Who ‘Won’ the CMAs: Luke Bryan or Chris Stapleton? Maybe It Was Viewers
You can forgive the headline writers for being a little confused after the 49th annual CMA Awards. Was it Luke Bryan’s night? Or was it Chris Stapleton’s?Bryan won Entertainer of the Year for the second time in a row, which normally is what the press feels compelled to run with. And there were other successes sneaking in there, too, like a little juggernaut called “Girl Crush” that helped Little Big Town and their associates win three awards.
But it was the relatively unknown Stapleton, with his enormous lungpower, who sucked up most of the oxygen in the room, first with an unbeatable performance with Justin Timberlake, then by winning three utterly unexpected trophies. After he swept all the categories he was nominated in, you half-suspected he might win Entertainer of the Year. No, he wasn’t nominated, but the idea of an emergency write-in vote with members secretly convening was still appealing to imagine.
On top of that, the show itself was the most consistently entertaining and credible telecast the CMAs have put on in years, if not decades — a veritable “cred”-cast, almost. If only Maddie & Tae had surged in an upset and beat out Florida Georgia Line for best vocal duo, we’d really be reading about a revolution in progress. But close enough, as far as some are concerned.
Said Little Big Town’s Karen Fairchild backstage: “I think ‘Girl Crush’ represents all the songs on every artist’s record that they want to get to. I mean, we all love singing the ‘Pontoons’ and ‘Day Drinkings.’ But we want to get to the heart, the substance on our records, and we don’t always get to. Tonight I think it speaks volumes to have ‘Girl Crush’ and Chris Stapleton and Kacey Musgraves up there, and yet we’re not always hearing that music on the radio. And I think the tide’s turning. I think everybody wants to hear it, so it’s time.”
Stapleton was more circumspect… or maybe just naturally mellow. He refused to be baited into saying the night represented an unusual triumph of quality. “I feel very loved with these awards, but I don’t feel like music is a war or it’s a battle or anything like that,” said Stapleton. “I think people have a tendency to try to make it into that. But anybody that’s here tonight and making music to the degree that it takes to be in the room deserves respect. I think that of everybody that is out playing music. So if you don’t like a certain kind of music, fine — that’s not for you. If you like another kind of music, great, listen to that. Nobody gets anywhere by hating on somebody else’s music. What’s the point?”
Well, gee, Chris, that’s no fun.
After Stapleton won for male vocalist, album, and new artist of the year, there was a telling tweet from Brian Mansfield, the former music critic for USA Today, who wrote: “The 49th annual CMA Awards: The night a man who doesn’t exist won three awards.” That was a cheeky reference to a legendary quote — legendary within the industry, anyway — in which the former head of Sony Nashville told a reporter on the eve of a radio conference that “if you’re not on country radio, you don’t exist.”
Stapleton was asked about that quote, and, again, was circumspect, maybe figuring that he just earned a better shot at making it on the format. “I did hear that quote, and everybody has an opinion and that’s okay,” he said. “We haven’t been played on country radio as much as we would like to be… but we’ve had so many supporters, and a lot in country radio too. Hopefully we can get more… I don’t think there’s any one right way to do things in this business necessarily.”
The subtext of that last sentence: Winning a bunch of prominent awards when you haven’t succeeded by the usual measures of success could be the new career path. Throw in a Justin Timberlake boost as another “right way to do things.” Evidence that it’s working: the morning after the CMAs, Stapleton’s Traveller was the No. 1 album on iTunes — ahead of the Adele pre-order, and of the Eric Church album that had just been released the previous day — and his song “Tennessee Whiskey” was No. 2, just behind Adele’s “Hello.” (Trivia note: Adele released a Stapleton song on her live DVD several years ago, so it’s practically all in the family.)
Bryan was effusive about Stapleton’s wins backstage… and they do know each other, since the relative newcomer penned his hit “Drink a Beer.” “It’s so fun watching the birth of an artist happen like that, a coming-out party,” said Bryan. “I think we in this room know Stapleton. I think a select group of people that really, really, really seek out music have heard Stapleton through the years… Then for him to light up the stage and Timberlake to come in to plant his flag and showcase him was an amazing moment.”
