Thursday 10 November 2011
45th CMA Awards
Posted on 08:58 by Unknown
This show has a glorious history of being the best awards show on TV year after year. This year opened up with Blake Shelton performing his cover of "Footloose" and it was good but it got great when Kenny Loggins came out and finished it up with him. The duo of Carrie Underwood and the always excellent Brad Paisley did a wonderful introduction segment which included a spot with legendary musical genius Hank Williams Jr. who pretty much stole the whole segment with his massive presence.
The awards got right underway with one of the non country, pop acts with The Band Perry winning said award. A back to back performance segment which had Keith Urban sounding pitchy and otherwise lame then it blended right into Sara Evans doing a really bland ballad which nearly had me reaching for the mute button. That woman seems to be jinxed since the excellent "Suds In The Bucket" rocketed her to super stardom a few years ago. I can only hope that there are much better performances on the way maybe Kellie Pickler and Miranda Lambert will show all how its done and I'd really love to see Brad perform "Old Alabama" with Alabama who I saw pieces of in the audience.
Truth be told this show never disappoints outside of the winners usually being wrong most of the time and nominations being a little weighted to promote some real garbage. Speaking of quality Miranda Lambert hits the stage and does a great live TV version of "Baggage Claim" looking about as hot as a female can all dolled up in black and sparkles. She proves without a doubt she's the real deal and every other female artist in the room better watch how it's done. The only lady seated that comes to her level is Reba who's so great she goes by her first name because that's all she needs for everyone to know exactly who your talking about.
The arrival of one of the hottest ladies on planet earth Kellie Pickler gives away song of the year. The nominees are obviously not really the best country songs but Taylor Swift's "Mean" was at least given a nod and deserved to win over "If I Die Young" for the second time. Again I don't hate the song but I don't think its song of the year caliber either. Zack Brown Band hit the stage and do a really nice cover of "Georgia" which has a guest along for the ride as is common with country award show performances. Greg Allman did have a blues record this year so I understand why he's there on this bluesy jazz classic. The audience is too nice though it was not stand worthy in slightest.
Rascal Flatts Featuring Natasha Bedingfield performed an bloody awful torch song that couldn't suck anymore if it was by Lady Antebellum. The song is painfully bad and hopefully will never be played or heard again. Just freaking horrid and Rascal Flatts continue releasing terrible slow songs so their record is in tact. The next award Vocal Duo went to the right artist this time being Sugarland. I wasn't a fan of them for a long time but they won me over with their super catchy ditties the past couple years.
I love the new country acts doing a little tune as part of their nomination. Eric Church pretty much owns this award in my opinion because he's just so great and real country not this fake pop crap that rules the charts. His album should be considered for album of the year because its really a good country album but it won't be there I'm sure of that. There are some other new acts that are pretty good too this year like Thompson Square that aren't much live but on record have a good sound. Then you get Billy B. Badd (listen to song by George Jones explains everything) named Chris Young this time who is just a wanna be packaged no talent hack. His album blew chunks with so much bland faceless country pop that you might fall into a coma while listening.
Taylor Swift's choice of song wasn't a hit yet again which I don't understand she seems to always to do some offbeat slow song. I wish she'd sing something that would be enjoyable like her excellent "Mean" but alas we get what we get and I'm sure all her tween fans loved every off key note. She's truly a phenomenon and deserves every single bit of her success. Following Taylor is another nominee for best new act Luke Bryan and if you've read my review of his album you'll already know how lame this guy is outside of his one and only good song "Country Girls Shake It For Me". Nothing else sounds like this which is why he's a member of my fake country club if he was really this sort of artist he'd have other honky tonk floor fillers earning him some credibility.
The Miss Piggy segment made me laugh out loud Paisley never disappoints but what followed was a mute button masterpiece being the lamest act in country music Lady Antebellum. What a junk drawer mess they are everytime they perform. I just hate how paint by numbers boring they are and the song was a soft rock song that is a million miles from anything remotely resembling country music. That pig faced hog in the band drives me nuts and I've got the volume turned down. I just can't stand them and I will never ever like them it is just not going to happen. Promote them all they want I'm not buying their stale cookies.
Album of the year comes and what the F! The bloody voting committee actually got it wrong again! Oh wait that happens almost every single year in the shows history. Jason Aldean can't sing at all whether on album or live his voice is weak and sounds forced all the time. I don't like any of the music the album had on it but Nashville wants him to be so they make it so. Kenny Chesney thank goodness performs a nice little ditty which is a great singer-songwriter type tune. He's usually a solid bet when it comes to being entertaining and enjoyable and the stripped down version of "You & Tequila" That featured Grace Porter he won again.
