2023 CMA Awards nominations snubs and surprises: Jelly Roll, Morgan Wallen, 'new artists'

Selecting nominees for the Country Music Association's 57th Awards this November was certainly no easy feat.

The 12-month CMA Award cycle from July 2022-June 2023 featured over two dozen No. 1 singles on country's radio and sales charts, at a time when the genre has steadily over to all-genre appeal.

Moreover, artists including HARDY, Jelly Roll and Lainey Wilson achieved increased mainstream visibility.

Of course, for The Tennessean staff — even in a year featuring such incredibly dynamic change in the genre — the list of nominees was not without our picks for surprises and snubs.

Surprises

• Jelly Roll is the 57th CMA Awards' most-nominated male artist

At the 56th CMA Awards, Jelly Roll and his wife Bunnie XO walked the event's red carpet and were excited to be unexpected invitees in the room. However, in the nine months since, the Nashville native has synergized two decades of country's attempted forays into hip-hop, pop, rock and soul music into a multi-genre force of nature. The result? Single of the Year ("Need A Favor"), Male Vocalist of the Year, Musical Event of the Year ("Save Me"), Music Video of the Year ("Need A Favor") and New Artist of the Year nominations.

He's been nominated five times and could easily drive back down Interstate 65 with a glass trophy — or two.

What the 37-year-old artist born Jason DeFord describes as "real music for real people with real problems" has succeeded in disrupting country music.

• Luke Combs sustains his appeal with the unlikeliest of rides in a "Fast Car"

Luke Combs has reached a career pinnacle where most anything he sings is going to become a hit. Not to take anything away from the great songs he has recorded and songwriters he has worked with in the past, but it's true. As the saying goes, he could sing the phone book and we'd all love it.

So when his cover of Tracy Chapman's "Fast Car," was released, we all knew what would happen.

But a CMA nod for Single of the Year? For a cover song from the '80s? The category celebrates the artist(s), producer(s) and mix engineer(s), so credit goes to all three for taking a 35-year-old song and making it relevant again. It still seems a bit out of left field when there are so many great songs littering the streets of Nashville that have yet to be celebrated.

• Ashley McBryde's "Lindeville" gets a nod

Ashley McBryde was a previous CMA Award winner in 2019 and 2022. However, 2023 finds her now a Grammy winner and recent Grand Ole Opry cast inductee with a new album arriving with its lead single quickly surging at country radio (and a 2023 CMA Award-nominated music video). However, the surprising star-making turn in the McBryde machine — her poignant, rural storytelling-defined COVID-19 quarantine era created, 2022-released album "Lindeville" — getting a nod for album of the year is noteworthy.

In an industry where writing sessions in writing rooms typically occur in buildings within a two-mile radius of downtown Nashville, a record written by a group of talented friends in a cabin in the Tennessee woods during a global pandemic is an award nominee.

It's a passionate, engaging recording deserving of the honor.

• CMA's "New Artist Of The Year" nominees averaging just under a decade of experience

Nashville's stereotypical "ten-year-town" designation has often left the CMA's "New Artist of the Year" award feeling more like a "best artist to finally emerge as a consistent hit-maker on terrestrial radio" than "best new artist" honor. By that definition, 2022's nominees, including the category's winner, Lainey Wilson, plus HARDY, Walker Hayes, Cody Johnson and Parker McCollum, makes sense.

2023 finds the average mainstream experience for the "New Artist" category's nominees (especially streaming kingpin Zach Bryan and "Tennessee Orange" vocalist Megan Moroney) not as egregious as 12 years per artist. However, in an environment where digital access, social media numbers and streaming are proving to be an increasingly potent bellwether of new country-to-crossover artist's sustainable reach, a dramatic sea change in the category could better highlight the dynamic breadth of ways artists are impacting the genre's broader age, gender and social fanbase spread.

• Gender, racial equity continue to sustain momentum

For the past five years, significant motion has been put into rectifying moments where country music's lack of representation for people of color and women were negatively spotlighted.

Though a considerable nominee or trophy windfall has yet to accompany this movement, it remains steadfast.

For the fourth year in a row, two women are nominated for the CMA's Entertainer of the Year honor. Of course, a woman hasn't claimed the prize since Taylor Swift in 2009 and 2011 and The Chicks and Shania Twain in 1999 and 2000. If it's a decade per generation that the honor occurs, one could believe either this year or 2024 to be a moment for 57th CMA Award nominees Carrie Underwood or Lainey Wilson to claim the top prize.

2023 also finds African-American duo The War and Treaty (Vocal Duo of the Year) and Kane Brown (Musical Event of the Year for "Thank God" — a duet with his wife, Katelyn) as nominees.

Snubs

• Morgan Wallen had four singles excel during voting cycle — but no nomination for "Single of the Year"

Four of Wallen's singles — 2022's "Wasted and You" and "You Proof," plus 2023's "Last Night" and "Thought You Should Know" — have unit sale equivalents in the range of 15 million records in the past twelve months.

However, on a more esoteric level, Lainey Wilson's "Heart Like A Truck," her HARDY duet "wait in the truck," Jelly Roll's "Need A Favor," Jordan Davis' "Next Thing You Know" and Luke Combs' cover of "Fast Car" are five phenomenally well-produced songs.

Wallen was nominated for Album of the Year for his 36-track streaming magnum opus "One Thing At A Time" and that album's touring durability has netted him an Entertainer of the Year nomination. Thus, perhaps his singles success is less notable when weighed against peerless studio excellence.

However, 15 million in sales for four dominant singles still sets a high standard to seemingly ignore.

• End of an era?

Luke Bryan is hosting the 57th CMA Awards. However, he hasn't been nominated for a solo CMA Award in five years.

Also, fellow male nominees of the past decade, including Jason Aldean, Dierks Bentley, Eric Church, Florida Georgia Line's Tyler Hubbard and Brian Kelley, Tim McGraw, Thomas Rhett, Blake Shelton and Keith Urban are all not nominated.

Of that list, Hubbard and Rhett (in back-to-back weeks of 2022) recently achieved No. 1 singles.

2023 currently finds Zack Bryan and Tyler Childers, plus established artists like Luke Combs, Chris Stapleton and Morgan Wallen — with Jordan Davis, HARDY, Jelly Roll, Cody Johnson and Bailey Zimmerman among many growing in acclaim — at country's forefront.

As what CMA CEO Sarah Trahern refers to as the genre's "broadest net yet" of fans potentially attracted to award-winning and chart-topping stars continues to grow, does that also include its names of the past two decades? Or does a new set of names emerge? This moment presents a fascinating crossroads.

• Too many great albums for one category

Best New Artist nominee Parker McCollum's 2023 release "Never Enough" certainly deserved a Best Album nod. The problem is, there were so many great albums by artists from Parmalee and Jon Pardi to ERNEST, the previously-mentioned Tyler Hubbard, Mitchell Tenpenny and Jordan Davis, they might have watered down each other's chances for an award.

There's no shortage of 30-something dudes making solid records. But did the fact that there were 10 of them this year all vying for the same spot in the Best Album category hurt each of them? It's a good problem to have — for the listeners. Not so good for the artists all seemingly putting out career-shaping music this past year.

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: 2023 CMA Awards nominees: Who was snubbed? Who surprised?