A sweet Trump parody, the annual Country Music Association concert stayed clear of the most pressing politics – like guns control.
“Maybe next time, he’ll think before he tweets,” the cohosts Brad Paisley and Carrie Underwood said during their first tense exchange on the 51st Annual Country Music Association awards. For political provocation and controversy, a one-minute parody of Trump’s track, Before He Cheats, was a notable political comment as any at this year’s awards ceremony.
Paisley And Underwood have developed a dialogue during their time as cohosts of the show. However, their style has always been rooted in a witty, humorous style of comedy that is not designed to offend. Regarding such things, they’re top-quality professionals capable of delivering punchy jokes and keeping the show and awards ceremonies rushing. They’re not provocateurs.
Underwood mentioned a variety of mass shootings as well as several hurricanes in her initial remarks. After that, she and Paisley talked briefly about the unpopular policy of media coverage on issues of political importance that the CMA issued and then changed this week. It warned journalists to be banned if they spoke about last month’s mass shooting during Route 91 Harvest, the Las Vegas country festival. Some puns on famous names of politicians and that short song about Trump’s Twitter usage were later added, but the show mostly talked about business.
In the course of the show, artists included Miranda Lambert (winner of female singer for this year), Little Big Town (vocal group of the year), and Garth Brooks (entertainer of the year) made a few hints at “unity” and “family” and “healing” in their acceptance speeches. The show did not have any purpose or direction – last year’s broadcast was a celebration of the 50th anniversary of the CMA and was focused on the genre’s rich background – and did not make use of the opportunity to offer a unifying statement on how the music business has responded to tragic events that directly impacted the community in which it operates.
However, the show’s most emotional moment occurred during the in-memoriam portion during the in-memoriam segment. Underwood performed a moving note-perfect rendition of the song, Softly and Tenderly. Her voice exploded in tears during the last bars as the slide show of country music stars and insiders killed in the past year was replaced by photos of people killed in the Las Vegas shooting. Las Vegas shooting. An incident seen as sentimental or manipulative was executed with grace.
But, that time was relatively brief. Following the break in the commercials, mediocre performances continued with no further political commentary. An uninteresting duet between Dan + Shay and Lauren Alaina on a cover of the Youngbloods’ Get Together was followed by a shambolic duet with Paisley and newcomer Kane Brown on Paisley’s Heaven South.
Keith Urban aimed to be relevant when he launched his latest track, Female, purportedly in response to his ongoing inquiry into sexual assaults allegedly perpetrated by Harvey Weinstein. Still, the song’s shoddy construction ruined the message that it could be. With a chorus comprised of just a list of words as well as expressions (“mother,” “sinner,” “baby girl,” “scarlet letter,” “holy water”), Urban’s performance was not a flash of light on social media, despite discussions about the country music industry’s endemic misogyny.
It’s important to note there were four male nominees for singer best of 2017 (Urban, Eric Church, Thomas Rhett, and Chris Stapleton) who were all given individual slots on the program, and only two female Vocalists of the Year nominated (Lambert as well as Underwood) were given the same level of recognition. Additionally, the fact that Urban released a song that was a partial reaction to Weinstein’s crime was unreliable, especially given that the CMA is yet to comment regarding its accusations of sexual assault that have been made against the well-known Nashville publicist Kirt Webster. CMA member Kirt Webster.
The CMAs were focused on not having anything to do with in particular. They needed to be more focused on appointing one of the new stars like Stapleton made his announcement at the 2015 event. It wasn’t about honoring any specific artist. Stapleton, Brothers Osborne, and Little Big Town were the only artists to receive two awards (the one from the latter’s Taylor Swift-penned track Better Man earned the pop singer a Song of the Year award). It wasn’t just about honoring country music – the first song was a rousing but depressing all-star rendition from Hootie The Blowfish’s “Hold My Hand; Rhett performed the song based around the theme of Coldplay; Pink sang her track Barbies due to unanswered reasons. Maren Morris sang a duet with Niall Horan that consisted primarily of one of his tracks instead of hers.
Focusing on the topics they wanted to avoid discussing, CMAs came with a distinct performance. It could be a perfect reflection of the year’s music in the country.