Bryan had even more vested reasons to be high on Little Big Town’s wins, since he’s about to release a duet with Karen Fairchild as his next single, which he promised will be a nightly highlight when he takes the group out on tour next year. “I told ‘em backstage, ‘If you guys keep winning awards now, we might have to flip this dadgum tour.’”
He got honest when he was asked about the novelty of winning Entertainer of the Year for a second consecutive time… and having those be his only two CMAs ever. It’s not that unusual an occurrence in a calendar year, since Kenny Chesney also tended to win Entertainer without picking up anything else. But clearly Bryan has had some time to think about the pros and cons of earning the big ‘un and no li’l ones to go with it.
Bryan’s candid extended answer: “Hey, I can deal with that. I’m cool. Um… Yes, it’s truly mind- boggling to me, but when I think about in the realm of… Let me figure out… I want to make sure I don’t hang myself. Would I love to win a male vocalist and single and song? Of course. When I think about my moment with ‘Drink a Beer,’ I would have loved to have that opportunity to have won on a song like that. I‘ve got to feel if I stay the course and work hard and write songs and listen for songs, I think those moments will come. I think if I try to grow as a vocalist too, I’ll keep being in the running. And if that happens for me to win a male vocalist one day, it will be a fine night for me… I put so much pride in giving all I’ve got every night performing and literally getting off the stage with ice packs on my knees… This is a night where I can go, gosh, people are paying attention to that. And it is an anomaly. I’m not gonna try to explain it. But like I said—I guess I could have not even said what I just said and just said ‘Hey, I’m cool with it,’ like I started it! It’s pretty crazy. It’s funny when people are a little outside the industry and they’re reading the notes to ask me and they’re like, ‘Wait, the two you’ve won…?’ It’s fun watching their reaction.”
You wouldn’t necessarily call Florida Georgia Line the losers of the night, but they did find themselves in an unenviable position a couple of times, despite their predicted vocal duo win. First, you couldn’t help but notice that Tyler Hubbard was the only guy on stage with a man bun, which had to have been tough after co-host Brad Paisley made not one but two man-bun jokes over the course of the evening. Second, they drew the short straw to follow the Stapleton/Timberlake soul-revue showstopper.
Stapleton and JT were “probably the toughest act to follow of the night,” acknowledged Hubbard. (“Probably”?) “But we gave it all we had and I think it was a cool follow-up. I think we both took everybody to church.”
If there were a real winner for best candor of the night, it would have to go to Miranda Lambert. She looked bold enough performing “Bathroom Sink,” the untold greatest song on her last album, finally getting its TV due. But when she won — as always — for female vocalist of the year, she didn’t act the tough-chick part. “I needed a bright spot this year,” she admitted in front of tens of millions of viewers. This stood in stark contrast to her ex’s instant-rebound ‘tude, which had him announcing he was dating Gwen Stefani just hours prior to the show. Imagine how real her next album will be.
As with the Grammys, there were plenty of cross-genre collaborations, of the sort that artists sometimes feel are forced upon them, or seem transparently calculated to keep genre non-fans from tuning out. But they all worked. Even the Thomas Rhett/Fall Out Boy hookup, which, with its sexy female dancers, sounded terrible on paper, was charming as hell in the flesh. Star violinist Lindsay Stirling was picked to appear on a subtle ballad, Dierks Bentley’s “Riser,” that didn’t make much use of her trademark flash — she could have been almost any talented local fiddler — but on a night with a plethora of real music, who could really complain about a lovely musical moment, visual sizzle or no?
The opening duets had Eric Church joining Hank Williams Jr., followed by Keith Urban dueting with John Mellencamp. It was funny seeing one of music’s most notorious far-right figures immediately succeeded on stage by one of rock’s famous lefties. Was the network so alarmed by the talk about equal time for Donald Trump’s SNL appearance that they figured they should offer equal time to representatives of both ends of the political spectrum right on the spot? If only we could have spent the subsequent three hours just watching Hank Jr. and Mellencamp locked in a dressing room.
