Another Country Music Awards Rant

In my web travels, I discovered that the ACM country music awards were on Sunday night. Now, I've lost quite a bit of interest in the awards shows over the years, but I usually knew when they were on and looked at the winners. This time, I never even knew the show was going to be on CBS, and had to go looking to find out who the winners were. (although I caught the show rerun on CMT Canada tonight) As usual of late, I was quite disappointed. The only decent call was Brad Paisley winning male vocalist. The rest of the winners were basically doing the job of pointing out that I am clearly no longer in the desired country music demographic. I'm only 31, but I fear I am now too old for todays cookie-cutter, country music "stars". Even though Reba hosted, noticeably absent were the likes of Tim McGraw, Faith Hill, Alan Jackson, Martina McBride, Dixie Chicks, and more. In fact, most of the people I would have liked to hear sing were only walked out as presenters. Here's a note to the ACM bosses - if you have Dwight Yoakam on the show, YOU LET HIM SING! Anyway, as is their want of late, the show was a heavy push for the young newcomers on the scene. Carrie Underwood has pretty much replaced Faith Hill as the go to country female singer, and Underwood's twin upstarts of blandness - Kellie Pickler and Taylor Swift - got the big push as well, with Taylor even winning an award. These three are so interchangeable, it's hard to tell them apart. Taylor got notice for her clothes ripping, water soaked performance number, but that's about it. Many other "who's that?" performers were featured, but the most ironic award had to be new male vocalist going to Jack Ingram - he of at least 10 years of singing experience. At least it was a name I recognized. The other acceptable one was Miranda Lambert winning album of the year. Previewing clips of the album on Amazon, at least she's got some talent beneath the bombast and has a more unique voice and style to stand out from the pack. And thanks to previewing her album, it sent me on a round about web tour to find EmmyLou Harris' classic Easy From Now On, which is a great tune penned by Carlene Carter, but that's another story. There were good performances from George Strait, and um, somebody else I'm sure, but the highlight of the show had to be Garth Brooks. He won an achievement award of something, but the good part was him doing a medley of his hits. Makes one realize how much Garth Brooks is missed, at least by this fan of country music. It's funny, because when he was the big thing in the 90's, people were saying he wasn't country then either. However, listening to him tonight in comparison to the other acts trotted out, he may as well be the George Jones of his generation. Hearing him still in fine form sing songs like Thunder Rolls, Callin' Baton Rouge, Friends In Low Places, Rodeo, In Another's Eyes (with Trisha Yearwood!) and The Dance among others is downright refreshing when confronted with song of the year winners Sugarland screeching out ear bleeding notes to the masses. I guess to each their own in who they like, but it ain't getting any easier to be a country fan these days. Oh, and one last thing. Big, BIG thumbs down to CBS, who obviously doesn't want anyone to maybe view these performances again. There were a lot of clips put up on YouTube, but every one I clicked on had been taken down for violation. Nice going CBS. Try not to be so scared of this thing called the internet next time.