The CMT Awards were NOT the CMA Awards, or Indicative of Country
The 2023 CMT Awards could very well go down in country music history as a significant moment, but it won’t be for the reasons the producers of the presentation or their proponents in the media hoped for, or will purport it to be. And no, we’re not just talking about the polarizing political moments from the show that had large swaths of the country music population seeing red. That is part of it for sure, but there are a host of reasons that the 2023 CMT Awards on Sunday, April 2nd was very much an outlier as opposed to an example of where country music, its fans, and its artists are at today.
First, it is worth re-emphasizing once again that the CMT Awards are not real. They have never been considered a legitimate country music awards show in the conventional sense, and there is certainly no reason to start now. Broadcasting the awards on CBS now because nobody goes to CMT anymore doesn’t change that fact. Awarding videos only via a fan-voted system from nominees selected by the show’s producers through executive fiat is not the proper way to vet the public and industry to come to something resembling a universal consensus behind who or what is “best” in the country genre in a given year.
Some people claim that because the CMT Awards are fan voted, this makes them more legitimate. Rapper turned country artist Jelly Roll who won three awards on the night made this claim himself. But fan-voted systems don’t award critical acclaim or even popularity. It’s just a measurement of how motivated the nominees are at mobilizing their fan bases to vote. Jelly Roll’s team was super motivated, and that in part is why he won. But make no mistake about it, if Morgan Wallen gave a shit about these awards and goaded his fan base into voting, he would have buried Jelly Roll and everyone else. But Morgan Wallen knows the CMT awards don’t matter, so he didn’t.
One of the moments that many people were most angry over was when co-host Kelsea Ballerini performed with four Drag Queens. But this is receiving far too much attention from both sides of the culture war divide.
Despite the characterizations of some that presenting Drag Queens on a country show was a brave and landmark moment that CMT should be applauded for, in truth, incorporating Drag Queens into your presentation is the safest and most conformist thing you can do in 2023—including, if not especially, if they otherwise don’t belong there. What is brave and bold is to not give into performative grandstanding, and instead allowing the music and the performances to speak for themselves, including allowing for the diverse population and influences that feed into the big tent of country to be represented.
Meanwhile, the puritanical pearl clutching over the Drag Queens is fueling the misconception that the only reason anyone would ever have any issue with the 2023 CMT Awards is homophobia or transphobia. Drag Queens have been around for decades, and yes, it was dumb to inject them as a non-sequitur into a country music presentation, unnecessarily polarizing it and tuning large swaths of the country music population out to CMT’s messages on diversity. They should have been smarter, but some country fans also need to be smarter, and not let this signaling by CMT draw them offside.
Nobody had a problem when Tyler Childers dressed up as Tammy Chiggers, or Kaitlin Butts had a Drag Queen star in one of her videos recently. Nobody flipped out when Ru Paul and a bunch of Drag Queens appeared on Family Feud in 2020. Now all of a sudden it’s the mother of all wedge issues thanks to a Tennessee law that has been stayed by the courts, and may never be implemented. Go look at the cover of Poison’s album Look What The Cat Dragged In and appreciate that was 37 years ago. This is nothing new.
The main reason the 2023 CMT Awards were not representative of country music is because there just wasn’t that much country music on the presentation at a time when even mainstream country is embracing an unprecedented level of country roots and twang in a way that is unparalleled in the last 25 years. What we are experiencing right now is nearing the neotraditional movement of the mid 80s and early 90s, while 90s country continues to be one of the hottest trends across the country music landscape.
But on the 2023 CMT Awards, you didn’t see 90s country. What you saw was 90s pop. Gwen Stefani had one of the presentation’s marquee performance slots singing No Doubt’s 90s hit “I’m Just A Girl.” Carly Pearce came in about half way to sing along, but she was in a subordinate role to Stefani. When it came time to mark 10 years of CMT’s “Next Women of Country” initiative, they decided the best way to tribute the women of country was to book 90s pop star Alanis Morissette to sing her song “You Oughta Know” while once again a host of “country” women played second fiddle in the performance.
Why not instead toast a country woman from the 90s since they’re so hot right now? How about Pam Tillis, Trisha Yearwood, or the recently Country Music Hall of Fame-inducted Patty Loveless? And don’t tell me it’s because there weren’t any female empowerment anthems that fit the bill. Mary Chapin Carpenter has two of them herself: “He Thinks He’ll Keep Her” and “Opening Act”—the latter of which Carpenter performed on the CMA Awards in 1990.
You couple all of this with The Black Crowes performing “She Talks To Angels” with Hootie and the Blowfish’s Darius Rucker and it was an all out 90s-themed assault, just with little of it tying into country music. And this speaks nothing about the strange appearance by Megan Thee Stallion, Wynonna and Ashley McBryde singing Foreigner’s “I Want To Know What Love Is” for a reason we still haven’t received an answer for, and then the non-country performances from the supposed “country” artists like hosts Kelsea Ballerini and Kane Brown.
The 2023 CMT Awards were also just plain bad. Cody Johnson did well, but it almost felt like an embarrassment that he had signed up to be there. The Lynyrd Skynyrd tribute at the very end was pretty badass, but again, it didn’t really represent either today’s country music, or country music from the past. It was bolstered by having Warren Haynes, Slash, and Billy Gibbons all on stage together as opposed to country performers.
When Billboard ran down it’s 8 Best Moments from the CMTs, all but #8 (Carrie Underwood) included performers or songs not native to country music. That’s a problem for a country presentation when it’s so subordinated to pop and rock, while the top artists in country—namely Morgan Wallen, Luke Combs, Zach Bryan, Chris Stapleton, Bailey Zimmerman—stalwarts like Miranda Lambert, and country legends that usually make appearances on these shows, were nowhere to be found. And no, we’re not counting Wynonna singing Foreigner.
Meanwhile, one of the biggest issues with the 2023 CMT Awards is how many people thought it was the Country Music Association’s awards, or CMAs. Scouring through the reams of negative comments about the show, you saw this misconception come up over and over, which is understandable with all the country award shows now and the alphabet soup they create. Even more troubling were people or even outlets like The Babylon Bee (yes, we all know it’s not real, that’s not the point) taking the CMTs as being representative of country music in 2023 overall. The brand damage that the 2023 CMT Awards did for the entire country music industry was significant, and potentially, irreparable.
Contrast that compared to how we felt about the 2022 CMA Awards that happened in November—an actual, long-established country music awards show. All of the talk coming out of that presentation was just how country so many of the performances were, how happy we were for all the winners, and how overall, it was a great year in a greater trend of seeing the CMAs improving ever since 2015 when Chris Stapleton shocked the world by virtually sweeping the awards, and singing “Tennessee Whiskey” with Justin Timberlake.
Country awards shows have always had a pop star or two stop by to help broaden the viewing audience, but nothing like what the CMTs did. On the 2022 CMA Awards, Carly Pearce performed with another artist similar to the CMTs, but it was with Ricky Skaggs and Sonya Isaacs paying tribute to Loretta Lynn with the song “Dear Miss Loretta.” Unlike on the CMTs, Patty Loveless did appear on the CMAs, and sang the classic country song “You’ll Never Leave Harlan Alive.” The performance was so divine, some believe it’s what catapulted Patty over big commercial stars like Kenny Chesney and Shania Twin to be inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame before them.
When Luke Combs won the 2022 CMA Entertainer of the Year award at the end of the CMA presentation in November, he stood at the podium and said, “This is my 5th or 6th year being at this awards show, and country sounded more country than it has in a long time, and I think we all wanted that.” And he was right. This is what the fans of country music wanted, and even the most cynical of traditional country fans who’ve been turned off by the industry over the last 15+ years were forced to admit that things were at least moving in the right direction.
