The CMAs double down on nation continuity, even in a 12 months of crossovers : NPR

“Ain’t a factor modified ‘spherical right here however the cash,” Bailey Zimmerman sang after descending from the ceiling of Nashville’s Bridgestone Area right into a staged sport of beer pong throughout one of many rowdiest, most rascally performances of the Nation Music Affiliation Awards. The entire nation stars and business dignitaries seated on the ground, the place the cameras may seize their reactions, had been bathed in confetti.

A nominee for New Artist of the Yr, Zimmerman launched his profession just a few years again in a nontraditional means for nation music – going viral on TikTok. However the spirit of the music he performed on the telecast, a swaggering tune referred to as “New To Nation” that holds up an everlasting dedication to a rustic way of life as a measure of authenticity – not solely hit a well-recognized observe for the style, however echoed all through the evening.

The three-hour present was a neatly composed ode to the robustness and stability of nation music. That is fairly often a part of the story that the CMA Awards inform. Nevertheless it was significantly placing in a 12 months when the style dominated the favored charts and the discourse, because of blockbuster crossover efforts from pop superstars Beyoncé and Submit Malone, new arrival and Bey collaborator Shaboozey, whose “A Bar Tune (Tipsy)” had an 18-week stranglehold on the Billboard Sizzling 100, and figures who’ve ascended to the highest of the format this decade, together with Morgan Wallen, Lainey Wilson and Jelly Roll. Seldom has nation music been such a potent pressure in popular culture, current at its middle, influencing and absorbing its traits. And but, you’d nearly by no means know that such curiosity and exercise swirled across the style in 2024 from the awards present.

Beyoncé’s western epic Cowboy Carter wasn’t in rivalry. Within the CMA’s write-in awards voting system – which, simply to be clear, did not require Bey’s group to submit the work for consideration – it obtained no nominations, regardless of topping Billboard’s High Nation Albums chart, a primary for a Black lady. Shaboozey, who rocketed off to hit-making standing along with his professional mixing of broody hip-hop rhythms, spaghetti western accents and nation imagery after his head-turning twin appearances on Cowboy Carter, did not win both of the awards he was up for. He stepped on stage solely to carry out a medley backed by dancers and hype up the gang by proclaiming the present “the best dive bar on the planet tonight,” whereas one of many host monologues pivoted from acknowledging the massiveness of Shaboozey’s hit to creating a dismissive-sounding joke about his identify.

Malone and Jelly Roll additionally got here away empty-handed within the trophy rely, however that does not imply that their contributions went unrecognized. Every carried out twice. Jelly Roll’s two stirring, choir-supported, gospel-adjacent numbers – one in every of them reviving Brooks & Dunn’s ballad “Imagine” with the duo – burnished his standing as nation music’s most resonant redemption story. And Malone opened the present buying and selling verses with Chris Stapleton and later obtained an introduction from co-host Luke Bryan, who spoke to the standing he is achieved within the business: “His love for nation music has made him such an important addition to our household.” When he completed singing, Malone responded by eradicating his cowboy hat and giving the gang a gentlemanly bow.

That distinction between the embrace obtained by Jelly Roll and Submit Malone, each of whom charted paths right here after beforehand being often called rappers, and never by Bey and Shaboozey, the latter of whom started in hip-hop too, has rather a lot to do with the distinction of their relationships to the nation music business group. In their very own methods, Jelly Roll and Malone have cozied as much as it. Malone went on a little bit of a marketing campaign, displaying up far and wide – from the high-profile nation music pageant Stagecoach to final 12 months’s CMAs – to show his fandom. And when it got here to creating his album F-1 Trillion, he plunged headfirst into the Nashville system, calling on its main songwriters and pickers and displaying respect for its acquainted types and strategy to craft.

However as she ready to drop Cowboy Carter on the world in March, Bey signaled that she was working at a symbolic distance from the business, that she hadn’t forgotten the dearth of welcome at the 2016 CMAs, when she’d joined in theatrically down-home Texas solidarity with The Chicks. In the way in which that she positioned her album – and went about radically reimagining how historical past’s invoked, who’s within the lineage and the way ripe rooted kinds are for cutting-edge fusions – Beyoncé challenged the absoluteness of nation music’s identification and establishments.

