Beyoncé will arrive at the 67th Grammy Awards as the award’s most celebrated musical artist of all time. She’s collected a record 99 Grammy nominations, including 11 this year, and she’s won 32 times, more than any other artist. She’ll also be at the center of the night’s biggest cliffhanger: She’s never won album of the year, despite being nominated four times previously. Is this the year she’ll finally take it home?

The answer is yes. Or, at least, she definitely should win.

She faces a tough and diverse field that includes artists like Chappell Roan, Charli XCX, Billie Eilish, a flute wielding André 3000 and, once again, Taylor Swift, who’s won album of the year four times. But Beyoncé should win album of the year for “Cowboy Carter,” her country-inflected opus. She should win not because it’s her turn, or because, as a Black artist, she broke country music barriers — and then was ignored by the Country Music Association Awards last year. She should win not because her husband, Jay-Z, called out the Grammys for its ongoing oversight last year while accepting his award for global impact. And she should win not because she’s, well, Beyoncé.

She should win because “Cowboy Carter” is a paradigm shifting musical statement that landed at exactly the right moment — a wild and masterful musical tapestry that, by weaving its myriad influences into a cohesive banner, provides a timely celebration of our cultural past and offers a vivid vision of our possible future. It accomplishes all this at a time when, as a country, we’re wrestling publicly with who we are and who we want to be.

Start with one of the album’s first singles, “Texas Hold ‘Em.” The song begins with a claw-hammer banjo, before an acoustic guitar slides into the mix, and then one of the most recognizable voices in the world announces, “This ain’t Texas” — sounding an echo of Dorothy leaving Kansas to travel over the rainbow in “The Wizard of Oz.” The single notably made Beyoncé the first Black woman to have a No. 1 hit on the Hot Country Songs chart, and “Cowboy Carter” has been generally discussed as a country album since it came out.

But its achievement can’t be corralled into a single musical genre. It’s an album-length paean to a panoply of traditions, from folk to roots to country to rock to hip-hop, that together make American music great. It’s an album full of gospel and guns, car rides and cowboys, whiskey, weed and wine; of Jesus, money, furious fights between lovers, and the gentleness and wisdom of wily elders. The 27 tracks on “Cowboy Carter” are packed with musical quotes, jokes and dead serious historical reckonings, featuring a diversity of cultures all bringing their stories, religions, melodies, spirits, ancestors and rituals together for one big dance.

The musical references that Beyoncé employs are wide-ranging and eclectic. Different listeners will hear different echoes, based on their own personal tastes. To my ear, “Ameriican Requiem,” the album’s first track, first evokes the gospel standard “Down To The River To Pray.” But I also hear echoes of The Who’s “Tommy,” Lead Belly’s “Looky Looky Yonder” and, wait, is that a nod I hear to Buffalo Springfield’s ’60s protest anthem, “For What It’s Worth”? With a dash of Nina Simone’s “Mississippi Goddam,” all in one song?

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