I am a little perplexed to why Lionel Ritchie is a featured event performance on a country show considering he's a pop/R&B artist that has no country connection outside of being black like Darius Rucker and Cowboy Troy oh and Charlie Pride. It's kinda weird when they could have done something like invite Hank to do a medley or have Alan Jackson or hell even Joe Diffie, Sammy Kershaw, Clint Black or Travis Tritt perform hits medley's which are all country acts and real ones that deserve to be given back some spotlight of which they had a major hand in creating over the great decade of the 90's country movement. Still it wasn't horrible and I like Lionel a lot myself he was a huge part of my teenage years. I just hope his so called country record is good and not just an attempt to be popular again like so many other pop and rock artists have been doing. BTW Darius Rucker sucked ass singing the great "Stuck On You" Hootie get the fuck off the stage you idiot. I have to admit that The Band Perry sounded great and Rascal Flatts were decent as well.
On their own performance The Band Perry hit a lot of sour notes and flat notes and were not impressive at all. Billy Currington and LeAnn Rimes were easily the best looking couple on the stage tonight presenting. Billy should have been nominated for a few awards as his album had better songs than most of the shite that was given award nominations. Matt Nathanson and Sugarland performed and did so incredibly. Matt just has a great stage presence and well Nettles pretty owns the stage when she's on it like her or not she's a strong performer. I was happy she was wearing a shirt and jacket that didn't show her indented chest lacking of weight and boobs this year. That was a nice change the low cut neckline was obscured enough that I didn't feel sick to my stomach. If it wasn't best performance of the night it was damn close for sure.
Although I don't really like the song Brad Paisley and Carrie Underwood performed ok. Carrie sounded kinda lame but she pulled it out I guess. Not her best live moment that's for sure and she sounded very nasal on the song I guess that's why she was buried in the live mix in hopes to hide her off night. She usually nails it and because of her history of doing just that I will give her a pass. Let's all hope she picks better songs for her new album this coming year. OMG Lauren Alaina looked fantastic and she's so damn likable too. New artist of the year again wrong! Eric Church is the best new artist and in ten years he'll still be going strong The Band Perry will be long forgotten history playing small club and free stages at county fairs.
Scotty comes out and sings "Walk In The Country" from Keith Urban's first band The Ranch and did a really good job of it. He looked comfortable and didn't seem nervous at all considering Urban was not far away. I like how he did the country radio announcements with how they have been very reluctant to add his singles to rotation. One of the major US radio programmers was quoted as saying he wanted to be warned so he could hide when Scotty was brought around on the radio tour for Idol. It was good little screw you to those bigots hating on the kid even though his album was pretty poor overall. But what do you expect when the producers and record label wanted Lauren to be the winner.
This award show nominee and winner wise would be completely different if I was picking them but the presenters, performance & bit writing have been good so far. Jason Aldean can't sing and he proves it right away hitting bum notes all over the place. He just sounds fake like he's trying to sing with a twang while imitating Dwight Yoakam's nasal tone but missing the point on a consistent basis. I don't know what's wrong with the industry in the 2000's but they complain about ticket sales and album sales when they push crap artists like him. Male vocalist of the year is not even close Brad Paisley is the only choice and clear-cut winner. So I was shocked when Shelton won it but I guess being Mr. Miranda Lambert did him well. Another wrong choice even though I do love Shelton's music and he's a good performer but c'mon.
Martina McBride sang the same song she's sang every year for like what twelve years now. I don't even care anymore because she's always doing a torch song of some sort and we all know far and few torch songs are good. She was lucky to have one really good one and tonight was not one of them. It is time for that lady to fire her handlers and hire some that will tell her no on a regular basis and maybe she will be able to find the top of the charts again. Pretty lady though and has a great voice in that hot little five foot package.
The whole tribute to Glen Campbell which is for him being sick now and touring before he can't perform any longer is a nice moment on the show and it's too bad about his Alzheimer's diagnosis. Everyone gets old and all we can do is wish him well and hope the media don't exploit him once he's fallen deeply into the disease. The moment was near tear jerking considering the breadth of what is coming for such a great performer. It's entirely too bad that the old school gets no respect from country radio. I'd rather hear their classics than a good portion of what is on the stations rotation now.
The return of Faith Hill for me is a who gives a crap feeling because this woman has sucked for years now singing painfully overblown ballad or torch song after another. She's been so far out of touch with what a hit song is that all I can expect is she will do yet another boring one tonight. Ok so I was right for the most part but the song didn't suck nearly as much I expected. She did look great as expected and hopefully this will be her return and she'll have some more uptempo fun numbers in her new catalog.
Female Vocalist Of The Year: Miranda Lambert! Whoop! Whoop! Whoop! The most deserving of all gets rewarded for her excellence.
Reba gets to give Taylor Swift her award for Entertainer Of The Year and anyone with a brain and music knowledge knows that girl deserves it and is easily the winner. She's sold more tickets than most of the acts on the show combined, she's most likely sold more albums than them as well. Taylor Swift is one of the biggest stars in the world today and she more than even my favorite Miranda Lambert deserves the award hands down. Swift is gracious and cute and honest in her acceptance from the immortal Reba who herself has won a couple of these and knows how important it is to a career and having longevity. My favorite part of the whole show is her reading the list of people to thank off her arm. That says it all, she's just so damn nice and normal.
Overall the show was good and I enjoyed the three hours well almost all of the three hours.
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