Vince Gill Surprised, Jack Ingram Probably Not So Much; ‘Wine, Women, & Song’ Heads to Atlanta Area

A coming “sea change” to mainstream country music eh? I’d say the “Young/AirHead Country” tsunami has already struck and washed Top 40 country radio’s links to tradition out to sea. The rising tide of pop-rock crap masquerading as “country” music has washed most of the “countriness” out of the format. Just pathetic…

Apparently it was a rumor before and now it’s been confirmed. Feeling a little self conscious today?

Cash Rich….I guess Filthy was the backup choice

I pretty much lost my mind a few times last night and was beyond angry. I was actually kinda concerned my Facebook status updates might get me in trouble with some of the record label people I’m connected to.

As nice as it was to see Jamey up on stage accepting that award (and scaring the shit outta the suits!) and as sensational as ZBB’s performance was, it wasn’t enough to save us from the travesty that is Taylor-mania.

I can vaguely make some semblance of understanding the Entertainer of the Year award. It’s wrong, but if I’m forced, I can see where voters were coming from.

If the Album Of The Year award is strictly about sales, then I see how Taylor won. It’s NOT about sales, but apparently that’s what voters thought. To give that to Taylor with “That Lonesome Song” in the category is one of the most disgusting things I’ve ever been witness to. That is, until….

The Female Vocalist award. I didn’t know what to say – with Lee Ann Womack, one of the GREATEST pure singers we’ll ever know, looking on, we have to give the award to the least deserving winner in the history of the CMAs????? I was embarrassed for the CMA, and to have LA Womack present it to her was gross and shameful.

Oh, and for the record – since I was a major proponent of Kid Rock being a part of the show – his appearance in Jamey’s song was completely useless. It was very apparent that he was there to try and lend some “mainstream” to Jamey’s performance, which is sad. Jamey was great on his own and shoulda been given his own time. I really think people underestimate just how “Country” Kid Rock is, but last night he shouldn’t have been there.

There were some high points last night, but far too many low ones and some real embarrassment for the CMA and its voters, who should feel ashamed today.

@Vicki – Brad and Carrie have duet-ed on Brad’s “5th Gear” (??) album. Very surprising that it wasn’t released as a single, actually – ’cause the song was quite good.

Much agreed on the topic of Carrie singing ACTUAL country music. Nobody can deny the pipes!

I want to forget about the Swift crap. She really isnt worth me talking about her anymore, but can I just say that for a band that had released 3 pretty unspectacular singles, the Zac Brown Band made me proud to be a country music fan last night.

Really. That performance was just as high energy and just as cool as any I have seen in some time.

Album and Video, we all saw that one coming for Swifty.

But…Entertainer? Female VOCALIST? The CMA has turned into a joke, giving the top awards to a girl who has about as much vocal talent as William Hung.

Taylor Swift is an embarassment to country music…the one making the most money is the one who can’t even sing. WOW.

this so call countr ymusic has gone to the dogs and when taylor swift sings , this is exactly what she sounds like is a bunch of dogs howling, come on everyone knows thatit doesn’t matter if you can sing or not , it is about your label and how much money they are willing to pay out to radio programmer s to get them to play your music , which gets you started then there is the publicity that is put out , I bet if anyone knew the truth the whole kayne thing was planned,if taylor is what they are trying to sell as country music , then country music had better get a new name

“…Taylor who is a country artist.”

Dan, what do you base that on? The fact that her label is in Nashvegas and they play her on Top 40 Country radio??

Not my definition of “Country” bro…

Dan: The kind of music Taylor plays was called pop long before it was called country.

I’ve maintained for a long time now that, if this was 1999, Taylor, Carrie and Kellie would all have been marketed to pop radio along with Britney and Christina and Jessica.

There is NOTHING about Taylor that is Country.

Here’s an interesting fact: Ok I’ve said many times that I’m a member of Carrie’s fan club. When things are good for her, I post there. When I’m objective, I post here. But this is a weird fact: There’s now a Taylor Swift board in the fan club for all who love Carrie the best but love Taylor too. That started up today. I wonder if the board managers will let that board stay.

Taylor Swift winning those CMA awards was totally appropriate because she is defining the current nature of mainstream country to a large part of the audience out there. Taylor has become a pop culture media icon what with all the magazine cover photos, TV show appearances, and now bit parts in movies as well. Taylor’s presence on pop music stations just further expands her reach.

Young women and girls love Taylor because they want to be just like her (and Taylor thinks like them and writes songs they can relate to), and their mom’s love the role model Taylor is for their daughters (unlike wild child Miley Cyrus).

