Beyoncé’s “Cowboy Carter” was 2025’s Album of the Year winner, but some say the other nominees were more deserving and should have received the award instead.

“I do not think Beyoncé should’ve won the Album of the Year award,” sophomore Vivian Krompic said. “I feel like there were a lot more artists who put a lot more work into their albums and such, where they deserved the Album of the Year a lot more than she did.”

Krompic and freshman Elyse Grenert share similar opinions about who should’ve won. In their opinion, it wasn’t Beyonce.

“The songs that were in it weren’t very good, in my opinion,” Grenert said. “It shouldn’t have won the Album of the Year award.”

Some feel that the songs on it weren’t very good because there was no genuine effort put into the album or that it felt forced.

“That album, “Cowboy Carter”, just doesn’t really feel like there was a lot of work put into it,” Krompic said. “You don’t feel the artist’s passion in it.”

Freshman Viktor Roberts says that she was only popular because of a few good songs she had and because she was a member of Destiny’s Child. Now, she’s just overvalued.

“I feel like her ties to powerful people in the music industry just pushes her mediocre ‘art’ into the public eye and takes the place of more incredible artists,” Roberts said. “She is way too overrated and has won way too many awards for lackluster performances.”

This time, her work just seemed to lack the emotion and feelings that fans favor. It has been described as soulless and shoddy, and multiple have pointed out the seeming lack of effort.

“I actually listened to some of the songs after she won, and it sounded kind of rushed like it was just an album made for money, and there was no real meaning behind it,” an eighth grader, Cali Geisler, said. “I just think other artists deserved this album so much more and that if Beyoncé wasn’t as popular as she is, she wouldn’t even be nominated.”

Based on how some judged her reaction to receiving the award, Beyoncé may have known that she didn’t deserve it. Others judged it as just a lack of excitement.

“When she won the award, it seemed like she wasn’t expecting it,” Grenert said. “It also kind of tells you that deep down, she knew it probably shouldn’t have won the award.”

Regardless of her reaction to the award, she got it when she veered away from the genre she’s known for, and that got some negative reactions from listeners all around.

“I’m not a huge fan of the idea of her switching to the country,” Krompic said. “I think if something is not broken, don’t fix it. I think she’s better off sticking to pop than she is with country because I didn’t feel like her country album was actual country.”

Some felt that it was too sudden of a change. Roberts even compared it to Jojo Siwa’s bad girl era, but it has been compared to other artists as well.

“I listened to some of Beyoncé’s older songs from years ago, but I just did not like the country songs,” Grenert said. “It’s the opposite of her whole vibe. It was kind of a reverse Taylor Swift.”

One even said that the album is unrecognizable as one of Beyoncé’s. Fans and haters alike have agreed that this wasn’t her best work.

“I’ve never been a huge Beyoncé fan, but I have listened to some of her other songs and albums, and this one does not sound like a Beyoncé album,” Geisler said. “If you were to have a random person sing this album, have me listen to it, and then ask me who originally made the album, Beyoncé’s name would never even cross my mind.”

Geisler also said that Beyoncé should’ve thought about what the fans had wanted, which she thinks was not a country album. More think that she should have just stuck to pop or that she just wasn’t suited for the country genre.

“There was a lot I didn’t like about the album, but I appreciated how she was trying to go ‘out of the box’ with it and trying something new with country,” Krompic said. “I was not a huge fan of her as a country artist. I feel like if she’s gonna stick with a genre, I feel like she’s best with her pop stuff. I didn’t think it was terrible, it just wasn’t good, either. I’m just kind of sick of Beyoncé winning.”