop fans hated it. It was only in 30-50 year retrospectives that the album was seen as important and revolutionary.
Also, Clarence White and Gram Parson had both been playing country their entire lives and careers. Try to tell Marty Stuart that Clarence White was a “carpetbagger” and see what he says. You might get hit over the head with Hummingbyrd.
September 25, 2024 @ 12:33 pm
Rod Stewart, Keith Richards (and his side project the Stones) and even Elton John recorded authentic-sounding country songs during their career. It sounded country because it was country, and the guys knew how to write, sing snd play it country.
Beyonce isn’t even close in understanding country music.
Dean Martin and Ray Charles did. Fiddles and steel gave place for violins and brass, but damned if it didn’t come out as country nonetheless.
The mainstreams of today sucks. Even the 90’s at it worst had more soul in the delivery.
September 27, 2024 @ 10:50 am
2024 CMA Awards: ‘…demand for racism far exceeds supply’ so true. However, when white peers of people who complain about racism freely use the “N” in 2023 one can not fully blame the victims of racism in 2024. Notably, the king of Country Music and Honky Toni: George Strait is snubbed for any awards also ever since he won the Charley Pride Award from the Charley Pride family. George Strait fans would like a “George Strait Radio” exclusively. We are being starved out of genuine content music. Not only is a “George Strait Radio” a masterpiece of idea, but will be a marketing success—-time may be running out.