Some are trying to proclaim the success of the CMT Awards by citing a 5% rise in ratings year over year, but part of this was by appealing to a decidedly non-country audience. Meanwhile, the CMA Awards saw a ratings spike of 16% while doubling down on their country roots, and saw a bigger overall audience compared to the CMTs.
Despite the meaningless of the awards, it’s pretty indisputable that Jelly Roll was still the big winner of the night, if only in the name recognition department. He is clearly a rising star in the country genre, and one that frankly outclassed many of the other performers and even speakers of the night, putting on a powerful Gospel-style performance.
But even Jelly Roll is a symbol of mainstream country moving in a more country direction. As Saving Country Music reported in March, Jelly Roll is part of a deepening trend of country beating back hip-hop influences in the genre. Instead of Jelly Roll leaning into his rap roots, he’s abandoning them to become more country, and a more substantive artist.
Rapper turned traditional country artist Ernest is another example of this trend. And that’s on top of true country artists like Cody Jonson, Lainey Wilson, Jon Pardi, and others finding greater traction. Traditional country artist Jake Worthington just released one of the most traditional country albums you can find via major label Big Loud—the same label as Morgan Wallen, who despite his own hip-hop influences, actually has a big handful of straight up traditional country songs on his new album One Thing A At Time.
This is the trend in country music, not Kelsea Ballerini, not Drag Queens, or anything of the sort. Of course there are still pop stars in country, and hip-hop influences in the mainstream of the genre, but everything is trending away from that, despite the CMT Awards attempting to wishcast country music as being a big tent that apparently includes 90s pop stars, and anything else anyone ever would want to characterize as country, including for ulterior political purposes under the false notion that if you just expose audiences to something, they’ll immediately become more open and welcoming to it.
Even the CMT “winners” symbolize this shift toward country’s roots: Cody Johnson, Lainey Wilson, Jelly Roll, and Megan Moroney are some of the most country acts in the mainstream right now. It was the presentation and performances on the CMT Awards that were out-of step.
What was also out-of-step with the country music population was the way the CMT Awards centered their virtue signaling about diversity in country music with very little substance behind it. Black trio Chapel Hart and LGBT artist Lily Rose were featured, but only for 30 seconds snippets on the insulting “Ram Trucks” stage before the feed cut to commercial. Though the CMTs showered with compliments for the amount of diversity on the show, they didn’t really have any major moments of “diversity” barring the Drag Queens that didn’t have anything to do with country music.
One of the big moments was supposed to be Shania Twain receiving CMT’s “Equal Play Award”—a dubious honor whose inaugural recipient was Jennifer Nettles, who was once a party to kicking Kristen Hall out of Sugarland allegedly because Kristen was a lesbian. But instead of having another country woman or an LGBT artist present the award to Shania, they had Megan Thee Stallion do the honors, once again centering attention on an artist outside of the country genre.
Speaking of being outside of the country genre, this same assessment can also be brought to Shania Twain. She did little to actually diversify country music during her era, while she also set the precedent for women to use the country genre as a stepping stone to pop—a path Taylor Swift, Kacey Musgraves, and others have taken subsequently that has contributed to country music’s gender imbalance, not addressed it. Instead of showcasing Shania Twain whose new album Queen of Me is exclusively pop, mainstream women like Carrie Underwood and Miranda Lambert who’ve stood their ground through the adversity of the country industry and refused to pander to crossover markets are the ones who should be celebrated.
The CMT Awards symbolized the perfect corporate signaling approach to diversity: talk a big game, but do little or nothing of meaning. The presentation was orchestrated by people whose window into the world is Twitter, for people whose window in the world is Twitter. I’m sure CMT received plenty of positive feedback from peers about how perfect the awards show was. But meanwhile in the real world, the sentiment was so overwhelmingly negative, it bled over and unfairly implicated the entire country music genre.
So yes, be perturbed by the 2023 CMT Awards if you want. You have every right to be, and for a host of reasons. But don’t get them mixed up with the CMAs, or country music overall. Things are improving in country music, and across the board. Don’t let country music’s 3rd tier pop country infomercial throw you off. This is the moment we need to be leaning into re-establishing country music’s roots in the mainstream, and doing what we can to backstop those roots to make sure we never backslide into something resembling the Bro-County era or whatever the CMT Awards were ever again.
April 10, 2023 @ 9:58 am
It should come as no surprise to anyone that the emerging mono-culture despises traditional country music. It’s distinct, reactionary (in many ways), and largely manufactured and consumed by a segment of the population that a good chunk of the political and cultural elite despises. The CMT award show organizers knew damned well what they were doing when they included drag queens in the show. The decision was made, in spite of that, for the simple fact that the show organizers – and country music “elites,” if you will – despise country music listeners, us.
All of this, of course, begs the question on how to respond. Should we be outraged? No; that is what they want. Controversy leads to attention and attention is almost perfectly-correlated with money. The solution, then, would be to ignore this. That said, as much as we might ignore it, the segment of the population that brainlessly consumes this garbage won’t care. That, in a nutshell, is the biggest problem with country music, and I quite honestly don’t see how that will ever change.
April 10, 2023 @ 10:31 am
Good comment.
I would slightly disagree with this though:
“That said, as much as we might ignore it, the segment of the population that brainlessly consumes this garbage won’t care. That, in a nutshell, is the biggest problem with country music, and I quite honestly don’t see how that will ever change.”
I think the segment that brainlessly consumes things like the CMT Awards is decidedly outside of the country music listening population. I think that within passive country music fans, the 2023 CMT Awards was unique in how it awakened them to what is happening, and animated them with anger in a novel manner to the point where it spilled out into the greater culture as well. I think there were some gross miscalculations by the CMT producers that will have implications for years to come.
April 10, 2023 @ 7:51 pm
Man, there’s nothing wrong with drag queens and giving the middle finger to the Texas and Tennessee GOP for being bigoted assholes. But what IS wrong and inexcusable is presenting the pop music they did as if it were at all representative of “country” music. I want telecasters and pedal steel guitars AND to end the GOP. Because country western is badass, and the GOP are just asses.
April 11, 2023 @ 2:56 am
Awesome comment.
April 11, 2023 @ 9:40 am
Ok groomer.
April 11, 2023 @ 1:55 pm
What is a groomer?
April 11, 2023 @ 2:35 pm
a guy with the name ‘rod johnson’ is a groomer. might as call yourself dick penis.
April 11, 2023 @ 10:30 am
I would like this comment a million times if I could.
April 12, 2023 @ 4:28 am
I am one of those that completely disregard a show like this as insignificant, so I ignore it entirely. I am sure I am not alone. I love true traditional country music and nothing else. Wanna hear rock music? They have their own genre for that. That goes for pop and all the other things represented by the CMT show. They have their places but it is not in any way considered country. It is a shame that the traditional country folks of today, few though they are, are never represented up front at a country show – it seems they have to be an also-ran to pop genres and cultural/political influences that have nothing whatsoever to do with country music (no matter how much the genre is highjacked by the bean counters of the industry who grew up on everything but country music). Even the Grand Ole Opry, which until about 20 years ago represented the best in country music on Saturday night on a weekly basis, is being run into the ground today by non-members and by pop/rock influences. It is industry-wide.
I will just continue to listen to the folks who know what it is, who get it, and who reflect country music’s original rural values (including gospel music and rural comedy which had always been linked to it until recently), and who feature out front steel guitars, fiddles, and upright bass playing instead of being lead by a strong backbeat overpowered with the drums and loudness. Hopefully someday they will ruin things to the point that it will all come back to what it should be.