Taylor’s concerts sell out almost immediately and her albums sell in large quantities month after month in a shrinking music market. Taylor is without a doubt the most influential artist in mainstream country music these days. It doesn’t even matter that she can’t sing all that well live, or that her music is far more pop than country, or that her subject matter focus on high school romance is very narrow. Her pop culture appeal is what really counts and she’s the reigning queen in terms of artists associated with “modern country” music as delineated by Top 40 country radio.

Taylor embodies most of the things I don’t care for in the current young/modern country mainstream marketplace and is one of the reasons I quit listening to Top 40 country radio entirely. But no one can deny her current level of success and the CMA rightfully acknowledged that. That’s just the way things go…

@ rick

seeing darth vader being vulnerable was quite an experience at the time but your post…

1999 was also the year that Vince Gill and Patty Loveless won Vocal Event of the Year for “My Kind of Woman, My Kind of Man”, despite its failure to crack the Top 20 at country radio. Something like that seems inconceivable today.

Even though commercial success was always a huge factor in determining who was awarded a CMA award, it didn’t always completely trump artistry. Yes, Shania won Entertainer of the Year in 1999, after a few years of being completely shut out by the CMA despite all of her commercial success. Remember how they were afraid she would be booed by the audience when she performed on the show? Remember how they made up that bogus International Artist Achievement Award to give to her in 1999 because they felt they had to acknowledge her and were afraid she’d be shut out again?

I don’t remember that at all. Is there some way I could refresh my memory on that subject other than by relying on yours?

Perhaps someone else remembers? It may not have been the same year she won Entertainer; it might have been the year before. It was the year when she opened the show with “Honey, I’m Home” and there were a bunch of cheerleaders on stage with her to drown out any of the boos they were afraid she might get for not being country enough.

Remember how they made up that bogus International Artist Achievement Award to give to her in 1999…

Now that I don’t remember because it definitely didn’t happen. 1999 was the third year for that award; previous winners were the Mavericks and Trisha Yearwood.

Now it’s my turn to ask you to confirm. My recollection is that Shania was the first recipient and this story on CMT.com — announcing Taylor as the 2009 winner (surprise, surprise) doesn’t list Yearwood or the Mavericks as previous winners, though admittedly it’s not a comprehensive list:

http://www.cmt.com/news/news-in-brief/1626178/taylor-swift-awarded-cma-international-artist-achievement-honor.jhtml

@razor x: It’s your declarations of the CMA’s intent and motive I’d like to see some verification for, not whether Twain performed in a big production number.

Um, yeah. I get that. Perhaps someone else remembers the story being in the news around that time that they were afraid that she would get booed during her performance.

With respect to the international award, perhaps the year Shania got it was the first year it was given under its current name. Or perhaps that was the first year it was presented on air.

It was Musical Event of the Year, wasn’t it?

Shania performed ‘Honey I’m Hone’ at the 1998 CMA show, Razor. And I do remember people saying she would probably get booed off stage. At that time, there was still a magazine called Modern Screen’s Country Music that just loved to hate on the mainstream big-sellers like Garth, Reba, Shania, Tim McGraw,etc. – all artists they deemed not country enough. And those guys – Waylon Wahl I believe the man’s name was – had decided Shania was going to get a very cold reception at the show.

The International Artist Achievement Award was actually started in 1996 and Shania was the fourth recipient of the honor. You’re probably right in assuming she was given the honor in 1999 because the Association wanted to give her some sort of award for all her sales and achievements, but the reason you are thinking Shania won it first – and what Jon didn’t mention in his posts – was that prior to 1999 – the year Shania won – the award was called the International Touring Artist Award, and Shania Twain WAS the first one to get what was called The International Artist Achievement Award.

Hope that helps …

And if that’s not pure speculation, it comes pretty damn close. Talk about making stuff up.

And if that’s not pure speculation, it comes pretty damn close. Talk about making stuff up.

Yes, you’re right. Silly me. I’m sure it’s just a big coincidence that the same year the award’s name was changed from International Touring Artist to International Artist Achievement, it was given to an artist who hadn’t toured internationally.

Well, there you go. Me, I tend to shy away from claiming to be sure about stuff I don’t actually know something about, but I can see that you don’t consider yourself handicapped by ignorance.

And you don’t consider yourself handicapped by arrogance and rudeness.

This isn’t about ideology. I only brought up Shania’s name in the first place to contrast the initial difficulty she had being recognized by the CMA as opposed to the way they completely rolled over for Taylor.

As for belittling others — pot, meet kettle.

My claims were supported. Folks can draw their own conclusions, just as you have.

Facts:

1. Shania Twain, the most commercially successful act of the day had been shut out in previous years’ awards shows,

2. The CMA changed the name and criteria of an award and presented it on air for the very first time to Shania, who would not have qualified for the award had those changes not been made.

