Luke Bryan is venturing a guess at why Beyoncé’s “Cowboy Carter” was snubbed by the Country Music Assn. Awards.
Despite the album debuting at No. 1 on Billboard’s Top Country Albums chart — making Beyoncé the first Black woman ever to top the chart — it was shut out of the 2024 CMA Awards nominations, which were announced last month.
“It’s a tricky question,” the “Play It Again” singer said Tuesday on the “Andy Cohen Live” radio show. “Obviously, Beyoncé made a country album and Beyoncé has a lot of fans out there that have her back.”
But, as is true for himself, Bryan continued, “Just because she made one [album],” she wasn’t guaranteed any awards.
The “American Idol” host went on to defend the CMA voting body, saying, “They vote what they think should make it” and inevitably “a lot of great music’s overlooked.”
Dolly Parton, who is featured on “Cowboy Carter” in a track titled “Dolly P,” similarly suggested to Variety last month that the snub was nothing personal but instead a byproduct of an awards race in a highly saturated genre.
“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,” Parton said.
But while the “Jolene” singer insisted that “everybody in country music welcomed” Beyoncé, Bryan implied that the “Texas Hold ‘Em” singer has continued to keep her distance from the genre — and the “family” formed around it.
“Everybody loved that Beyoncé made a country album. Nobody’s mad about it. But where things get a little tricky,” he said, “if you’re gonna make country albums, come into our world and be country with us a little bit.”
He continued: “Beyoncé can do it exactly what she wants to. She’s probably the biggest star in music. But come to an award show and high-five us. And have fun and get in the family too.”
Bryan qualified his statements — “I’m not saying she didn’t do that” — but didn’t offer evidence to the contrary.
Bryan’s comments were scrutinized by netizens who said his invitation to Beyoncé was itself laden with language of exclusion.
“Luke B talking about Beyoncé is so infuriating, I don’t even know where to start. The cost of admission is high-fiving you?” one user wrote on X. “Being ‘country’ on your terms, the terms the popular white men in charge get to decide, to be a part of the ‘family’?”
“Guys like Luke seem to think white guys created and own country music,” another wrote. “They’re sucking the soul out of country. Which is why so much of current mainstream country is so meh. Cowboy Carter is brilliant. Luke could learn a lot about country from Beyoncé.”
The last time Beyoncé attended the CMAs in 2016, Rolling Stone reported, the announcement of her performance spurred a #BoycottCMA trend, and her “Daddy Lessons” performance with the Chicks (formerly the Dixie Chicks) polarized country music fans. Tanner Davenport of Black Opry attended the show and claimed that during the performance he heard a woman say, “Get that Black b— off the stage!” (A Nashville manager also told Billboard in 2016 that Alan Jackson left his front-row seat.)
The 2016 ceremony is speculated to have been the birthplace of “Cowboy Carter,” which Beyoncé previously said on Instagram was “born out of an experience that I had years ago where I did not feel welcomed.”
“It was very clear that I wasn’t. But, because of that experience, I did a deeper dive into the history of Country music and studied our rich musical archive,” she said. “Act ii is a result of challenging myself, and taking my time to bend and blend genres together to create this body of work.”
In the same post, Queen Bey included a line that may have dissuaded the CMAs from embracing “Cowboy Carter.”
“This ain’t a Country album. This is a ‘Beyoncé’ album,” she said.
Such brazen dismantling of genres doesn’t tend to bode well for singers, Kelly Clarkson told NBC10 Boston in an interview that has since been removed from the news channel’s website. The Grammy winner recalled veering into the country genre herself, only to be told her music wouldn’t be played on radio unless she “quit pop” entirely.
“It just seemed like the door was closed unless I was all-in and had to leave every other genre behind, which I don’t think people like me, or even Beyoncé, are capable of doing that. It’s not even a desire or a want, it’s just like, we love dabbling,” she said. “Why limit yourself?”
Clarkson said she found it curious that Beyoncé got no CMA Awards nominations, “because I feel like those songs were everywhere.”
Bryan will return as host for this year’s CMAs, alongside Peyton Manning and up-and-coming country artist Lainey Wilson. The ceremony airs live Nov. 20 at 8 p.m. on ABC and streams the next day on Hulu.
As for “Cowboy Carter’s” additional awards prospects, the recording reportedly will compete in country categories including best country album at the 2025 Grammys.