April 10, 2023 @ 10:38 am
You are right about the music and, IMO, wrong about the drag queens. that is a big deal, and it should be treated as a big deal. It’s disgusting to sexualize an awards show.
April 10, 2023 @ 11:30 am
The CMT Awards were especially disrespectful and provocative to large swaths of the country music fan base by decided to put Drag Queens on the presentation at that moment in time when they had become such a linchpin in the culture war, and politicized the presentation in a way that was hurtful to the causes they were purporting to champion.
All that I’m saying is that if you get super angry over it, you’re playing into their hand, and feeding oxygen to their cause. As ChrisP said above, it’s better to just ignore it, and focus more in their hypocrisy and the elite nature of their perspective.
Also, though Autogynephilia is definitely at play in the Drag Queen world, I didn’t see the Drag Queens as especially “sexualizing” the presentation any more than Kelsea Ballerini’s dress with see-thru sides. I’m not saying there is no sexual element or connotations with Drag Queens, but I also don’t think they should be seen in the same light as strippers or something.
April 13, 2023 @ 8:38 am
“The CMT Awards were especially disrespectful”
How was it disrespectful? It was a non sexual performance. Why defend such intolerance that even the sight of drag is “disrespect”?
What’s disrespectful is the mass bigotry allowed to run rampant in your comment section
April 13, 2023 @ 8:57 am
As I said in the article, I feel like way too much was made of the appearance of the Drag Queens. If it hadn’t become a culture war wedge issue, people may have thought it was silly or stupid, but they wouldn’t have found it as offensive as many did. I also said in another comment that I did NOT think it was a sexualized performance, and I don’t think it’s fair to characterize it as such.
All that said, the CMTs had to know that it would offend more members of the country community than not because of the current debate around Drag Queens and their interactions with children via Drag Queen Story Hour and other events, and it was disrespectful and counter-productive for those members of the country community to bring that to their platform, which only resulted in a massive backlash against the presentation, including their attempted message of inclusiveness. Nobody warmed to the idea of Drag Queens in society by them making an appearance on the CMT Awards. It only emboldened people’s hatred of them. It was a big fail from the perspective of social engineering.
There are all kinds of perspectives represented in this comments section. If you feel something is bigoted and needs to be challenged, challenge it. This is how you change the world. If I delete people’s comments, that doesn’t delete the ideology behind them. If something crosses all lines of decency, it is deleted. But otherwise, I’d rather have a spirited debate over these important issues, and gain wisdom from the wide array of perspectives.
April 13, 2023 @ 9:26 am
I appreciate your viewpoints, but you didn’t answer my question. You said people were offended, but why were they offended or “disrespected”? What about a non sexual drag performance is offensive or disrespectful? If the entire pushback on drag performances is based on exposing children to sexual performances, why was this performance so offensive?
April 13, 2023 @ 11:33 am
Look, I’m not trying to be diversionary. I’m not sure why it matters why they were offended and disrespected. Some of it probably has to do with homophobia and transphobia. Some of it has to do with very real concerns that folks are using issues like Drag Queens and trans rights to sexualize children and attempt to impose gender dismorphia into individuals as away to arrest control over them, and divest control from things like the nuclear family, the church, and conservative community. People have a right to their beliefs, and to raise their children how best they see fit.
My greater point is that the CMT Awards featuring Drag Queens on their program was counter-productive to their cause of inclusiveness. Now country fans are even more incensed over Drag Queens, and more distrusting of institutions like CMT and CBS, and will double down and reinforce their ideologies as opposed to questioning them. The CMTs failed. And you can go, “Well, it’s because these people are transphobes.” But you’ve done nothing to address that, just like what would happen if I deleted all comments anyone found as problematic.
April 13, 2023 @ 11:41 am
“Some of it has to do with very real concerns that folks are using issues like Drag Queens and trans rights to sexualize children and attempt to impose gender dismorphia”
But we already established there was no sexualization, and that drag and trans aren’t the same. If you’re too afraid to talk about the bigotry within parts of the country music listening community, and address why people are actually angry about non sexual performances, I don’t think you’re in a position to fairly address drag. I’d love to see you make a reasoned post on the subject, I’m just afraid you’re unable to without being “diversionary”.
“People have a right to their beliefs, and to raise their children how best they see fit.”
Sure, but performers also have a right to perform in drag. You’re basically arguing people are allowed to be bigots, and we shouldn’t care about that in our community, but we should care when an artist chooses to be inclusive.
April 13, 2023 @ 11:58 am
Adam S,
Let’s take a step back for a second. The argument I made in this article as a country music opinion maker is that too much was being made about the appearance of the Drag Queens on the 2023 CMT Awards, and it was distracting and diminishing from the real concerns from the show. When someone else brought the Drag Queens up as “sexualizing” the show, I disagreed with them, and said that Drag Queens aren’t inherently sexual, and weren’t specifically sexual on the CMT Awards.
I’m not “allowing” anyone to be a bigot. I’m just speaking to the reality of things. You can’t say, “Hey, you hate Drag Queens ?!? Well them here they are! Deal with it, bigot!” and expect to change any hearts and minds. That is counter-productive to the cause.
April 13, 2023 @ 9:19 pm
Replied to the wrong person by accident the first time. If you don’t want to continue a delayed conversation I get it.
“I’m not “allowing” anyone to be a bigot. I’m just speaking to the reality of things.”
I think we agree on damn near everything in this article and in your comments throughout this comment section. But my issue is I don’t think you are speaking to the reality of things if you are handwaving away why country music fans feel disrespected or offended by a non sexual drag performance. If this hatred towards drag really was about protecting children from sexual performances, then country fans shouldn’t feel offended or disrespected. You have a strong voice in this community, and if you choose to delve into the drag debate in full, I think you would be doing a disservice by failing to speak to the actual reality of things and why people actually feel offended or disrespected.
April 13, 2023 @ 7:18 pm
It’s disrespectful because the vast majority of the intended audience didn’t want to see it. Also because it served no purpose in the context in which it was shown other than to virtue signal to fellow entertainment elites. I don’t hate drag queens, I don’t hate anyone, that doesn’t mean I want to be forced to celebrate their decisions. That doesn’t make me, or anyone else, a bigot.
What I don’t understand is, the LGBT+ community is statistically a small portion of this country, yet we see it throughout media, but also still hear complaints about not being represented. I would argue they’re represented to a far larger extent than their proportion of the population should warrant. Believe it or not, once you get outside of the cities, there are a lot of people who have never met an out LGBT+ person. For them, being bombarded with it everywhere in media is offensive because it runs counter to anything they’ve ever experienced. That’s not bigotry.
April 13, 2023 @ 9:14 pm
Watching drag performances for one song is not being “forced to celebrate their decisions”. Making someone uncomfortable is not disrespecting them.
Where do we see drag “throughout media” besides RuPaul? The only time it’s in media is when conservatives are pearl clutching.
Seeing something you haven’t experienced isn’t offensive unless you’re a bigot.
April 12, 2023 @ 6:30 am
@Jerry Sexualize and awards show? Have you ever seen one before? They are generally nothing but that. Why? Because the people who produce them know that is what people want to see.
What is inherently sexual about drag queens? My guess is that you have passed some on the street and had no idea they were that. My guess is that your heart rate has increased after seeing a picture of one and had no idea that is what you were seeing.
There is nothing any more inherently sexual about a drag queen than there is Chris Stapleton. It’s how you (mis)interpret it.
Here’s what I don’t get. The people who are the most “by God, leave me alone and let me live my life!!!” are the ones who are bent out of shape the most by anything that is different. And let me be clear, while that was once owned by the right, my brethern on the left have become as bad if not worse.
