Issue #69: CMA Nominations Post-Mortem

It's the most something-something time of the year

First and foremost, a personal note: we’d be remiss if we didn’t mention that one of our favorite artists and friend of the newsletter Joshua Ray Walker is going through a health crisis and needs our help. His colon cancer has spread to his lungs, and he’s launched a GoFundMe to help support his treatment. If you have the means, he could use the financial support, here. Even small amounts help.

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I don’t know which year this is from, why Peyton Manning is holding a CMA award like he won one (though he could release a song and it would go to number one on country radio, cuz that’s the rules in Nashville!!!), or if these two are even hosting this year?? But you get the vibe.

Yesterday, the CMA Awards were announced, and while I haven’t had the chance to read any of the criticism that has come in the aftermath (I had a sick kid at home) from what I can tell, much of it revolves around anger and disappointment that Beyoncé didn’t get nominated. This is infuriating and yet no surprise to me, because this is Music Row functioning exactly as it always does, which is to only award those who fall exactly in line with the accepted norm (white, straight, male except for one or two chosen women) and the accepted behavior (working with a Music Row label, Music Row writers, Music Row channels, Music Row radio promo team, etc). Beyoncé did none of that, even calling out the CMA itself when she released Cowboy Carter: and Beyoncé being brilliant and all, I think she understood exactly what she was doing in that moment, just as she did when she stood on stage next to The Chicks. They were never going to award an outspoken Black woman who dared to infringe on country music without Music Row’s help, but they would award a white man who said a racial slur with seven nominations. And they would award a white man who came in from another genre because he played exactly by the rules (i.e. Post Malone). Welcome to Nashville kids, doing it like it’s always been done. Anyway, Cowboy Carter is an album that keeps making its points for her without Beyoncé having to say a word, and that's a pretty sweet magic trick.

But beyond Beyoncé, there were a lot of head scratchers this year. Here are my other takeaways…

• Proof that Music Row can only let One Woman at a Time reign: no Carly Pearce. No Miranda Lambert! No Carrie Underwood? Bizarre as hell but not surprising: country radio has squeezed them out, so it’s harder for them to be in contention. A big part of this is how the nominations themselves work, and when we say things like “the system is built this way,” there are hard numbers behind that. As Dr. Jada Watson detailed in her report, Redlining in Country Music,” the nominating rules make it impossible for anyone without a charting country Top 10 to be in contention for Single of the Year - a spot we already know is barely attainable for women. This year there’s one woman up for Single, and that’s Lainey Wilson. She’ll lose to “I Had Some Help,” because, duh. And the cycle continues.

• Cool to see a non-Music Row band like Red Clay Strays here, but weird that Midland is missing.

• Though I don’t connect with his music, it’s undeniable that Zach Bryan should be here for slots other than Musical Event. And while I don’t know if he pushed for contention or not, seeing a list without Tyler Childers on it, considering he was playing dual nights at arenas this year, just feels broken. He should be up for Entertainer of the Year, if we’re actually doing this right (spoiler alert: we’re not).

• Speaking of broken, you know a system is broken when there’s a person in the running for Best New Artist who released their first single in 2015 (Mitchell Tenpenny, who also released a song called “Bitches,” but I digress). Happy to see Zach Top and Megan Maroney here, but this is where the CMA Awards could and SHOULD tweak the rules to allow more flexibility in terms of who can be nominated. We should be seeing Sierra Ferrell, Brittney Spencer, Wyatt Flores, Reyna Roberts, Kassi Ashton, Lauren Watkins, Adeem the Artist, Kaitlin Butts…I could go on.

I want to talk a little more about the New Artist category while we’re here. Here’s what the CMA eligibility requirements say:

This Award goes the artist, whether individual or a group, who is known primarily as a Country artist, who has in the eligibility period demonstrated the most significant creative growth and development in overall consumption or chart activity, live performance and/or national media recognition related to the launch of their career. Any artist who has previously won a CMA Award (except Song of the Year, Musical Event of the Year and Music Video of the Year) or who has twice been a final nominee for the New Artist of the Year Award is ineligible for nomination.

So, unlike single of the year and other categories, you don’t have to have a measurable radio success to be in contention for this award. So this is where the committees could go nuts in terms of diversifying the genre and who gets in front of fans - but, because of whatever backdoor business going on, that never happens. This is how you make the awards show itself more interesting, too! Imagine Sierra Ferrell up there! Imagine anything different than the same rotating cast of the same people.

Who will actually come out on top? Guess we’ll see you back here in November to talk it all through….remember how much fun we’ve had in the past!