BEYONCE Vinilo y CD

Review: Having previously successfully turned her hand to house and disco - many of our top pop performers have always been shapeshifting musical magpies (hello Madonna) - Beyonce Knowles Carter has now delved into the world of country music. No doubt you'll be bored of the endless discourse around Cowboy Carter, but that doesn't stop it from being a genuinely good album - a brilliant fusion of neo-soul, r&b and, yes, country music instrumentation that wisely leaves Beyonce's incredible voice front and centre. There are some genuinely notable covers - see her takes on the Beatles 'Blackbird' and Dolly Parton's 'Jolene' (featuring an introduction from her Dollyness) stand out - but the most striking songs are by and large her own work. For proof, see 'American Requiem', 'Most Wanted' (with Miley Cyrus), 'Sweet Honey Buckin' (with Shaboozy) and 'Tyrant'.

Review: Beyonce joins Drake in the house-via-Baltimore club 'renaissance', which has seen to a good deal of major hip-hop & R&B artists working in the styles over the course of entire albums and mixtapes. This being the queen of pop's first album in over six years, some naysayers say songs like 'Break My Soul' (filled with 90s organ and downtempo kicks and snares a-la Robin S) and 'Energy' (packed with batida stylings) are paint-by-numbers, but we beg to differ; for Beyonce, it's a polyglot of reinventory music.