We need to simply live and let live. Be happy in who we are and in who they are. Stop thinking that this is a game to be won. Realize that we are not 3 year olds in that we can’t just have what we want. Stop taking more pleasure in denying someone else than the pleasure we get from gaining something.
April 13, 2023 @ 1:44 pm
“I’m not “allowing” anyone to be a bigot. I’m just speaking to the reality of things.”
I think we agree on damn near everything in this article and in your comments throughout this comment section. But my issue is I don’t think you are speaking to the reality of things if you are handwaving away why country music fans feel disrespected or offended by a non sexual drag performance. If this hatred towards drag really was about protecting children from sexual performances, then country fans shouldn’t feel offended or disrespected. You have a strong voice in this community, and if you choose to delve into the drag debate in full, I think you would be doing a disservice by failing to speak to the actual reality of things and why people actually feel offended or disrespected.
April 13, 2023 @ 2:59 pm
“I think you would be doing a disservice by failing to speak to the actual reality of things and why people actually feel offended or disrespected.”
Why are you so offended, Adam?
Not getting the proper outrage you are wanting?
Why do you keep harping on “country” persons.
“and if you choose to delve into the drag debate in full, I think you would be doing a disservice by failing to speak to the actual reality of things”
Let’s do this on a global level.
After all it is a big world out there, and folk and country music are played around the world.
How do you think the Muslim community feels about this issue?
The Mongolians, the Inuits, Peruvians and people’s of the Shetland Islands?
Ethiopians and Iberians?
Let’s get the global populations response to your attention cruising.
Know what they’re going to say, amongst other things?
Enjoy the music.
Stop being such an attention monger.
You are not the least bit serious about debating this issue with your insistence on trying to bring down a a very select, targeted group of persons.
April 13, 2023 @ 9:17 pm
“Why do you keep harping on “country” persons.”
Because this is a country music blog focused almost exclusively on American country and western? Why are you trolling?
April 13, 2023 @ 9:32 pm
“Because this is a country music blog focused almost exclusively on American country and western?
Correct.
So why are you going on about drag queens?
April 13, 2023 @ 3:15 pm
sorry i think i replied to the wrong post
April 10, 2023 @ 11:10 am
What does it say about the CMT awards that Morgan Wallen sent out a text to his fans to vote in an Instagram story poll on Country Central then and not the CMT awards
April 10, 2023 @ 11:20 am
Why Must They always Try to include Pop garbage into country Music? I have no problems with Rock finding its way into country because there is a kinship there it fits it belongs. Never seen drag queens who liked country anything before and was surprised they would be apart of such a thing. People are tired of the pandering though it’s getting out of hand
April 11, 2023 @ 10:39 am
Drag queens LOVE country music. Every drag show in the history of the world has Dolly or Reba or Loretta somewhere in the line-up – sometimes all three and more. The excellent Del Shores’ movie, “Sordid Lives,” was released in 2000, is set in Shores’ home state of Texas, and a major part of the storyline involves character Brother Boy’s fascination with and drag performances as Tammy Wynette. Country music has always been fondly represented in the drag world by drag queens. Dolly Parton herself has said that if she’d been born a boy, she’d be a drag queen.
April 11, 2023 @ 5:15 pm
it’s very simple. drag queens are a parody of women: over the top and tasteless. and any parent who takes their kid to the “family-friendly” drag queen filth should rot in jail.
April 12, 2023 @ 5:52 am
It’s dudes playing dress-up. What exactly is the big deal?
April 15, 2023 @ 8:25 pm
“Any parent who takes their kids to a drag show should rot in jail.” Hahahaha! You’re having a laugh, yes? If you honestly believe that, you must fantasize about MTG. “Rot in jail.” I thought you nutters were all about parents’ rights.
April 10, 2023 @ 11:21 am
Was Hardy ever a rapper? That caught me by surprise. Unless you’re thinking of Ernest, who definitely was and I believe does still have a trap-pop style of album on Spotify.
April 10, 2023 @ 11:31 am
This is not the first time I’ve gotten Ernest and Hardy transposed in my brain, and it probably won’t be the last.
April 11, 2023 @ 7:42 pm
It’s probably because of the single-name, idiotic, all capital letters nonsense.
April 10, 2023 @ 11:42 am
Interesting article. 2 things come to mind for me.
1) I wouldnt call it “puritanical pearl clutching.” Hardly anyone had issues with drag queens or trans people until they got (unable to consent) children involved, for political reasons. I’ve been to a half dozen gay bars and seen several drag shows, which were kind of boring but whatever, I didn’t have any objection so to speak. But if taking issue with the recent move to sexualize everything, including children is puritanical, then I guess I have a new word to describe myself.
2) Despite your admittadly well supported argument that mainstream country has gone slightly more countly (though still kinda shit when compared to your year end lists), I perosnally think it’s temporary. The mainstream ties to corporations desparate to improve their various social justice indexes and Twitter mob bosses is too strong. The only way the charade would end is if actaul (somewhat) country artists pulled out completely, leaving ONLY the pop, hip hop, and policial grandstanding in the awards shows. They wouldnt be able to call it “country” (for whatever that is even worth anymore). But that won’t happen. Nobody has the balls to do that. Luke can talk about how shitty the past awards were, but he helped keep them going, and finally got his reward for doing so. And he isn’t even that great of a country artist in the first place.
April 10, 2023 @ 12:49 pm
1) I’ve been trying to avoid the whole Drag Queen issue for weeks now because it’s so complicated, yet it continues to come up in country music over and over again. So at some point I probably will address it, but in a more dedicated and in-depth manner.
I totally understand that the root of the recent Drag Queen concern is the interaction with children via Drag Queen Story Hour and similar things, and I would agree that there is some sort of strange push to sexualize children that the Drag community itself should be policing better to avoid things like the recent Tennessee law, while they try to act like the effort is an attack on ALL Drag performance. That said, the Drag Queens were not reading to children on the CMT Awards, or interacting with children, and children weren’t being “exposed” any more than they are basically turning on the television at any point because now Drag Queens are EVERYWHERE, which was basically my point of why it was conformist to have them and not “bold.”
That doesn’t mean I condone the Drag Queens on the CMT Awards. It was unnecessarily provocative to large swaths of country fans, and totally unnecessary to the presentation. The CMT producers truly believe that country fans are so malleable and stupid, simply exposing them to Drag Queens on an award show will immediately make them more receptive to them when in truth it just underscores how for some stupid reason, everyone now has to acquiesce and been a knee to dudes in women’s clothes or somehow they are inferior members of society.
The last thing I’ll say on this is that there is a difference between trans people and Drag Queens. Sure, sometimes trans people are Drag Queens. But sometimes they’re just gay men, and sometimes they’re even straight men. Saying that the CMT Awards purposely put “trans people” on the CMT Awards a week after a trans person shot up a Christian school in Nashville to maliciously attack religious people (as some people have said, not you) is to misread the situation, and allow people to then take those quotes, and make it look like anyone who said anything bad about the CMTs was just a transphobe.
2) I agree that if we are not vigilant, mainstream country music can and will backslide into trying to appeal to pop and hip-hop once again. That is why I said that assessing the CMT Awards for what it is and in contrast with the CMA Awards is so important. Country music has always been cyclical. And just like right now there is a resurgence in twang, at some point there will be a resurgence in pop. It’s the battle of evermore. But don’t just cast off what happened at the CMAs as Luke Combs and his very slightly more country sound being awarded. Patty Loveless got a 6 1/2-minute time slot to sing “You’ll Never Leave Harlan Alive,” which according to a lot of folks (including myself), resulted in her just being named to the Country Music Hall of Fame OVER front-runners Kenny Chesney and Shania Twain. THIS is why these things can matter significantly, and help turn country music more in the right direction, just like the CMTs can turn it more in the wrong one. This is the reason to be vigilant, and to call out things like the CMTs for not being representative of what actual country fans want.
