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

Bailey Zimmerman performs throughout The 58th Annual CMA Awards on Nov. 20, 2024 in Nashville, Tenn.

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“Ain’t a factor modified ‘spherical right here however the cash,” Bailey Zimmerman sang after descending from the ceiling of Nashville’s Bridgestone Enviornment 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 trade dignitaries seated on the ground, the place the cameras may seize their reactions, have been bathed in confetti.

A nominee for New Artist of the 12 months, Zimmerman launched his profession a number of years again in a nontraditional manner for nation music – going viral on TikTok. However the spirit of the music he performed on the telecast, a swaggering tune known as “New To Nation” that holds up a permanent dedication to a rustic life-style as a measure of authenticity – not solely hit a well-recognized be aware 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. But it surely was significantly placing in a 12 months when the style dominated the favored charts and the discourse, due to blockbuster crossover efforts from pop superstars Beyoncé and Publish Malone, new arrival and Bey collaborator Shaboozey, whose “A Bar Tune (Tipsy)” had an 18-week stranglehold on the Billboard Scorching 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 drive in popular culture, current at its heart, 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 competition. Within the CMA’s write-in awards voting system – which, simply to be clear, did not require Bey’s crew to submit the work for consideration – it obtained no nominations, regardless of topping Billboard’s Prime Nation Albums chart, a primary for a Black lady. Shaboozey, who rocketed off to hit-making standing along with his skilled 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 group by proclaiming the present “the best dive bar on the earth tonight,” whereas one of many host monologues pivoted from acknowledging the massiveness of Shaboozey’s hit to creating a dismissive-sounding joke about his title.

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 – considered one 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 trade: “His love for nation music has made him such an ideal addition to our household.” When he completed singing, Malone responded by eradicating his cowboy hat and giving the group a gentlemanly bow.

That distinction between the embrace obtained by Jelly Roll and Publish Malone, each of whom charted paths right here after beforehand being referred to as rappers, and never by Bey and Shaboozey, the latter of whom started in hip-hop too, has lots to do with the distinction of their relationships to the nation music trade neighborhood. 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, exhibiting up far and wide – from the high-profile nation music competition Stagecoach to final 12 months’s CMAs – to reveal 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 exhibiting respect for its acquainted varieties 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 trade, that she hadn’t forgotten the shortage of welcome at the 2016 CMAs, when she’d joined in theatrically down-home Texas solidarity with The Chicks. In the best way 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 categories 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 may be counted on to ship classic-sounding, soul-indebted nation music that does not range a ton in type or high quality. He broke via a few decade in the past on the format’s outer fringes and, since then, has shifted it in direction of his personal sensibilities, in order that he now stands at its heart, 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 12 months went to an act that is already made it into the Nation Music Corridor of Fame, Brooks & Dunn. 2023’s Entertainer of the 12 months, 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 section 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 utterly misplaced his humorousness. “Effectively, if I’m going down in historical past,” Strait sang, “I am going to owe it to this distress.” It was a reminder of considered one 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 different modes – Kacey Musgraves as theologically inquisitive, folks 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 basic 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 components that Shaboozey’s working with in achieved and phenomenally fashionable 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 earth – apart from a glancing joke from Wilson early on a few 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 sector throughout business breaks ultimately confirmed a slide reinforcing that concept with a easy message from the CMA: “Music Belongs to all. Be good, be type, be you.”

The subsequent day, although, Shaboozey was little doubt conscious of the broader discourse, the social media outrage over his lack of award wins, and the boundaries that folks noticed within the unity heralded through the present. Posting on X, he made the delicate important transfer of re-centering his personal company. “I am right here as we speak hopefully residing in my function,” 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 without end grateful to it and for it.”