The 2023 CMT Music Awards Did Some Time Traveling

You could be forgiven for tuning in to Sunday night’s CMT Music Awards in Austin, Texas, and having the sensation that you’d stepped through a time portal into a mid-1990s VMAs or a mid-2000s CMAs, or a smoked-out arena in 1970s Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Because the annual fan-voted awards show, now filling the April slot of country music’s numerous major awards events, managed to visit all of those moments and still found a little time to zero in on what’s happening right now.

The presence of 1990s heavyweights Gwen Stefani, Alanis Morissette, Darius Rucker (who, to be fair, is also a popular country singer), the Black Crowes, and Slash acknowledged the huge influence of the 1990s pop environment on today’s country music. Even a few 1990s country stars got to spend time on the stage, including Shania Twain, LeAnn Rimes, and Wynonna Judd, though Twain got introduced by noted hot girl Megan Thee Stallion, so I think she probably won that particular battle.

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Stefani and Carly Pearce sang “Just a Girl,” which was silly and fun, particularly when Pearce’s Kentucky drawl entered the mix of that spiky pop-punk gem. Rucker sounded fabulous singing alongside Chris Robinson on the Black Crowes’ “She Talks to Angels,” which would absolutely be marketed to country radio if it were released today. Rimes and Wynonna added some lovely backing vocals in the night’s closing Lynyrd Skynyrd tribute, and Wynonna also gave a searing performance of Foreigner’s “I Want to Know What Love Is” with an assist from Ashley McBryde. At last year’s CMT Music Awards, Wynonna and her mother, Naomi, gave their last performance as a duo before Naomi’s death.

It was also a night that still hung tight to a few of the mid-2000s country radio heavyweights, though the atmosphere had definitely changed. Keith Urban did some nifty guitar work on an outdoor rendition of “Brown Eyes Baby,” while Blake Shelton referenced his breakout hit “Austin” before singing “No Body.” CMT even brought back its classic logo for Shelton’s neon-drenched performance. And Carrie Underwood somehow managed to do the full Miranda Lambert, giving a pyro-heavy performance of “Hate My Heart” that would’ve made the “Gunpowder & Lead” singer crack a smile and strike a celebratory match.

Even by awards show standards, it was an odd assortment of presenters. Here’s Noah Schnapp from Stranger Things! Here’s Super Bowl winner Travis Kelce! People from Yellowstone, people from Outer Banks. People named Peter Frampton, and even a 2-second Zoom video from Matthew McConaughey. It was bizarre and random enough to keep things interesting in spite of the free-associative feeling of it all.

Lainey Wilson and Jelly Roll both had a big night. Wilson won Female Video of the Year for “Heart Like a Truck” and sang the song during the broadcast, showing that she’s perfectly capable of holding out its big note with a little assistance from guitar wizard Jackie Venson. Jelly Roll took home three prizes, including Male Video of the Year for “Son of a Sinner,” and gave an intense, stirring performance of “Favor” that actually earned its gospel choir backing (unlike most of the previous gospel choir deployments on country awards shows).

Jelly Roll’s win for Male Video of the Year was a real, sincere moment of joy and emotion. There were tears coming down his tattooed face before he even reached the mic.

“I started drinking, I didn’t think I was gonna win again,” he said. “It took me 39 years to walk from over there to right here,” he said. His speech had the rousing cadence of a preacher being seized by the spirit, full of uplifting statements about self-belief. “We’re shutting 6th street down tonight, baby!” he added.

Jelly Roll was emblematic of the big shift in the show toward a new wave in country music, along with Lainey Wilson and Hardy. The tiny Ram Stage also showed off some promising new talent, albeit in too-brief snippets, including Megan Moroney, Jackson Dean, and Chapel Hart.

Aside from her co-hosting role next to Video of the Year winner Kane Brown, Kelsea Ballerini had two big moments of social activism. At the top of the show, she spoke through tears about the shooting that happened six days prior in Nashville. “I pray — deeply — that closeness and community we feel for the next few hours of music can soon turn into action, like real action, that moves us forward together to create change for the safety of our kids and our loved ones,” she said.

Later, Ballerini brought four Drag Race alumni out for her pastel-hued “If You Go Down (I’m Going Down Too,” which ended with a cascade of rainbow lighting. It was a mix of imperial period Dolly Parton, Hee Haw, early Kacey Musgraves, and Del Shores’ Sordid Lives, which is to say, delightful. Drag is under threat in both Texas and back in Tennessee, so being willing to bring queens onstage at this moment, at a country music awards show, was quite the statement for this audience.

Shania Twain, receiving the CMT Equal Play Award, also had her moment of being outspoken. “I promise I will continue to champion the many current country artists who are not played at the level they deserve. I believe in an all-inclusive country music family,” she said. “My hope is that this opportunity and spotlight impresses you much” — see what she did there? — “and lifts up the careers of these talented people. Let’s ensure all of our fellow artists get equal pay regardless of gender or age or race.” Let’s go, girls (and gays).

That commitment to equality is a driving force behind CMT’s Next Women of Country initiative, which has featured many of the women who were onstage on Sunday. So it was strange that the Next Women movement would be marking its 10th anniversary one moment and then immediately followed by a group of rising women performing “You Oughta Know,” a huge alternative hit from 1995, with Alanis Morissette the next. But since it got the brilliant Morgan Wade and Madeline Edwards on the CMT stage, then perhaps the ends justified the means.

The show closed on a bittersweet note, paying tribute to Gary Rossington and Lynyrd Skynyrd, without whom the last 50 years of rock and country would be conceivable. Cody Johnson, who finds the sweet spot between Garth Brooks and George Strait, sang with Bad Company’s Paul Rodgers and Warren Haynes, while Haynes traded licks with Slash and ZZ Top’s Billy Gibbons on a medley of “Simple Man” and “Sweet Home Alabama.” It was a necessary and fitting farewell but also a big reminder of just how much the past continues to dictate what’s happening right now in country music.

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