April 10, 2023 @ 1:36 pm
1. You’re trying to inject nuance into the 2SLGBTQ+LMNOP “community?” I’ve been told that any objection to any part of any letter makes me a bigot.
2. I think you’re grasping as straws. Loveless got into the hall of fame? Let me know when I can tell people I listen to country music and they will kinda, sorta, almost maybe understand what I actually mean.
April 10, 2023 @ 3:20 pm
It doesn’t matter that the people in drag weren’t reading to children on the CMT awards. It’s that the democrats are willfully lying by omission on the issue by pretending that the original outrage isn’t about children. This is an attempt by the Left to reframe the issue. It’s working because so many democrats posting about this online aren’t aware of the viral videos that sparked the original outrage.
April 10, 2023 @ 11:45 am
As I’ve mentioned in a previous comment which created a “firestorm” (as my late grandfather [who was born in 1845, and lived to be 98] would say), I’m an 86-year old proud communist who believes in educating children on the dangers of capitalism, as well as the “wonders” of the LGBTQQIA2S+ community. Yesterday, I was talking to my beautiful wife of 31 years who was assigned male at birth, though she transitioned in the early-80s (she was born in 1963) before it was “cool” to do so (as my 41-year old grandson would say).
Anyhow, even my wife and I, who are staunch supporters of the “queer” community, we feel this awards show has gone too far. I’m all for drag shows, heck, I’ve been attending them since the early ‘50s… my first wife even kicked me out for the first time (in 1958) after I stayed out all night at an underground drag show (my late then-brother, now sister was a drag performer at the time), but I still see an issue with it becoming so “main-stream”. I’ve been a professional ballet dancer since the 1940s, so I have plenty of experience in “drag”, but I still think it’s ridiculous that they are doing this at an awards show.
I recall watching CMT in the mid-1990s. My oldest granddaughter (who just turned 48, actually) was a big fan of “good ole” country music, so, naturally we would often watch the music videos when I was visiting her, or vice versa. I always felt that this era was when country music suddenly became conservative, and started appealing to a far-right fanbase. I never understood why these “right wing” artists were even allowed to speak publicly, let alone, sing and make thousands of dollars. That same granddaughter I mentioned before agrees with me on that statement, and when she and her wife got married about 10 years ago, she made sure no country music was played at their wedding, however, I couldn’t resist hearing “I Walk the Line” by Johnny Cash after I had had one too many glasses of wine. LOL.
Richard
April 10, 2023 @ 1:10 pm
Communist regimes killed upwards of one hundred million of their own subjects in the 20th century alone. Most also heavily persecuted homosexual individuals. Perhaps “educating children on the dangers” of authoritarian totalitarianism, regardless of form or -ultimately – meaningless left or right designations, would be more helpful.
April 10, 2023 @ 3:39 pm
That wasn’t real communism, Coat. The communism of the 20th century (mind you, I was alive for the last 63 years of that century) was more or less fascism and hyper-capitalism disguised as helping the working class.
Also, homosexual individuals are also heavily persecuted in this “capitalist” society we currently reside in (my great-granddaughter was showing me the disgusting reaction that several fascists were having to a trans person being featured on a Budweiser Light can).
April 10, 2023 @ 3:46 pm
Every pursuit of “real communism” always ends up like what played out in the 1900’s with ‘faux communism’ (mass starvation and murders, gulags, etc) I agree with late stage capitalism having major problems, but the solution isn’t to throw the baby out with the bathwater and bludgeon him in the head with a hammer because he stopped clapping first for Lenin.
April 10, 2023 @ 3:49 pm
There is something seriously wrong with your mental state if you think people making fun of a beer company for putting a man pretending to be a woman on the can, is the same as how homosexuals were treated in the United States in the 50’s, 60’s, and 70’s.
Also which authoritarian communist country was better to homosexuals? I’ll wait.
April 10, 2023 @ 5:16 pm
Ancient Sparta. All goods shared in common. Men lived in barracks together and visit their wives and children occasionally. All citizens were soldiers, children or mothers of soldiers. Serfs (they were bound to the land rather than individual property) did all the labor. Ruled by two separate dynasties of kings plus an unelected council of elders. Male children were raised by the state from the age of seven. So communist and authoritarian. Now, to your point, homosexual relations between soldiers were encouraged and teenage boys were assigned an older male lover to teach them about it. There may have been similar arrangements for the females as they had a lifestyle and freedoms more similar to those of the men than in other Greek societies. It’s happened at least once.
April 10, 2023 @ 6:29 pm
Fair point. But that example is 2000 years old. Technology has taken us out of the war-centered societies.
April 10, 2023 @ 7:41 pm
So you want to go back to Sparta?
Sparta was not a pleasant society.
April 11, 2023 @ 2:40 pm
technology has taken us out of the war-centered societies? um lol.
tell that to america. we have only not been involved in a war for 17 total years since 1776.
April 10, 2023 @ 4:42 pm
“ homosexual individuals are also heavily persecuted in this “capitalist” society we currently reside in“
Not completely sure what you mean by this statement. I currently reside in the United States of America. Gay sexual relations are legal, gay marriage is legal, and it is legal to be openly gay and serve in the military, US Congress, etc. In addition, there is federal hate crime legislation which provides additional protection to gay individuals.
April 10, 2023 @ 7:13 pm
Folks,
Richard is telling you what they are. If you won’t believe me, will you at least believe him?
Also, you can see Richard is in the outer school, evidenced by his “That wasn’t real communism” remark. Everyone in the outer school believes “That wasn’t real communism”, because the outer schoolers from the past were eliminated by the elite, preventing them from telling folks what real Communism is.
April 10, 2023 @ 7:43 pm
It is always never “real communism” but this time it will be done right!
The same tired refrain is chanted as the bones of millions are thrown into mass graves.
And homosexual individuals are not persecuted in America. They are celebrated and lauded by the mainstream media and ruling class.
April 10, 2023 @ 10:08 pm
The “not real communism” line is always thrown out by people who openly hate history.
Those who fail to learn from History Channel are doomed to repeat it.
April 10, 2023 @ 11:49 am
It’s a shame that Cody Johnson must share a sentence with Jelly Roll. One has busted his ass for years to make legitimate country music, the other, well he’s just a clown.
April 11, 2023 @ 6:46 am
No dog in the Cody Johnson fight, but I’m pretty sure Jellyroll has a juggalo gathering to get back to.
April 10, 2023 @ 2:01 pm
Thank goodness the cmt awards did the drag queen show, I am all for the acceptance of the LGBTQ+ communities being shown in a positive light and if it pisses off the nazi loving fascist extreme right wing ammosexual brain dead trump supporters like honky shit face and the other bigots on this sight, then I enjoy it even more, country music is more and more slipping from the white fascist red necks hands and becoming more acceptable by more and more NORMAL PEOPLE, so get ready all you fascist anti woke LOSERS, country music is becoming more diverse, you can cry and shout COMMUNISM all you want, normal people who are diverse are beginning to come to country music, and the country stars, like Miranda lambert, Dolly Parton, and Reba, are making their stand and saying they support the LGBTQ+ communities, and there is nothing you can do about, so I applaud any Company that supports diversity. The fascist losers and Travis tritt can ban all the cases of bud lite they want, you cannot stop diversity, get over it, bunch of fascist snow flakes.
April 10, 2023 @ 2:41 pm
Drag queens aren’t normal.
And you sure as hell aren’t normal.
