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When Beyonc\u00e9 dropped two songs during the Super Bowl<\/a> in February, it was almost pointless to ask whether they would become pop-culture phenomena. She\u2019s Beyonc\u00e9; of course<\/em> they would scale the charts and inspire a thousand memes.<\/p>\n But another, trickier question soon took shape, highlighting music\u2019s complex genre and racial fault lines: Would country radio stations support Beyonc\u00e9\u2019s new direction, with its plucked banjos, foot stomps and lyrics rhyming Texas and Lexus? Or would one of the world\u2019s most influential stars languish in the margins of a format so inhospitable to female artists that, as one radio consultant advised in 2015, songs by women should be minimized<\/a> on country playlists to ensure that \u201cthe tomatoes of our salad are the females\u201d? (Even now, Nashville progressives seethe in remembrance of \u201cTomato-gate<\/a>.\u201d)<\/p>\n In the wider pop music world, radio has largely ceded its former star-making mojo to streaming and social media. But country stations still retain a significant gatekeeping power, elevating favored performers and mediating the genre\u2019s metes and bounds for audiences and the industry at large.<\/p>\n With her latest album, \u201cCowboy Carter\u201d \u2014 its cover<\/a> depicts the star on a horse\u2019s saddle, holding an American flag and decked out in a cowboy hat and red-white-and-blue rodeo gear \u2014 Beyonc\u00e9 could be a litmus test for the format\u2019s openness and adaptability. As many commentators see it, that goes for Beyonc\u00e9\u2019s own music as well as for Black female country performers<\/a> like Mickey Guyton<\/a> and Rissi Palmer, who have found solid fan bases but barely cracked radio playlists.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cThis could be a major turning point,\u201d said Leslie Fram, the senior vice president of music and talent for Country Music Television and a former radio programmer and D.J.<\/p>\n Yet a month and a half after the debut of those two first singles, \u201cTexas Hold \u2019Em\u201d and \u201c16 Carriages,\u201d and on the eve of the release of \u201cCowboy Carter\u201d on Friday<\/a>, the results of that test are still murky.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n When \u201cTexas Hold \u2019Em\u201d went to No. 1 on Billboard\u2019s flagship country singles chart, Beyonc\u00e9 noted the historic achievement. \u201cI feel honored,\u201d she wrote in an Instagram post<\/a> in March, \u201cto be the first Black woman with the number one single on the Hot Country Songs chart.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n It wasn\u2019t radio, however, that made \u201cTexas Hold \u2019Em\u201d a country hit. Positions on Billboard\u2019s chart are computed from a combination of streaming, sales and airplay data, and while the track\u2019s streams and downloads were strong, its radio spins were modest. On Billboard\u2019s Country Airplay chart \u2014 a more focused barometer of radio programming decisions \u2014 \u201cTexas Hold \u2019Em\u201d has so far climbed only as high as No. 33. (In a sign of the song\u2019s wide appeal \u2014 and, perhaps, of Beyonc\u00e9\u2019s imperviousness to country radio\u2019s decisions, whatever they may be \u2014 it also spent two weeks at No. 1 on Billboard\u2019s all-genre Hot 100 singles chart.)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Still, songs can take months to bubble through country playlists, and there is a full album to come. Beyonc\u00e9 has teased collaborations \u201cwith some brilliant artists who I deeply respect,\u201d and Dolly Parton has been quoted<\/a> suggesting that the album may include a version of her ultra-classic \u201cJolene.\u201d (A representative of Beyonc\u00e9 declined to comment for this article.)<\/p>\n As difficult as country radio has been for women to break into, it has been doubly so for Black artists. In an interview this month in Nylon<\/a>, Guyton laid out the stakes of Beyonc\u00e9\u2019s country move for musicians like her: \u201cI hope when she\u2019s here for this album, it not only continues the conversation, but continues giving artists, people of color, to have a career in country music, and that it\u2019s not a fad.\u201d<\/p>\n Many top programmers have, at least publicly, flashed a thumbs-up for Beyonc\u00e9. Travis Moon of 93Q in Houston, Beyonc\u00e9\u2019s hometown, said he was the first to officially put \u201cTexas Hold \u2019Em\u201d in rotation. \u201cMy gut was that the song sounded great in the mix,\u201d he said in an interview. Tim Roberts, country format captain for the Audacy chain, which includes 21 country stations among its 220-plus roster, said he welcomed Beyonc\u00e9 and the attention she brought to the format.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n But country radio can be punishing to those perceived as outsiders or dilettantes, and programmers may be scanning for signals from their audience before pushing further. \u201cI think part of it depends on how committed the artist is to the format,\u201d Roberts added. \u201cIs this a one-time wonder, or is there going to be more?