The CMA Awards are coming, with no little amount of controversy surrounding the big award of the night: The CMA Entertainer Of The Year award.
According to The Country Vibe, Reba McEntire is one of the country artist that has chimed in. “I was a little shocked when I heard Zac Brown Band and Lady A and Miranda Lambert being nominated for Entertainers of the Year.”
Chill. Reba is not debating the worth of the nominations, just believes the timing might be a little premature.
“I had won two Female Vocalists by the time I got nominated for Entertainer, and it’s such a changing time now,” she told The Country Vibe. “Would it have been better for Lady A and Miranda and Zac Brown to be in the business longer, to headline shows longer before they get nominated for Entertainer of the Year? Would they have enjoyed it more? Would it have been better for their careers? Are they getting it too quick? We won’t know until we see the after effects.”
She also finds the fact that the biggest top acts of today are notoriously absent from the nomination confusing. We tend to agree, specially regarding one particularly Outspoken One who incidentally is the reigning CMA Entertainer Of The Year up until November 10.
“There are so many who have contributed so much to the year of country music this year, and I’m talking about Carrie Underwood and Taylor Swift, Rascal Flatts, Kenny Chesney and Tim McGraw,” says Reba. “Why weren’t they nominated for Entertainer of the Year? It’s kind of a ‘what’s going on’ type moment when I heard the nominations being announced.” Simultaneously, there seems to be some conflicting messages that she points out. “They’re wanting a change of the guards, and then here George Strait and I are nominated for Female and Male Vocalist of the year … so we’ll just have to see what happens.”
You can read the entire article at The Country Vibe.
Miranda Lambert also seems to think it’s a bit too soon. “You know, I feel like I still have a ways to go before I deserve to take that home,” she says according to Yahoo! News. Hillary Scott, Dave Haywood and Charles Kelley from Lady Antebellum have expressed they did not vote for themselves. Hillary has called it “extremely premature.” The chart-topping country music group certainly deserves the award, but is it too soon? For the coveted top award, Brad Paisley is certainly another favorite for the award. Here at the Swift Agency, we can’t pick our favorite winner between Brad and Lady A for the award. The controversy doesn’t really help.
This is the official description of the Entertainer Of The Year award:
This award is for the act displaying the greatest competence in all aspects of the entertainment field. Voter should give consideration not only to recorded performance, but also to the in-person performance, staging, public acceptance, attitude, leadership, and overall contribution to the Country Music image.
If you can make out what that means, you might want to share with the rest of the class.
“I’ve been trying to get to the bottom of it for years,” says Jay DeMarcus from Rascal Flatts. “I still don’t understand it. I sit in those rooms and say, ‘Can someone explain this to me?’ … There are certainly people who have been denied before and I think it’s something that needs to be addressed and fixed.” Jay is chairman of the artists relations committee. You can read the entire article at Yahoo! News.
The CMA Awards will be broadcast live on Wednesday, November 10 at 8/7c on ABC.
(Sources: Yahoo! News, The Country Vibe, CMA Awards)
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