And besides shouldn’t you, as a diverse and tolerant person, be accepting of those different viewpoints? Sounds like you could use some more tolerance.
April 10, 2023 @ 3:14 pm
In the 70’s gay revolution, drag queens were at the bottom of the proverbial scrotum pole. (Pun intended)
Seriously though if you look it up Drag queens we’re considered at the bottom within the gay community.
April 10, 2023 @ 3:28 pm
You sound all studied up on this, Strait86. A gay community historian.
April 10, 2023 @ 3:51 pm
It’s better than not knowing shit and acting like a self righteous know-it-all because I identify as a Democrat.
April 10, 2023 @ 3:54 pm
Nice try though. With this logic did you engage a little method acting like sucking off some dude before your Lavender Country write ups??
I expect you to be a little bitch and not post this comment either.
April 10, 2023 @ 4:16 pm
Hey look there, I posted it.
And no, I did no “suck off some dude” so I could write about Lavender Country.
If this comments section is going to go to shit with people screaming at each other back and forth, I’m just gonna shut it down. Clearly folks can’t be adults about these issues.
April 10, 2023 @ 4:01 pm
How much studying did you do for your Lavender Country write ups? Or are you gay, as you tried to insinuate I am?
April 11, 2023 @ 7:54 pm
I don’t think he was implying you were gay. I think he was actually complimenting you on knowing some shit.
April 10, 2023 @ 5:17 pm
Come on you guys, back up a little bit.
We all come here for the great music Trig leads us to.
As well as some really great musicians other commenters suggest.
Just found out by reading some liner notes that Tab Benoit & Billy Joe Shaver have a bit of history together.
Smiled big when read that.
Also Tab plays a mean pedal steel.
But that’s a discussion for another day …
April 11, 2023 @ 2:12 pm
“we’re considered at the bottom within the gay community”
oh my god. he admits it. freudian slip.
April 10, 2023 @ 9:01 pm
So says the fascist dumb ass sucks honky shit face anus of a mouth, see I do not accept bigots and hate mongers like your self, who hate people who are different, why don’t you practice what you preach sir shit face knight or do you need sir honky to give you permission, don’t talk to me about acceptance when the trump fascist bigots like yourself, do not even know the meaning of the word, and drag queens are more normal than bigots like you will ever be, deal with SNOW FLAKE.
April 10, 2023 @ 9:03 pm
Deal with it snow flake.
April 11, 2023 @ 2:00 am
“… don’t talk to me about acceptance when the trump fascist bigots like yourself, do not even know the meaning of the word, …”
Enough of your spewing hatred.
You are a proponent of the hatred you so adamantly say you are against.
Breathe deeply, step outside, and appreciate the Blessings in your life.
Listen to the birds chirping and singing.
You have a lot to be thankful for.
Relax, smile. Life is good.
April 11, 2023 @ 8:54 am
Gee di, I don’t see you getting on to the bigots like country knight for day drag queens are not normal, if you want to stick up for bigots then you are the one who promotes hate, and I was nor talking to you, so yeah I don’t stick up for bigots like you do, that makes you a bigot, so your little act of trying to have it both ways does not work, why don’t you ever criticize honky, yeah, I read your post you are just like the rest of these bigoted hate mongers, so you and your master honky can take your hatred and BLOW IT OUT YOUR BIGOTED COMMUNIST ASS! you have a nice day as well. So do you stick up for what Hitler did, you might as well , I am done talking to stupid bigots.
April 11, 2023 @ 8:55 am
I meant for country knight saying drag queens are not normal
April 11, 2023 @ 9:08 am
: D i do not promote hate.
Quite the opposite.
April 11, 2023 @ 11:21 am
Drag queens are not normal.
Normal:
noun
1.
the usual, average, or typical state or condition.
April 11, 2023 @ 9:45 am
Good gracious Countryfan. We get it, you hate Honkey. Probaby in your antifa-addled mind envision him and the other righties marching around in their jack boots and whatnot. Fine. But at least give us something that is readable. Plenty of libbers here comment from the left, but at least make their points with some intelligence and a base understanding of grammar. Hell, there is an actual communist on this thread, a full blown pinko…. making his point in an intelligible manner. Great, cool, good on him. Everyone give the well written commie a hand! Your posts hurt my head and are really nothing more than indecipherable and obscene vitriol. Get a grip or please go away and get some professional help.
April 11, 2023 @ 11:18 am
You are a fine example of why public schooling is a disaster.
April 10, 2023 @ 3:10 pm
Wow, apparently traditional Country Music doesn’t sit well with you and your LTGDW40 friends. If you people want to be accepted and treated as equals you first need to stop acting like freaks and destroying everything in your paths just to get your point across ramming your sick way of life down everybody’s throats. I don’t recall ever marching in straight pride parades or supporting professional sports teams in wearing straight pride parade uniforms so it makes no sense why you feel this should apply to you people.
This was not a Country Music awards show, and by no means do drag queens need to be a part of Country music.
Hank certainly didn’t do it your way and never will any level headed Traditional Country Music Men & Women.
April 10, 2023 @ 8:19 pm
Friendly hint, “If you people want to be accepted and treated as equals” is never a good way to start a sentence, except at a Klan rally…. Much less when the article is really about how crappy the CMT “Awards” Show is…
April 11, 2023 @ 6:08 pm
You are one troubled SOB. and not the only one. half the country gets off on having some attention starved freak waving his penis in their faces while shouting: I love being a girl. End of an empire stuff.
April 10, 2023 @ 2:08 pm
Two rants for one event. I like it, a lot.
You sure do write pretty Trigger.
April 10, 2023 @ 2:44 pm
First, at this point in time, the Babylon Bee’s satire is as real as the “news” produced by the mainstream media.
Second, Carrie Underwood has been as much pop as Twain or Swift. I am no Swift fan but at the very least she left the country music arena, be it more for commercial gain than musical honesty, but she departed the genre Underwood hasn’t.
April 10, 2023 @ 3:07 pm
Until all of you who are concerned about this get a grasp of what it is and why it’s happening, not only will you not see it undone, you will watch it escalate, as you sit around whining about hypocrisy, and trying to out-virtue(looking at you, Trig) those who only use perceived virtue as a loyalty test; as if the Communist is even the least bit concerned about hypocrisy, or the malcontents he’s weaponized to destroy you. What he’s doing isn’t hypocritical. You only think it is because you don’t understand what the rules are.
The first thing you need to understand, is that Communism is a religious cult. Its adherents are zealous, and just like any other cult, they are ranked(unofficially) in groups, based on knowledge, access, and power:
Outer School: This group is your tools, your “soldiers”. These are the malcontents. This is the rainbow demons, inner-city black folks, etc. The outer school is your “oppressed”. They have no idea they’re being used. They believe themselves to be stakeholders.
Inner School: This group is your trainers and propagandists, your “experts”. These are the indoctrinators. This is media, academia, public education, and Hollywood. A lot of Nashville’s power brokers are in this group as well.
Inner Circle: This is the elite. These are world leaders, corporate leaders, political leaders, etc. This group drives strategy. These folks benefit once everything collapses. Once they have the power they want, they will cut ties with outer school folks, and most of the inner school folks.
The different groups that make up the outer school all serve different purposes. The purpose of the rainbow demons is to eliminate the nuclear family, by creating broken people and separating children from their parents. That’s why they groom. They need broken children, broken people, and broken families in order to advance the religion.
The reason they’ve intentionally made the grooming more visible, and why they put some rainbow demons on your Country awards show, is to provoke you. They want a “Drag Floyd” moment. If they can provoke you into giving them a “Drag Floyd”, they will weaponize it to burn cities for another year and to persecute their political enemies…more destruction = more power.
