Cowboy Carter is the 2025 winner for the Album of the Year Grammy. Last night, Beyoncé took home that coveted award, which was actually her first time winning in the Album of the Year category, believe it or not. She also won Country Album of the Year and Best Country Duo/Group Performance for her song "II Most Wanted" with Miley Cyrus. While she was, and still is, the most decorated artist in Grammy history, she only took home 3 awards last night out of a whopping 11 total nominations. Up until she won Best Country Album, it was shaping up to be a bit of a flop for Beyonce, but in the end, she wound up taking home the biggest award of the night. She released her country album (that she clarified “wasn’t a country album”) Cowboy Carter back in March of 2024, and it was certainly a cultural moment, it wasn't quite the commercial success that most were expecting. After it failed to be nominated at many of last year’s country music award shows, and quickly fell off the Billboard 200 chart relatively quickly, many assumed that Beyoncé’s short stay in the country genre was going to end with nothing to show for it. It was very clearly not a completely country album, as she also incorporated elements of folk, R&B, gospel and more, but I did enjoy some of the songs on there and I'm probably not as big of a critic of it as some of my fellow country fans and people in the industry are. Beyoncé dedicated the award to Linda Martell during her acceptance speech, who was the first commercially successful black female artist in country music, and also the first to ever play the Grand Ole Opry in 1969. She obviously greatly influenced Beyoncé throughout this process: "I'd like to thank and acknowledge and praise all of the firefighters for keeping us safe. I just feel very full and very honored. It's been many, many years and I just want to thank the Grammys, every songwriter, every collaborator, every producer, all of the hard work. I wanna dedicate this to Mrs. Martell, and I hope we just keep pushing forward, opening doors. God bless y'all, thank you so much. Thank you." BEYONCÉ ALBUM OF THE YEAR ACCEPTANCE SPEECH #GRAMMYs pic.twitter.com/GnbS5Enfrz — sodi ?️‍? (@actuallysodium) February 3, 2025 During an interview with Entertainment Tonight after the show, Beyoncé told a reporter that she was "honored" to win so many big awards tonight, in addition to being able to spotlight artists like Rhiannon Giddens, who played banjo on Cowboy Carter. Beyoncé also said one of her goals in released the album was to bring back some of the history of black artists who have greatly influenced country music over the decades, and she felt "so seen" by the country community tonight: "It's very surreal, and it's been 25 years of just working really hard, and trying my best to keep growing, keep opening up doors, so I'm just very honored. Very honored. and happy that my daughter got to see that... she's taller than me! I don't like it at all. But I'm so happy that she was here, and Rumi who's on the album, my youngest daughter, she was watching and I forgot to thank her, so I get to thank her now. Thank you Rumi. Well, the banjo has a deep history and I just feel honored to reintroduce some of that history that I think has been lost, and very very honored that I got the response and the open heart, and people welcomed the album. The love I got from the country community tonight really made me feel so seen and I'm very grateful." Guess she hasn't been on Twitter... Beyoncé and some of the more established country institutions have a dicey history at best, and the best example I can give you was the reaction by fans, and other artists, to her performance with The Chicks at the 2016 CMA Awards... since then, they've pretty much been at odds, and she was left out of CMA nominations this year since voters thought her explicit "this is not a country album" was more or less of a disqualifier. Do I think that this was the best album in the entire country genre over the last year, especially when measured by the competitors in her category in Chris Stapleton's Higher, Kacey Musgraves' Deeper Well, Lainey Wilson's Whirlwind and even Post Malone's F-1 Trillion to a lesser extent? No, but I think country fans know how truly meaningless these types of award shows are... I mean, it's fun if your favorite wins, but does it really change anything? Nah... most people couldn't even tell you how many awards their favorite artists have won, Grammys, CMAs or otherwise. It just doesn't matter that much to the average fan. Here's her interview with ET: @entertainmenttonight It was a moment that has been 25 years in the making! ? Beyoncé reacts to her Album of the Year win at the #GRAMMYs ♬ original sound - Entertainment Tonight