The world’s premier pop performer returns to the stadium, her natural habitat
At the end of April 2025, Beyoncé began her Cowboy Carter world tour with five dates at the 70,000-seat stadium in Inglewood, California which usually houses the LA Rams, a team owned by Stan Kroenke, whose money also bankrolls Arsenal FC.
Three dates in Chicago and five in New Jersey follow, before six across three weekends in June at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium; then there’s three at the Stade de France in Paris, two hometown shows in Houston, Texas and two, including a July 4 show, in Washington, DC. She also ticks off Atlanta and Las Vegas later in the month.
Here are some of the superlatives for a show whose cheapest LA ticket costs $85, taken from professional critics who headed in their droves to see the hottest show in the world. From Chris Willman of Variety: ‘deliriously great, blurry, boundary-busting fun…you may feel the urge to grab hold of your head to keep it from spinning’. From the Guardian: ‘Beyoncé doesn’t just take the stage – she takes the narrative back…attention to detail is unmatched…tightly executed masterwork. She isn’t here to prove she belongs. She’s here to remind us she already owns it.’
There is also generous appraisal for Blue Ivy, the heir to the throne, and her dancing. Given the dynastic success of the British Royal Family over centuries, it makes sense for Beyoncé to involve her daughter in her work, quietly reminding people that she is the hardest-working mum in showbiz. I once realised how incredibly hard, nigh on impossible, it is for a mother to be present at home and then perform on the road: Adele no longer tours, preferring to base herself in either Las Vegas or Munich for dozens of performances at a time, specifically so it doesn’t impact on the life of her son. All credit to P!nk, who did take her daughter with her as she travelled the world.
For most of the last few years, I have thought of Beyoncé as Diana Ross 2.0: emerging as the lead singer of a girl band, respectively Destiny’s Child and the Supremes; moving into the movies, be it Goldmember or Lady Sings The Blues; and fashioning a mix of uptempo songs and ballads with top writers and producers. Crazy In Love, surely among the top three pop songs of the century, exceeds any of Diana’s Chic collaborations, be it I’m Coming Out or Upside Down. As in the case of Berry Gordy, the man behind Miss Ross, it is clear that Jay-Z has done very well out of marrying a talented singer and performer.
That’s the same Jay-Z who once called himself ‘the new Sinatra’, and who in a very mafioso move publicly suggested that the committee who give out the Grammy Awards finally bestow upon Beyoncé the Album of the Year prize she had failed to win four times. It seemed preordained that Tayoncé, a contest between Taylor Swift and Beyoncé’s albums, would be the buzzword of early 2025, but it may have been politically shrewd for the competing PR agencies to back away from the fight, given that Taylor had done her touring in 2023 and 2024, and Beyoncé was about to embark on her own jamboree.
Awards are a bauble or a stepping stone, or mere confirmation, when a star is shining that brightly. Back in 1959, at the very first Grammy awards, Frank Sinatra was nominated for the Record and Song prizes for the song Witchcraft as well as for two separate albums; he took the latter prize the following year and ended up with 11 statuettes in a crowded trophy cabinet. But his impact, like Beyoncé’s, goes beyond awards, not least because he is Simon Cowell’s favourite singer and is thus the face that launched 101 pop idols and singers who had the X Factor.
One of them is Alexandra Burke, who ended up on the West End stage inhabiting the role Whitney Houston created in The Bodyguard. Until then, aside from her pop career, Alexandra was best known for holding her own in 2008 when, as part of that year’s X Factor final, Beyoncé popped up on Saturday night primetime to perform Listen; in a moment which proved culture always eats itself, the song comes from the movie adaptation of the musical Dreamgirls, which was based on the career of Diana Ross and The Supremes. Listen became a song trotted out by hopeful superstars every year, before those singers went on to sing Sinatra standards during Big Band Week.
With Adele as her fellow balladeer, and with Lady Gaga and Katy Perry as all-singing, all-dancing global popstars, Beyoncé and the people helping craft new stadium-sized pop anthems did both: slowies Halo and Best Thing I Never Had, and dance-pop numbers Sweet Dreams and Single Ladies (Put a Ring On It). I remember watching the TV coverage of her 2011 Glastonbury set, where she performed all of these smash hits; looking back, it has become a neat division point in her career, given that Blue Ivy was born in January 2012.
In May 2014, Saturday Night Live began popping up videos of individual sketches onto Youtube. One of the most prescient was The Beygency, which skewered the Cult of Bey via a crime thriller pastiche starring the agents from the show 24. ‘Not a huge fan of that Drunk In Love song,’ says Andrew Garfield’s character, before the skies darken and he is told by a newsagent he no longer exists. ‘I like most of her music!’ he pleads, but the suggestion is that he needs to like all of it, because that is what is demanded of him.
