With every move she makes, Beyoncé gets the world buzzing, and the release of her latest album, Cowboy Carter, is no exception. The highly anticipated country album — a follow-up to her 2022 disco/house/pop album Renaissance — has been driving discussion and excitement across the world since even before it dropped on March 29. And while the discussion centers on Queen Bey and her place in country music, her collaborators, inspirations, and related businesses are also seeing welcome boosts of attention.
We used our social listening and analytics solution to explore just how big of a social media and PR impact the release of Cowboy Carter has had on the people and brands in Beyoncé’s orbit. Read on to see which entities really hit it big in social media and news coverage, thanks to a boost from one of the world’s biggest stars.
Contents:
Beyoncé and Cowboy Carter
Cécred and Ivy Park
Levi’s Jeans
Rumi Carter
Post Malone
Dolly Parton
Willie Nelson
Miley Cyrus
Linda Martell
Willie Jones, Tanner Adell, Brittney Spencer, Tiera Kennedy, Reyna Roberts, and Shaboozey
Beyoncé and Cowboy Carter
Whether she is releasing an album, headlining a tour, or simply posting on social media, Beyoncé is always a hot topic of conversation online. Still, mentions of her name (and her many nicknames) spiked dramatically on Friday, March 29, when she released Cowboy Carter, reaching a peak of more than 1.4 million mentions across social media and news.
From March 27, the day she released the Cowboy Carter tracklist, through April 3, the weekend of the album release, the volume of conversations about her was 180% higher than in the week prior. Meanwhile, mentions of the album title peaked at nearly 324,000 mentions on release day. That gap of more than a million mentions shows just how much Beyoncé is the star of the show.
Cécred and Ivy Park
The release of Cowboy Carter arrived just over a month after the launch of Beyoncé’s haircare line Cécred. And while many artists would have used the album release to further promote their latest product, Cécred hasn’t had a major role in the rollout.
Though the brand had a small rise in mentions on March 29, conversation about Cécred has yet to reach the level of buzz from its launch on February 20.
Beyoncé’s athleisure line, Ivy Park, had an even more modest rise in conversation.
Though the brand dates back to 2016, its last official collection drop was in 2021, explaining its decreased visibility in the swirl of excitement around Cowboy Carter.
Levi’s Jeans
One standout track from Cowboy Carter is “Levii’s Jeans”, featuring rapper/pop star Post Malone. Though the song title has a slightly different spelling from the denim apparel brand, she mentions it by name in the lyrics, singing, “Boy, I'll let you be my Levi's jeans…” And while the Levi’s x Beyoncé partnership is not official (yet?), the brand can thank the music superstar for some stellar promotion.
Mentions of the brand spiked on March 27 when Beyoncé revealed the Cowboy Carter tracklist, which included “Levii’s Jeans.” They spiked again on March 31, when Levi’s embraced the reference by (temporarily) changing its name on social media. The bio of its Instagram account says it is “FKA Levi’s 🐝”, with the bee emoji referencing Beyoncé’s nickname.
From the tracklist reveal on March 27, through the following week, mentions of Levi’s were 120% higher than those in the previous seven days. Overall, Cowboy Carter was a boon to the classic Western brand, thanks in part to the Levi’s social team’s quick and clever capitalization on the hype of the moment.
Rumi Carter
Beyoncé also put her daughter, Rumi Carter, in the spotlight by featuring her on the song “Protector.”
From the album drop on March 29 through April 4 the following week, mentions of the 6-year-old were up 131% from the previous week, peaking at more than 4,300 mentions.
Post Malone
As the featured artist on “Levii’s Jeans,” Post Malone also benefited from the Cowboy Carter boost.
From the album release through April 4, mentions of him were 58% higher than the previous week, spiking above 47,000 on March 29.
The most reposted X post about the rapper noted that “his manager deserves a raise so bad” in reference to his involvement in both Beyoncé and Taylor Swift’s latest albums. It garnered more than 50,000 likes and 2,200 reposts.