Trigger keeps playing right into it all by granting their premises and using their terminology. But yeah, keep calling them hypocrites; that’s sure to get them to abandon their religion.
This will be on the CMAs soon. I look forward to the mental gymnastics Trigger will use to explain what hypocrites they all are.
April 10, 2023 @ 3:33 pm
“This will be on the CMAs soon. I look forward to the mental gymnastics Trigger will use to explain what hypocrites they all are.”
I have no love for the CMAs. But I call ’em like I see ’em, and the CMAs have been significantly improving since 2015. I think most country fans would agree. If they go the opposite direction for whatever reason, I’ll be more than happy to criticize them. But my guess is that the CMA organizers were sitting back with big Cheshire cat grins while the CMTs went down. They know where things are headed.
April 10, 2023 @ 8:42 pm
Then your guess is wrong. The CMA folks were sitting back wishing they’d tried it first, and contemplating ways to do it “better”.
And I have no doubt you’ll criticize them, but you’ll do it while trying to out-“virtue” them, by pointing out their “hypocrisy”, while granting their premise, and still having no idea what you’re dealing with.
April 10, 2023 @ 8:53 pm
Keep pounding on me that everything’s a Communist conspiracy Honky. Some day I’ll crack.
I think you give the folks who produce country music awards shows too much credit. At the worst, they fall into the “useful idiots” category. They’re just trying to get social capital in their friend circles.
April 10, 2023 @ 9:07 pm
You should be flattered. I do it because I can’t believe you’re this naive. I can’t make sense of it. How can someone so articulate, not see something right in front of his face?
Also, “everything’s a communist conspiracy” is a strawman, which you’ve been doing a lot lately.
Here’s what’s really wild, Trig. You’ve eloquently explained how the Gramsci model is being used in Country Music, but you still can’t see the big picture.
April 11, 2023 @ 10:00 am
You Trigger, honky and his minions do not even know what that word means , he is just a stupid little troll who likes to use big words that he doesn’t even know the meaning of, he has taken so many horse pills to “fight” covid, that they have destroyed what little of a brain he has left
April 11, 2023 @ 10:01 am
I meant you know trigger
April 10, 2023 @ 7:47 pm
Exactly.
Playing gotcha with Communists doesn’t win real-life battles. The Communist doesn’t feel shame or remorse.
April 10, 2023 @ 3:12 pm
It’s the mother of all wedge issues because they have now come after the kids.
It’s demonically wrong to introduce children to ideas such as gender fluidity and confuse them about their own biology. This isn’t helped by Freudian-coined ‘Devouring mothers’ pushing children into hormone blockers and sex reassignment surgeries.
Anyone who refused to look at the situational honestly is enabling groomers. Don Knotts wearing a dress on the Andy Griffith show is innocent folksy humor. Gay men in sexualized outfits dancing suggestively for children is engaging in a kink.
April 10, 2023 @ 7:49 pm
Ash Ketchum dressed in drag in every Pokemon series as a joke.
Shaggy did the same in Scooby Doo.
It was seen as nothing more than innocent humor.
Drag queens are a different story.
April 10, 2023 @ 3:24 pm
I tried to post this on another thread, and it was rejected. I’ll try again, because I write the truth. The two most obscene words in the English language, and, by extension, country music, are “diversity,” and “multiculturalism.”
April 10, 2023 @ 4:21 pm
While everyone seemed so upset about the drag queens appearing with Kelsea, I have to ask how people feel about Kid Rock shooting at Bud Lite cans on the heels of six people dying in Nashville a few days before. To me, it felt tone deaf. I have also wondered in the past few days what Sheryl Crow thinks about her former duet partner/bestie doing everything he can to stay relevant with his “Snowflake” tour announcement and continuing to spew hate against numerous groups of people. Same for Travis Tritt. Does anyone give a shit what Tritt wants to drink on his tour? Believe it or not, I was a HUGE Tritt fan back in the 1990s. I would still have been tempted to see a show. Now, I don’t support anyone who spews hatred toward another group.
On another subject, I see Leslie Fram’s (CMT) name come up so much in the music industry. She should have known the ill-attempt to bring in a younger generation was going to fail miserably with the entertainment booked for the show. Did she have no control over content? The award show was beyond painful and needs to get back to a fraction of its roots.
Why did Wynonna not choose the show to release a new single? With the farewell tour complete, it is time for a re-invention. She has some great chops. I’d love to see her get back some of her country soul instead of growling the lyrics like an angry lioness.
April 10, 2023 @ 4:58 pm
Equating Kid Rock shooting at beer cans with the Nashville school shooting is as fair as equating the CMT Awards with putting Drag Queens on the presentation to show solidarity with the school shooter because the shooter was trans. Neither of these instances has anything to do with the school shooting. I think it’s really important that we all try to tone down the rhetoric, and not try to equate people we disagree with as condoning mass shooting just because it’s convenient. EVERYBODY is against mass shootings: Kid Rock, Drag Queens, Budweiser, the CMT Awards, Travis Tritt. These culture war slap fights bring the worst out of all of us, and distract us from the real issues plaguing society, and if anything, exacerbate the metal health issues that ultimately inspire folks to take up arms and kill innocents.
I applaud Leslie Fram for her initiatives to bring equal representation to the women of country music, and for actually DOING things as opposed to just talking or tweeting about them like so many on this issue. But she is definitely part of this elitist society that is constantly participating in moral preening to sow clout. I really think that the CMT folks thought they would just slide things like the 90s pop stars and Drag Queens by, and because the show ended with a Lynyrd Skynyrd tribute, all the rednecks out there in real America would be accepting and pacified.
That didn’t happen.
April 10, 2023 @ 5:32 pm
They should have ended with “That Smell”. A tribute to all the botched bottom surgeries and side effects that aren’t openly acknowledged.
April 10, 2023 @ 8:34 pm
…..”is as fair as equating the CMT Awards with putting Drag Queens on the presentation to show solidarity with the school shooter because the shooter was trans. Neither of these instances has anything to do with the school shooting.”…..
Trig,
You really should retract that. It makes you look naive to the point of having no business discussing this topic. I’m not messing with you, man. I don’t want you on the record looking this foolish; it hurts your credibility.
April 10, 2023 @ 5:15 pm
@Perry, yes I agree that Kid Rock destroying the cans with an AR is tone deaf. I feel the same as all 2A advocates who feel the need to defend 2A is to present as many AR’s as possible. I felt the same after previous school or mass shootings when some 2A advocates did “2A audits” by going into Walmart with an AR strapped to their back right after the incident.
It’s a poor way to engage the other side on why we believe pushing gun control is a slippery slope. It’s not a logical fallacy because every other country has almost no gun rights now. (Recently Canada)
(I own 10+ guns, two glocks and the rest are rifles. No AR’s. Just not my taste)
April 10, 2023 @ 6:51 pm
I HEARTILY APPLAUD Kid Rock for exterminating the Bud packs, and will GLADLY provide more ammo for him should he require it. I received confirmation today that one Texas Bud distributor has severed ties with the company and ordered it to send personnel to its warehouse and remove the product!
April 10, 2023 @ 11:22 pm
I am 100% ok with Kid Rock opposing Bud Light. I also understand what the optics are of him using an AR to shoot the cans. If you give the other side any reason to take you the wrong way, they will. It’s on brand for Kid Rock to expose strongly conservative views. Same with Ted Nugent. It’s not a risk for Travis Tritt because he’s been teetering on being a fairground act for decades.
I don’t think that summation is unfair.
It’s amazing to me that no other major country act is willing to voice opposition. I don’t want to hear blowhard 2000’s conservative Bill O Reilly talking points but stand up for something other than the almighty dollar.