For probably the most half, the winners on the 58th version of the CMA Awards weren’t the kinds who function out on the sting. Chris Stapleton, who got here away with probably the most trophies (for male vocalist, music and single), was the nominee who’d been on the style’s higher echelon for the longest, a sturdy and dependable star who could be counted on to ship classic-sounding, soul-indebted nation music that does not range a ton in model or high quality. He broke by a couple of decade in the past on the format’s outer fringes and, since then, has shifted it in the direction of his personal sensibilities, in order that he now stands at its middle, with different rugged male superstars who’ve come alongside since, favoring music with elevated emotional stakes, like Luke Combs and Jelly Roll.

Duo of the Yr went to an act that is already made it into the Nation Music Corridor of Fame, Brooks & Dunn. 2023’s Entertainer of the Yr, Lainey Wilson – whose deep twang, hearty charisma, barely retro inclinations and function on the long-running ranching cleaning soap opera Yellowstone elevated her profile– loved much more stage time as awards present co-host and feminine vocalist of the 12 months. And after a number of EOTY nods, embattled hit-machine Morgan Wallen lastly gained, although he wasn’t there to just accept.

Essentially the most suave showcase of nation continuity was a phase paying tribute to Lifetime Achievement Award winner George Strait, an archetype of steadiness in his fifth decade of stardom. The medley of his hits drew a throughline from his early ’80s neo-traditionalism (“Amarillo By Morning”) to a rollicking throwback quantity he simply launched this 12 months (“Honky Tonk Corridor of Fame”), with reverential interpretations from singers who share his dedication to nation longevity, together with Jamey Johnson, Miranda Lambert and Stapleton once more. That is who joined Strait to shut out the set with that new quantity, two celebrated voices inhabiting the function of a heartbroken, hard-drinking deadbeat of a man who hasn’t fully misplaced his humorousness. “Effectively, if I am going down in historical past,” Strait sang, “I am going to owe it to this distress.” It was a reminder of one in every of nation music’s core rules: greatness is supposed to remain grounded.

The evening’s performances reached symphonically grand and stripped-down extremes. However the assorted modes – Kacey Musgraves as theologically inquisitive, people singer-songwriter; Ella Langley and Riley Inexperienced reviving the speaking blues and teasing male-female duet traditions alike; Kelsea Ballerini and Noah Kahan as emotionally refined pop balladeers; Dierks Bentley and bluegrass-schooled pickers Molly Tuttle, Sierra Hull and Bronwyn Keith-Hynes tapping the traditional rock songbook of Tom Petty – all mirrored kinds and reference factors which have, over time, come to be embraced as a part of nation music. That is simply as true of the hip-hop parts that Shaboozey’s working with in achieved and phenomenally well-liked methods. That his music’s plain connections to nation lineage have not but secured his place as a acknowledged rising star of the style is an indication that its legacy as a racially segregated house nonetheless lingers. (A tie that continues to be intact, he instructed interviewers on the CMAs, is the one he shares with Beyoncé.)

All through the present, there wasn’t a lot acknowledgment of something occurring out on the planet – apart from a glancing joke from Wilson early on a couple of divisive vote (for Folks journal’s “Sexiest Man Alive” cowl) and a point out of Hurricane Helene’s devastation and the fundraising that North Carolina-raised Combs and Eric Church have completed for restoration efforts. Greater than something, the emphasis was on gathering round a shared sense of nation identification, and celebrating how lasting and strong it’s. A big display beaming behind-the-scenes movies into the world throughout business breaks ultimately confirmed a slide reinforcing that concept with a easy message from the CMA: “Music Belongs to all. Be good, be variety, be you.”

The subsequent day, although, Shaboozey was little question conscious of the broader discourse, the social media outrage over his lack of award wins, and the bounds that folks noticed within the unity heralded in the course of the present. Posting on X, he made the refined important transfer of re-centering his personal company. “I am right here at present hopefully residing in my objective,” he wrote, “and if my music makes even the tiniest constructive influence in somebody’s life I can die with a smile. Nation music modified my life and I am eternally grateful to it and for it.”