Dolly Parton
Country and pop legend Dolly Parton is featured prominently on Cowboy Carter, both directly via a spoken interlude titled “Dolly P,” as well as indirectly via Beyoncé’s cover of her hit song “Jolene.”
Mentions of Dolly Parton rocketed to more than 84,600 mentions on the album’s release day. Plus, from the tracklist announcement on March 27 through the following week, mentions of her were 710% higher than in the previous week. Some of the most mentioned keywords included “new album,” as well as the phrases “flaming locks” and “auburn hair” from “Jolene.”
Willie Nelson
Beyoncé didn’t forget about Dolly’s fellow country legend Willie Nelson, whom she featured on the tracks "Smoke Hour / Willie Nelson" and "Smoke Hour II."
From the tracklist drop on March 27 through the following week, mentions of him were 976% higher than in the previous week, spiking above 30,000 upon the album’s release. Though Willie Nelson is popular in his own right, this jump suggests that Cowboy Carter may have introduced him to a wider (and likely younger) pop audience.
Miley Cyrus
Miley Cyrus is country royalty thanks to her dad, Billy Ray Cyrus, and godmother, Dolly Parton, but it was her own country appeal and vocal abilities that landed her a feature on the Cowboy Carter song "II Most Wanted."
From March 27 through the following week, mentions of Miley Cyrus were 253% higher than the previous week with a significant bump, surpassing 120,000 mentions, on March 29.
The sentiment of the conversations in that time were largely positive, with fan accounts using the moment to highlight her body of work, generating tens of thousands of likes, bookmarks, and reposts.
Linda Martell
One of the biggest narratives surrounding the release of Cowboy Carter concerned Beyoncé’s ability to highlight other Black artists in country music. Two of her songs, “The Linda Martell Show” and "Spaghettii" feature and pay tribute to Linda Martell, a pioneering Black country artist.
Linda Martell experienced the Beyoncé boost even before her involvement with Cowboy Carter became public. The release of the album’s first singles, “16 Carriages” and “Texas Hold ‘Em,” on February 11 led to renewed public interest in the first Black woman to perform at the Grand Ole Opry. Mentions of her spike again on February 22 after reports that the now 82-year-old artist received a huge boost in streams of her solo music.
Mentions then skyrocketed with the release of the Cowboy Carter tracklist on March 27. From that day through April 2, mentions of Linda Martell were a whopping 65,011% higher than in the previous week, with overwhelmingly positive sentiment. That incredible jump in mentions illustrates the magnitude of attention Beyoncé can give other artists, as well as the public’s enthusiasm for learning about the Black roots and history of country music overall.
Willie Jones, Tanner Adell, Brittney Spencer, Tiera Kennedy, Reyna Roberts, and Shaboozey
Finally, Beyoncé also used Cowboy Carter as an opportunity to highlight contemporary Black country artists. She featured country singer-songwriters Brittney Spencer, Reyna Roberts, Tanner Adell, and Tiera Kennedy on the track “Blackbiird,” a cover of the famed Beatles song by the same name. Meanwhile, country singer and The X Factor alum Willie Jones appears on the song “Just for Fun” and Americana hip hop artist/producer Shaboozey features on "Sweet / Honey / Buckiin'" and joins Linda Martell on “Spaghettii.”
Collective mentions of these artists from March 27 through April 2 were 2,820% higher than in the previous week, peaking at almost 47,000 mentions on March 29. The most shared link of the conversation was Tanner Adell’s X post from February 11 where she publicly hoped Beyoncé would reach out to her for a collaboration. After the release of Cowboy Carter, fans quoted and shared the post to highlight how Adell’s hope came true.
Overall, the data illustrates just how valuable Beyoncé’s outputs and platform are to major brands and artists as well as to rising stars and overlooked trailblazers.
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