April 11, 2023 @ 7:31 am
Putting a trans personality on a beer can is performative. Shooting those beer cans with an AR-15 and making a big deal about it is performative. None of these things do anything of substance to address actual problems many people are facing each day that we can’t find universal consensus behind because we’re all embroiled in culture war bullshit meant to distract how we’re ALL being fleeced by the elite.
April 11, 2023 @ 6:35 pm
I don’t think anything can be done when every time a bill is introduced in Congress it’s really just a Trojan Horse for some other government overreach hidden inside it.
If regular law abiding citizens give up their guns, it’s over. The elites are waiting with sweaty palms for the US dollar to collapse so they can replace it with a digital currency. They recently proposed a bill that would outlaw crypto currency.
Maybe the good times really are over for good.
April 10, 2023 @ 7:52 pm
I am fine with what Kid Rock did.
It is American when folks use their 2nd Amendment rights and when people push back against wokeness.
April 11, 2023 @ 3:26 pm
“Wokeness” is acknowledging one trans person exists? How does the affect anybody negatively other than people who are mad that not everybody is a heterosexual Christian?
April 11, 2023 @ 4:31 pm
Hmm, the Woke professor in this video gives an interesting explanation of what Woke means.
https://twitter.com/ConceptualJames/status/1644768790855446530?s=20
April 10, 2023 @ 4:26 pm
No one gave a damn about drag queens until the right — which has no political platform to speak of, other than to try and wage a culture war — told you that you should be mad about them. Way to be a bunch of sheep.
And all these 80-year-old politicians who watched Milton Berle in a dress when they were little kids are now clutching their own pearls. Get a f##king life.
Also if you take offense at anything that happened at the CMTs, serves you right.
April 10, 2023 @ 7:54 pm
There is a difference between Berle in a dress and men dancing in front of children. Especially when the suicide rates of gay and trans children are sky-high because children and teenagers are too young to understand the complex transitions and feelings.
But you knew that.
April 11, 2023 @ 2:15 pm
the suicide rate is so high because they have to deal with people like you calling them groomers and trying to take away their rights.
but you knew that.
April 11, 2023 @ 8:21 pm
The post was speaking about suicide rates of gay and trans CHILDREN. I’ve not heard anyone claiming children are anything but victims of this moment in history.
Children are not capable of understanding any of this. They are still becoming the person they will be. They are not psychologically prepared to make life-altering decisions about their health which come with permanent consequences.
Now for those who would steal the innocence of children, robbing them of the experience of growing into themselves? That’s the work of the devil.
April 11, 2023 @ 10:19 pm
Its very simple. Gay and Trans Children are committing suicide because they are made to feel inadequate by society. Imagine being a kid struggling with his gender and sexual identity and then reading some of the comments here calling drag queens freaks and not “normal”. How is that supposed to make them feel?
Countryknight and others are under the impression that if we stop exposing children to drag queens, they’ll stop experiencing these complex feelings about gender and sexual identity. I hate to break it to you but children have been struggling with these feelings since the dawn of time whether they were exposed to drag queens or just saw their mother in makeup and liked what they saw. These laws don’t make a difference, they will just make those children feel a lot more inadequate than they already do.
April 12, 2023 @ 5:34 pm
I have heard that excuse before. It can’t be that what they are doing to themselves is unnatural and self-harming. It has to be someone’s else fault! So let’s blame the straight white man because he is an acceptable target!
But you knew that.
April 11, 2023 @ 8:06 pm
You know you’re right over the target when the incoming gets this heavy.
Funny the accuracy sucks so bad. The bubble must really distort things.
April 10, 2023 @ 4:38 pm
I am sure Austin embraced it, I am live and let live regarding personal choices just think it is odd and a little sick that these dudes with tits are soo enamored with children.
April 10, 2023 @ 7:38 pm
The CMT awards wasn’t really about country music, that was apparent.
It also wasn’t about diversity. It was designed for division. The owner of CMT is Paramount. Look at the programming on any of their networks.
This was solely for massaging their CEI score. They’re willing to alienate viewers in order to secure their financing streams.
They’re also willing to attempt destroying country music for the same reason. That’s what the big media corporations brought into our musical world.
April 10, 2023 @ 9:58 pm
I dont mind an injection of pop. Theres been some great pop music the last 10 years especially from female popstars like Adele, Billie Eilish, Olivia Rodrigo and Lana Del Rey (whose already done some stuff with Nikki Lane and Sierra Ferrell). But they should be reminded that the awards are about celebrating country music and not just a platform to promote their own music. I liked Justin Timberlake and Stapletons performance at the CMAS. Timberlake was respectful enough to perform both his own song and Stapleton’s Tennessee Whiskey. Thats the way to do it properly and it helped introduce Stapleton to a much bigger audience than he ever had before . Theres no doubt his fame sky-rocketed after that performance.
April 11, 2023 @ 5:11 am
I just bought 3 Garth Brooks CDs on eBay, so I’m doing my part.
April 11, 2023 @ 5:27 am
I do my best to be tolerant and open-minded on these social issues, even when I don’t understand it, and often end up coming down left of center. But man, it sounds like what we needed to close out the CMT Awards was Hank Jr. doing “Dinosaur.” Who would have thought that a 40+ year old song would be so relevant to the present moment?
April 11, 2023 @ 5:36 am
I think you’ll find Dolly Parton set the template for Shania Twain. Otherwise a flawless polemic.
April 11, 2023 @ 5:45 am
I’ve never watched one of these award shows.
Never will.
April 11, 2023 @ 8:13 am
Sigh…I miss this show’s predecessors…the Music City News Awards and TNN Country Awards. Seemed like legit voting and real country music.
April 12, 2023 @ 1:22 am
basically my only window to american society is this site and man sometimes it looks pretty freaked out! That’s not to say Europe ain’t fucked up just maybe not so crazy over cultural war, at least Italy.
Anyway i love Trig’s writing and props for the Poison shout out, that album still rocks.
April 12, 2023 @ 5:35 pm
Europe is already a soulless wreck.
Post-modernism kills.
April 12, 2023 @ 10:29 pm
One thing I can’t reconcile. It leaves we saddened. bewildered, utterly confounded…
This is the same channel that just a few months ago hosted the Loretta Lynn tribute. It was brilliant front to back.
How, in less than six months, have we seen such regression? When they had a proven, successful formula to work with?
April 12, 2023 @ 10:46 pm
The Loretta Lynn tribute was the outlier, not the CMT Awards. CMT and the CMT Awards have been really terrible for the last five or six years. It’s just now they’re on CBS so everyone is waking up to it.
April 13, 2023 @ 4:40 pm
It’s pathetic how badly the country music awards – whoever gives them – want to be accepted by other sectors of show business particularly rock music but also television stars as well, some of whom are rather second-level stars in their own fields. I don’t think the MTV Awards ever once had a true “country” star appear on their shows, heck getting country acts on the Grammys when they have multiple country categories has been a challenge at times! I give the CMA no slack either – didn’t they have a tribute to the Rolling Stones on their last show? Why are these contemporary “country” stars so eager to sing with or sing tributes to rock stars? A rock star dies and half a dozen country singers sing one of their songs online or television in tribute. Did any rock star ever do that for any country legend except perhaps Cash? It just underlines the fact these people really want to be rockers but that’s too hard a market to crack.
April 16, 2023 @ 6:36 am
Actually, rock music is a dead market. That is why they are all “country” stars.
Sammy Kershaw said it perfectly: “Country music is the only genre that hates itself.”
April 13, 2023 @ 8:58 pm
No long speech or harsh criticism here. Today’s “country” music sucks. To elaborate any further is a waste of time.