The list of nominees for the 46th annual Country Music Association Awards has been released. Eric Church had a big breakthrough this past year, and such is reflected in the nominee list – Church leads the pack with five nominations. Current favorite power couple Blake Shelton and Miranda Lambert follow with four each, including a shared Song of the Year nod for their co-write “Over You.”
Four albums into her career, Carrie Underwood’s career growth has been fairly stunning.
It’s hard to imagine that the talent-show winner who sang “Jesus Take the Wheel” would morph into a fully fledged pop superstar with speaker-rattling pop-rock songs like “Good Girl” and “Blown Away.”
While the evolution has been fascinating to watch, the problem is that someone who was thought of as the next female country superstar has effectively left country music behind and moved on to bigger things, and it’s a loss for the genre.
Lauren Alaina’s “American Idol” legacy can be summed up in one phrase: failure to meet potential. The Season 10 runner-up kicked off her “Idol” run with a fiery display of vocal talent, but she was never able to match that confidence or sense of identity in subsequent live performances. Worse yet, her “Idol” catalogue stood in stark contrast to that of winner and fellow country artist Scotty McCreery, whose best strength was his firm grasp of self.
Carrie Underwood
Blown Away
At this point, it’s easy to forget that Carrie Underwood first kicked off her country music career as an American Idol graduate. Besides being one of country music’s most technically gifted female vocalists, she’s gone on to become one of its strongest commercial forces, with a seven-year-long string of Top-2 hit singles, not to mention albums that consistently sell like hotcakes. But a noteworthy gap has often been seen between the impressiveness of Underwood’s talent and success and the quality of her material. In terms of lyrics and production, at least, Underwood’s new album Blown Away finds her taking steps forward that are small, but steps forward nonetheless.
Throw on your bedazzled boots – the 47th annual Academy of Country Music Awards air live from Las Vegas this Sunday at 8 p.m. EST. The show promises to be a melting pot of performances, with oddball duets like Rascal Flatts and Steve Martin – and no, that’s not an April Fools joke. The CU staff picked and predicted the awards below. Tell us your thoughts, and check back for our live blog on Sunday night!
Entertainer of the Year
Should Win:
Honestly, I was never a huge fan of this particular Train hit. The lyric has a few interesting lines, but I couldn’t help but find it a bit schmaltzy and heavy-handed. Plus it’s like he just met this girl in a cafe, and he’s already getting ready to propose marriage? I would probably have liked the song better without “If I ever get the nerve to say hello in this cafe.”
So it figures that Martina McBride reworks it into a duet with Train frontman Pat Monohan (after having joined Train for an episode of CMT Crossroads), and I can’t get over how cool they make it sound.
100 Greatest Men: The Complete List
The Class of 1989 permanently changed the face of country music. Clint Black was its valedictorian.
The 54th annual GrammyAdele Awards air this Sunday at 8 p.m. Eastern. Look for appearances by Miranda Lambert, Dierks Bentley and Lady Antebellum as well as country-ish performances by Jason Aldean, Glen Campbell (with the Band Perry and Blake Shelton), Taylor Swift and Carrie Underwood. We’ve picked and predicted the awards below – share your thoughts, and be sure to drop by on Sunday night for our live blog!
Martina McBride
Hits and More
The smooth powerful voice of Martina McBride has been a welcome radio presence for two decades now. After eighteen years of hit singles, top-selling albums, and industry awards, November 2010 brought the news that McBride was exiting the RCA Nashville label roster. In the wake of her departure from her longtime label home, her hitmaking days on RCA are summarized on the career retrospective Hits and More, featuring seventeen of McBride’s best-known hits arranged chronologically, plus three new recordings. All of her RCA albums are represented except for her 1992 debut The Time Has Come (which produced no significant hits) and her 2005 covers album Timeless (which produced only one minor Top 20 hit with McBride’s rendition of Lynn Anderson’s “Rose Garden”).
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