The sketch still stands up even as Beyoncé has moved into the status of legacy artist, putting out complete bodies of work akin to Songs for Swingin’ Lovers or In The Wee Small Hours of the Morning, which were Sinatra concept albums at a time where rock’n’roll teenyboppers would not appreciate a fortysomething crooner. This was music for their parents who had screamed for a younger Frank before surviving the Second World War and settling down.
The Beyoncé of 2025 is the Sinatra of 1956. How many people of college age will be heading off to see Beyoncé this year, the music of their parents’ generation and a star that barely gives interviews and does not mess with TikTok or Instagram? Sabrina, Olivia and the rest are all conversant with today’s teenagers, who were born well after Crazy In Love and Baby Boy. Those hits are, incredible to remember, over 20 years old, and are as much retro classics as Come Fly With Me and It Was a Very Good Year.
Sinatra had his nightclubs, while Beyoncé can create longform movies or stadium shows to promote albums in an era of quick dopamine hits. Just as Sinatra was a teenage idol, so she had her phase in a girlband and making radio-friendly pop songs; they both took the lead role in movies too, because that’s where the audience was, and their music was produced by the very hottest arrangers or beatmakers. Their status as their era’s top popular entertainer is secure; the Cowboy Carter tour is a victory lap for the conquering Bey.
Awards are a bauble or a stepping stone, or mere confirmation, when a star is shining that brightly. Back in 1959, at the very first Grammy awards, Frank Sinatra was nominated for the Record and Song prizes for the song Witchcraft as well as for two separate albums; he took the latter prize the following year and ended up with 11 statuettes in a crowded trophy cabinet. But his impact, like Beyoncé’s, goes beyond awards, not least because he is Simon Cowell’s favourite singer and is thus the face that launched 101 pop idols and singers who had the X Factor.
One of them is Alexandra Burke, who ended up on the West End stage inhabiting the role Whitney Houston created in The Bodyguard. Until then, aside from her pop career, Alexandra was best known for holding her own in 2008 when, as part of that year’s X Factor final, Beyoncé popped up on Saturday night primetime to perform Listen; in a moment which proved culture always eats itself, the song comes from the movie adaptation of the musical Dreamgirls, which was based on the career of Diana Ross and The Supremes. Listen became a song trotted out by hopeful superstars every year, before those singers went on to sing Sinatra standards during Big Band Week.
With Adele as her fellow balladeer, and with Lady Gaga and Katy Perry as all-singing, all-dancing global popstars, Beyoncé and the people helping craft new stadium-sized pop anthems did both: slowies Halo and Best Thing I Never Had, and dance-pop numbers Sweet Dreams and Single Ladies (Put a Ring On It). I remember watching the TV coverage of her 2011 Glastonbury set, where she performed all of these smash hits; looking back, it has become a neat division point in her career, given that Blue Ivy was born in January 2012.
In May 2014, Saturday Night Live began popping up videos of individual sketches onto Youtube. One of the most prescient was The Beygency, which skewered the Cult of Bey via a crime thriller pastiche starring the agents from the show 24. ‘Not a huge fan of that Drunk In Love song,’ says Andrew Garfield’s character, before the skies darken and he is told by a newsagent he no longer exists. ‘I like most of her music!’ he pleads, but the suggestion is that he needs to like all of it, because that is what is demanded of him.
The sketch still stands up even as Beyoncé has moved into the status of legacy artist, putting out complete bodies of work akin to Songs for Swingin’ Lovers or In The Wee Small Hours of the Morning, which were Sinatra concept albums at a time where rock’n’roll teenyboppers would not appreciate a fortysomething crooner. This was music for their parents who had screamed for a younger Frank before surviving the Second World War and settling down.
The Beyoncé of 2025 is the Sinatra of 1956. How many people of college age will be heading off to see Beyoncé this year, the music of their parents’ generation and a star that barely gives interviews and does not mess with TikTok or Instagram? Sabrina, Olivia and the rest are all conversant with today’s teenagers, who were born well after Crazy In Love and Baby Boy. Those hits are, incredible to remember, over 20 years old, and are as much retro classics as Come Fly With Me and It Was a Very Good Year.
Sinatra had his nightclubs, while Beyoncé can create longform movies or stadium shows to promote albums in an era of quick dopamine hits. Just as Sinatra was a teenage idol, so she had her phase in a girlband and making radio-friendly pop songs; they both took the lead role in movies too, because that’s where the audience was, and their music was produced by the very hottest arrangers or beatmakers. Their status as their era’s top popular entertainer is secure; the Cowboy Carter tour is a victory lap for the conquering Bey.