The Editorials
Award Show Commentary
Written by Jeff Krasky
Country music awards shows continue to get worse every year. The nominations have gotten so one-sided that you can safely bet money that the show will consist of a couple of artists being nominated a million times. Does country music honestly only have three or four artists worthy of nominations? Then you get to the categories where the nominations leave you scratching your head in complete awe with the logic behind their selections. Of course there is the show itself, which is usually so slow paced that you lapse into a coma. Not to mention the fact that most of the artists appear to be told how to perform their songs for the show, which results in most of the performances being unnatural and forced. It’s painful to watch.
The recent announcement of the ACM nominations is a sterling example of how lame a country awards show ballot can be. Tim McGraw and Faith Hill once again dominate the final nominations. McGraw picked up 5 and Hill got 4 nods. How many shows in a row are we going to have to watch where these two are almost guaranteed victories in the categories they are in? These two are very talented artists but there are dozens of other artists putting out material just as good. Let’s get real.
On the other hand they made a few good calls this year. The Dixie Chicks walked away with a number of nominations. The group has managed to spread country music to a whole new audience while still keeping a country flavor to the music. They’re also a daring band that takes musical risks and is willing to allow their music to grow over time. This is the kind of thing we should be looking for and I applaud the ACMs for recognizing an inventive country band. Gary Allan also picked up a nomination, it’s about time someone gave this man the credit he deserves.
Then we have artists who are completely ignored like Reba McEntire. She’s had the best year of her career in a long, long time and she once again goes completely unrecognized. That’s a joke. Anyone who has seen Reba’s The Singer’s Diary tour this year knows that she has the best road show out there right now. Instead we have Sawyer Brown picking up the nomination for Entertainer of the Year. Now I love Sawyer Brown’s music and consider myself a fan but the group doesn’t sell out large venues, they tend to play a lot of small venues and those two criterions alone hurt their potential to logically get this nomination even if they are highly entertaining (which they are).
The problem is that any fan that is mildly in touch with the music industry can take a look at the ballot and pick out the winners. The excitement of awards shows lies in not knowing what’s going to happen with the presenter opens up the envelope and reads off the name of the winner. That rarely ever happens anymore and it might explain why so many people have lost interest in viewing the awards shows.
However, I must admit to being content with the nominations for the categories this web site focuses on the most: Female Vocalist of the Year and Top New Female Vocalist. These two categories are the toughest on the ballot to easily single out a winner and I can’t wait to see the end result. My predictions? Jessica Andrews for Top New Female Vocalist and Faith Hill for Female Vocalist of The Year (even though I feel Jo Dee Messina and Martina McBride have had better years and are more deserving of the award this time around.)
On a final note, hopefully the ACM’s don’t make artists perform songs their way like most awards shows do. Messing with the pacing, beat, or key of a song doesn’t do anything to help an artist perform convincingly. The end result is usually disastrous. Not to mention the fact that awards show audiences are so dead to the world they make a dead snail seem active. I can understand why artists performing faster paced tunes on the show end up looking like idiots. They’re playing to a totally unresponsive crowd. Not to mention the added pressure of performing in front of your peers. This would explain why so many people decide to sing slow ballads at the shows.
I truly do hope that this year’s awards shows are better than last years. They couldn’t possibly get any worse (of course I said this last year and was proven wrong). The country music industry and the country music fans deserve a well-produced, well-constructed awards show that actually honors the incredible talent of the artists instead of the boring, illogical, political battles that the shows have turned into during the course of the last few years.
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