\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Beyonc\u00e9 herself may have stoked this question when she declared on social media: \u201cThis ain\u2019t a Country album. This is a \u2018Beyonc\u00e9\u2019 album.\u201d<\/p>\n All that raises questions about the longstanding tribalism of the country market and the business that shapes it. Soon after Beyonc\u00e9 released \u201cTexas Hold \u2019Em\u201d and \u201c16 Carriages,\u201d industry executives gathered in Nashville for the annual Country Radio Seminar, where Beyonc\u00e9 was a hot topic. According to attendees, there was excitement but also hints of territorial conflicts. Jada Watson, a Canadian academic who studies country radio, said that at least one attendee expressed concern about Beyonc\u00e9 \u201cclogging up their charts.\u201d<\/p>\n Merely by announcing her project, Beyonc\u00e9 has sparked a debate about the tangled racial history of country music, and of the genre\u2019s rarely acknowledged, but intensely defended, boundaries. On Instagram, she said \u201cCowboy Carter\u201d was \u201cborn out of an experience that I had years ago where I did not feel welcomed \u2026 and it was very clear that I wasn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n Interpreting that statement, fans zeroed in on Beyonc\u00e9\u2019s performance with the Chicks (then known as the Dixie Chicks) at the Country Music Association Awards in 2016, which led to an online backlash<\/a>. But there have been other perceived slights, like the singer\u2019s brass-and-guitars track \u201cDaddy Lessons<\/a>\u201d not being nominated for a country Grammy that same year.<\/p>\n For those paying attention, Beyonc\u00e9 has been revealing her country bona fides for years, frequently calling out her Texas roots \u2014 plus \u201cMy daddy Alabama, mama Louisiana\u201d in the song \u201cFormation\u201d \u2014 and sporting cowboy hats with jeans<\/a> as far back as her Destiny\u2019s Child days.<\/p>\n Some in the business are skeptical of Beyonc\u00e9\u2019s chances of success on country stations. Nate Deaton of KRTY.com, an online-only station south of San Francisco, described \u201cTexas Hold \u2019Em\u201d as \u201cextraordinarily average,\u201d and said, \u201cIf that was any other female artist, it wouldn\u2019t see the light of day.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Joel Raab, a longtime consultant, said that early audience research on \u201cTexas Hold \u2019Em\u201d yielded enough \u201cdislike\u201d reactions to suggest that listeners were \u201csomewhat polarized\u201d on the track. Despite supportive statements made by top programmers about the song, Raab said, \u201cIn reality they\u2019re not playing it very much. They want to be politically correct, but maybe they don\u2019t want to get the BeyHive after them,\u201d referring to the star\u2019s vociferously loyal fandom.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Historically, country crossover attempts can be unpredictable. Darius Rucker of Hootie & the Blowfish had no obvious advantage when he released his country solo album \u201cLearn to Live\u201d in 2008, yet it was a smash. But when Sheryl Crow<\/a> tried with \u201cFeels Like Home\u201d in 2013, she found only limited success at country stations.<\/p>\n \u201cIf it\u2019s a great enough song, it will supersede any objections,\u201d Roberts of Audacy said. \u201cIf country radio gets better ratings, they will play the living daylights out of it.\u201d<\/p>\n And the tomato factor may still be real, particularly for Black women. Watson, an assistant professor of information studies at the University of Ottawa, said that while playlists briefly became more diverse after the furor of 2015, they have lately gotten worse. According to Watson\u2019s study of industry data, just 9.87 percent of airplay on country stations in the United States in 2023 was for songs by women \u2014 and 9.81 percent were for songs by white women.<\/p>\n \u201cQuite unfortunately,\u201d Watson said, \u201cit hasn\u2019t changed.\u201d<\/p>\n But no one is counting Beyonc\u00e9 out yet. Tom Poleman, the chief programming officer at iHeartMedia, the largest radio chain in the United States with more than 850 stations, noted Beyonc\u00e9\u2019s success across a variety of formats, saying that in addition to being played on every one of iHeart\u2019s 125 country stations, \u201cTexas Hold \u2019Em\u201d has been heard on its Top 40, R&B, rhythmic, urban and hot adult contemporary stations.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cThe bottom line is, Beyonc\u00e9 is doing what very few artists have ever done,\u201d Poleman said. \u201cShe\u2019s achieving airplay on six formats simultaneously and breaking down barriers, showing that a great artist is bigger than any genre definition.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n