Updated November 22, 2024 at 16:07 PM ET
"Ain't a thing changed 'round here but the money," Bailey Zimmerman sang after descending from the ceiling of Nashville's Bridgestone Arena into a staged game of beer pong during one of the rowdiest, most rascally performances of the Country Music Association Awards. All of the country stars and industry dignitaries seated on the floor, where the cameras could capture their reactions, were bathed in confetti.
A nominee for New Artist of the Year, Zimmerman launched his career a few years back in a nontraditional way for country music – going viral on TikTok. But the spirit of the song he played on the telecast, a swaggering tune called "New To Country" that holds up an enduring commitment to a country lifestyle as a measure of authenticity – not only hit a familiar note for the genre, but echoed throughout the night.
The three-hour show was a smartly composed ode to the robustness and stability of country music. That's very often part of the story that the CMA Awards tell. But it was particularly striking in a year when the genre dominated the popular charts and the discourse, thanks to blockbuster crossover efforts from pop superstars Beyoncé and Post Malone, new arrival and Bey collaborator Shaboozey, whose "A Bar Song (Tipsy)" had an 18-week stranglehold on the Billboard Hot 100, and figures who've ascended to the top of the format this decade, including Morgan Wallen, Lainey Wilson and Jelly Roll. Seldom has country music been such a potent force in pop culture, present at its center, influencing and absorbing its trends. And yet, you'd almost never know that such interest and activity swirled around the genre in 2024 from the awards show.
Beyoncé's western epic Cowboy Carter wasn't in contention. In the CMA's write-in awards voting system – which, just to be clear, didn't require Bey's team to submit the work for consideration – it received no nominations, despite topping Billboard's Top Country Albums chart, a first for a Black woman. Shaboozey, who rocketed off to hit-making status with his expert blending of broody hip-hop rhythms, spaghetti western accents and country imagery after his head-turning dual appearances on Cowboy Carter, didn't win either of the awards he was up for. He stepped on stage only to perform a medley backed by dancers and hype up the crowd by proclaiming the show "the greatest dive bar in the world tonight," while one of the host monologues pivoted from acknowledging the massiveness of Shaboozey's hit to making a dismissive-sounding joke about his name.
Malone and Jelly Roll also came away empty-handed in the trophy count, but that doesn't mean that their contributions went unrecognized. Each performed twice. Jelly Roll's two stirring, choir-supported, gospel-adjacent numbers – one of them reviving Brooks & Dunn's ballad "Believe" with the duo – burnished his status as country music's most resonant redemption story. And Malone opened the show trading verses with Chris Stapleton and later received an introduction from co-host Luke Bryan, who spoke to the status he's achieved in the industry: "His love for country music has made him such a great addition to our family." When he finished singing, Malone responded by removing his cowboy hat and giving the crowd a gentlemanly bow.
That contrast between the embrace received by Jelly Roll and Post Malone, both of whom charted paths here after previously being known as rappers, and not by Bey and Shaboozey, the latter of whom began in hip-hop too, has a lot to do with the difference in their relationships to the country music industry community. In their own ways, Jelly Roll and Malone have cozied up to it. Malone went on a bit of a campaign, showing up all over the place – from the high-profile country music festival Stagecoach to last year's CMAs – to demonstrate his fandom. And when it came to making his album F-1 Trillion, he plunged headfirst into the Nashville system, calling on its leading songwriters and pickers and showing respect for its familiar forms and approach to craft.
But as she prepared to drop Cowboy Carter on the world in March, Bey signaled that she was working at a symbolic distance from the industry, that she hadn't forgotten the lack of welcome at the 2016 CMAs, when she'd joined in theatrically down-home Texas solidarity with The Chicks. In the way that she positioned her album – and went about radically reimagining how history's invoked, who's in the lineage and how ripe rooted styles are for cutting-edge fusions – Beyoncé challenged the absoluteness of country music's identity and institutions.
For the most part, the winners at the 58th edition of the CMA Awards weren't the types who operate out on the edge. Chris Stapleton, who came away with the most trophies (for male vocalist, song and single), was the nominee who'd been at the genre's upper echelon for the longest, a durable and reliable star who can be counted on to deliver classic-sounding, soul-indebted country music that doesn't vary a ton in style or quality. He broke through about a decade ago at the format's outer fringes and, since then, has shifted it towards his own sensibilities, so that he now stands at its center, with other rugged male superstars who've come along since, favoring music with elevated emotional stakes, like Luke Combs and Jelly Roll.
Duo of the Year went to an act that's already made it into the Country Music Hall of Fame, Brooks & Dunn. 2023's Entertainer of the Year, Lainey Wilson – whose deep twang, hearty charisma, slightly retro inclinations and role on the long-running ranching soap opera Yellowstone elevated her profile– enjoyed even more stage time as awards show co-host and female vocalist of the year. And after multiple EOTY nods, embattled hit-machine Morgan Wallen finally won, though he wasn't there to accept.
The most artful showcase of country continuity was a segment 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 number he just released this year ("Honky Tonk Hall of Fame"), with reverential interpretations from singers who share his commitment to country longevity, including Jamey Johnson, Miranda Lambert and Stapleton again. That's who joined Strait to close out the set with that new number, two celebrated voices inhabiting the role of a heartbroken, hard-drinking deadbeat of a guy who hasn't completely lost his sense of humor. "Well, if I go down in history," Strait sang, "I'll owe it to this misery." It was a reminder of one of country music's core principles: greatness is meant to stay grounded.
The night's performances reached symphonically grand and stripped-down extremes. But the varied modes – Kacey Musgraves as theologically inquisitive, folk singer-songwriter; Ella Langley and Riley Green reviving the talking blues and teasing male-female duet traditions alike; Kelsea Ballerini and Noah Kahan as emotionally sophisticated pop balladeers; Dierks Bentley and bluegrass-schooled pickers Molly Tuttle, Sierra Hull and Bronwyn Keith-Hynes tapping the classic rock songbook of Tom Petty – all reflected styles and reference points that have, over time, come to be embraced as part of country music. That's just as true of the hip-hop elements that Shaboozey's working with in accomplished and phenomenally popular ways. That his music's undeniable connections to country lineage haven't yet secured his place as a recognized rising star of the genre is a sign that its legacy as a racially segregated space still lingers. (A tie that remains intact, he told interviewers at the CMAs, is the one he shares with Beyoncé.)
Throughout the show, there wasn't much acknowledgment of anything going on out in the world – other than a glancing joke from Wilson early on about a divisive vote (for People magazine's "Sexiest Man Alive" cover) and a mention of Hurricane Helene's devastation and the fundraising that North Carolina-raised Combs and Eric Church have done for recovery efforts. More than anything, the emphasis was on gathering around a shared sense of country identity, and celebrating how lasting and robust it is. A large screen beaming behind-the-scenes videos into the arena during commercial breaks eventually showed a slide reinforcing that idea with a simple message from the CMA: "Music Belongs to all. Be good, be kind, be you."
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