Draw your own conclusions. If you choose to believe it’s all a great big coincidence, that’s your prerogative.

As for the booing, I recall reading in the press at the time that there was concern about the reception she would receive. Someone else has a similar recollection. I don’t know how else to support that claim; if it had happened more recently there would probably be references to it out on the web, but there wasn’t as much of this sort of thing out on the web 10 years ago. I’m not suggesting that Shania — or anyone else — deserved to be booed off the stage, and I certainly don’t have any motive for making up such a thing. Believe whatever you want.

Well let’s just take a wild guess and say that touring internationally is a prerequisite for winning an International Touring Artist award, shall we? And can we further assume that if the word “touring” is taken out of the title and the award is subsequently awarded to someone who hadn’t toured internationally, that it’s no longer a requirement? Or do you need a signed affidavit from the president of the CMA before you will concede this point?

Now, I’m sure that the motives for doing this were as pure as the driven snow and in no way motivated by the need to acknowledge a commercial powerhouse who had been ignored by the awards up to that point. Heaven forbid that anyone should connect the dots and presume otherwise. Any correlation is purely and clearly unintentional and coincidental.

i am so happy taylor swift won the entertainer of the year award… she deserves it.. her concerts sold out in minutes… her albums (self-titled album and fearless album) are still on the billboard chart. she has done so much for the country music.. more and more young people are listening to country music now.. I’m one of the many fans of taylor swift from Asia ..i’ve been a fan of taylor swift since i first listened to her ‘Tim McGraw’ song and i’ve been a fan ever since… she is simply one of the best among the best singers from all genres in the whole world … u go taylor swift

“u go taylor swift”

Well who can argue with such a poetic, well written statement like that?

stormy..i mostly listen to women country singers like Reba McEntire, Faith Hill, Shania Twain, Taylor swift, Carrie Underwood… but i also listen to Brad Paisley (i’m in love with his voice) and Keith Urban ..all these singers are the best among the best…i’m a music lover.. my choice in music is limitless .. i listen to all kind of music from classical to country to rock.. music is universal.. people have to have a positive mind and be lenient..and allow music to develop and evolve with time.. music is forever and it’s for everybody.. p.s thomas thanks for the offer but i dont drink anyhow for you i’d say neko case..last but not least…stay positive people..

Diane said: “I mostly listen to women country singers like Reba McEntire, Faith Hill, Shania Twain, Taylor Swift, Carrie Underwood… but I also listen to Brad Paisley (I’m in love with his voice) and Keith Urban ..all these singers are the best among the best” and then follows it with “I’m a music lover..”.

To me those two statements seem mutually exclusive of each other. Now if Diane would have said “I’m a lover of overtly commercialized mainstream/contemporary pop-rock crap masquerading as country music!”, then there would be no dichotomy…(lol)

There’s no reason to think that Diane isn’t just what she says she is – a music lover – and there’s no reason to think that the artists she mentions aren’t country singers. And much as I like many of the artists who get put under the Americana umbrella, if you put them all together they’re not selling as many records as Taylor Swift and Carrie Underwood, so claiming it’s a “growth genre” is, to put it politely, a tad premature. Sheesh.

@stormy: ll I am saying is that if you take this one group of singers and move them to a different context…

The appropriate response to that can be read in the title here: http://bit.ly/7NOV4m . They’re in the context they’re in. And that’s not all you were saying.

As for Americana sales, who’s counting them? And what do the absolute numbers look like – because, as I’m sure you know, having worked in advertising and all, percentages don’t necessarily tell you much of a story. Like in the post-CMA awards piece on this blog, where the ZBB had the most spectacular bump in sales from a percentage point of view – by going from 300 units to 900, or something like that, while Taylor Swift’s sales increased by 20 or 30 times that in absolute numbers.

You want to be a fan of Americana, great. You want to tout it as the home of real artistry, great. But trying to paint it as the Next Big Thing that’s going to become a home to millions of disaffected country music fans is just pure hokum.

rick as i said before i’m a music lover and people always say beauty is in the eyes of the beholder and i would say music is in the ears of the beholder… when you said they are overtly commercialized mainstream/contemporary pop-rock crap masquerading as country music .. i have to say well i dont agree with you…that is really a moot point…to my ears they are country-pop or country-rock etc etc… and to say they are overtly commercialized ..well there is no such thing as too much commercialization..significantly they have 1 thing in common they are all sub-genre of country music… that makes them country.. it’s like when you have these two step-sisters of different mothers but having the same father.. they will still have the same family name and most importantly they both have bits and pieces of DNA they inherited from their father… that makes them their fathers’ daughters ..:)