CMA ENTERTAINER OF THE YEAR

It’s that time of year. ...

The second ballot, which determines the ultimate nominations for The 57th Annual Country Music Association Awards, has been released. Breath held, the hopes of many will be validated. While winning is the ultimate goal, those nominations show who’s truly in the conversation.

With The New Yorker’s heavily Americana-weighted profile “Country Music’s Culture Wars and the Remaking of Nashville,” Jason Aldean excising Black Lives Matter protest footage from a video that ignited a now controversial single that had been languishing and Dolly Parton set to release a rock ’n’ roll album and speaking to HITS’ Nashville issue about tolerance and corrupt politicians, there’s shifting in today’s Music City. Changing of the guard? Doubling down on traditionalism? Jingoism? Liberalism? Absolutely.

While lots of names grace this second ballot, only five make it to the Bridgestone Arena on 11/8 for the live ABC telecast. Those are the ones setting the pace, creating or dominating the conversation—and no one defines those things more than the artists receiving a coveted Entertainer of the Year nomination.

At the top of the heap are the obvious streaming/touring behemoths: back-to-back and reigning Entertainer of the Year Luke Combs and the ubiquitous Morgan Wallen, whose streaming numbers outstrip the biggest names in pop, hip-hop and beyond. Both are in stadiums this summer and heading into double-digit stadium plays next year. Where Combs is in the midst of the massive Tracy Chapman redux “Fast Car,” Wallen’s collaboration of “Broadway Girls” with Lil Durk, plus his own “Last Night,” as well as supporting Big Loud labelmates HARDY and Ernest expands country music’s borders in profound ways.

Kane Brown has become a musical force in mainstream country, most recently topping the country charts with his wife Katelyn, as well as friend/fellow ACM nominee Chris Young and former classmate Lauren Alaina. But he sees no genres and attracts fans of all races, ages and genders, as evidenced by his work in the pop and urban realms, duetting with Swae Lee and Khalid, H.E.R., and Marshmello.

With six nominations and no win, old guard favorite Chris Stapleton, the current ACM Entertainer of the Year, joins Miranda Lambert for most nods without taking home the prize. Dropping new music—“White Horse”—and touring on his own terms, headlining arenas and co-headlining with Willie Nelson, Stapleton created an unlikely contemporary paradigm of music-forward, music-focused career propulsion. Zero pander, zero bumpersticker hooks, he delivers grown-up songs that come closer to Leon Russell than today’s pop-country, rabble-rousing and/or party down aesthetics.

After those four, the final slot is a serious jump ball. In a nod to women’s impact on the genre, even in a radio blackout, Lambert and Carrie Underwood have both been nominated the last three years, alternating over a few prior years. Neither has taken CMA’s top prize.

If Underwood’s spectacular Vegas residency and 43-arena Denim + Rhinestones Tour isn’t enough, she co-produced her album of the same title and returns as the opener for Sunday Night Football for her 11th year. Lambert also held down a Vegas residency, remained the only woman with a bar on Nashville’s Lower Broadway, brought the Wanda June Homewares line to exclusively to Walmart, had a No. 3 New York Times’ best-seller (co-written with HITS’ Holly Gleason), recorded new music with Leon Bridges and co-wrote hits with Jelly Roll and Wallen.

To avoid a sausage fest, one of those ladies could end up filling out the category.

Aldean, last nominated in 2018 after a run from 2011 to 2013, seemed a long shot at best—until his “Try That In A Small Town” tapped into conservative America’s fighting side. Beyond the controversy-sparked debate, Aldean topped the Hot 100—and continued doubling down. His nomination would validate the frustration of working Americans.

Quietly building a hard ticket, arena-base, Old Dominion just notched their ninth No. 1. Having penned hits for Kenny Chesney, Keith Urban, Sam Hunt, Dierks Bentley and Kelsea Ballerini, they do the work, show up when asked and keep moving their music forward. With the Memory Lane EP dropping at the top of summer, an 18-song Memory Lane LP arrives this fall. To paraphrase Sally Field, “People like them. People really like them.” Not since three-time EOTY Alabama has a band had this convivial chemistry, musical churn and ear-worm factor.

Jelly Roll, another of BBR king Jon Loba’s protégés, may be the dark horse people need. Still early in his country career, the South Nashville rapper delivered Whitsitt Chapel, a classic Merle Haggardesque project that’s incited a media onslaught celebrating his felon-to-superstar journey. Drawing redemption from the starkest places, his chansons verité sold out massive arenas, anchored an ABC News documentary and prompted wave-after-wave of tearful fans who shared their own—or loved ones’—struggles with drugs, death and dead-end circumstances like it’s a Billy Graham revival.

It may be a bit too soon for Jason Deford—as Jelly’s parents named him—to land in Entertainer, but it’s only a matter of time. With a New York Times Op/Ed piece about what his music means to a broken nation, he might also slide in and shock many.


WILD CARDS: Jason Aldean and Jelly Roll

PHOTO CREDITS
Morgan Wallen: David Lehr
Chris Stapleton: Kevin Winter/Getty Images
Kane Brown: Diwang Valdez
Carrie Underwood: Jeremy Cowart
Old Dominion: Mason Allen
Jason Aldean: Rich Fury/Getty Images