Nobody is attracted to your man, Beyoncé. But if a Jolene really were to swoop in and split up your relationship, she’d be doing you a favor! And for fuck’s sake, “raising” a man who’s 12 years older than you doesn’t make you a slay queen. It makes both you and him sound like losers.

Of course, this album is good. It’s well-executed for the most part, the vocals are strong, and it sounds better than most of today’s country pop. But why, oh why, is the press treating this album like it’s a masterpiece and a deep statement about society, just because it was made by Beyoncé? At this point, I’m convinced she could release a legitimately bad album, but the press would still fawn over it because they think it’s racist and sexist to approach Beyoncé’s music with anything but praise. As if she’s the only Black woman making good music. Someone needs to tell these journalists that what they’re doing isn’t woke, it’s tokenizing. But just to be fair, excessive poptimism and marketing are equally to blame for the Beyoncé hype.

Speaking of marketing, I’d like to focus on the song Levii’s Jeans for a moment. A few days ago, I was on a website dedicated to song lyrics, and the lyrics page for that track was sponsored by, you guessed it, Le-fucking-vi’s. The brand specification isn’t even relevant in that song; the lyrics are about wanting a man to touch her ass similarly to how jeans would. It’s a cleverly sexually suggestive concept, but it’s ruined by advertising. I can’t help but notice how this scenario differs from that one time a million years ago when obscure indie musician Momus made a sexual song about a completely different company, and almost got sued. The free market is cruel, the limitations of creative expression are cruel, so-called Western culture is cruel, the earth is round, and the sun is hot.

It’s still decent despite its corniness, but Cowboy Carter (wow, Azealia Banks was right about that being a poor album title) is nothing special.