Everyone knows about the Country Music Awards and the Academy of Country Music Awards. I love watching those shows and I look for them every year. Other than those award shows, there are some other great award shows that take place throughout the year.
The nominees for the CMT Music Awards were recently announced and it reaffirmed that the CMT Music Awards are important to the fans and country music as a whole.
Here are five major reasons why:
The CMT Music Awards are fan-voted.
It’s always nice to be recognized by your colleagues and peers. That’s how most awards shows work. The people that vote on the winners of the awards are people involved in the music industry.
Every year during the other award shows, social media is filled with people complaining that another artist was more-deserving than the artist who actually won the award. While it is impossible to make everyone happy, fan-voted award shows give fans ownership in their favorite winning the awards. If their artists doesn’t win, they think they should have voted or promoted their favorite artists more. It seems less people blame others in fan-voted shows.
I think it’s a big help for the artists as well. When an artist wins a fan-voted award, it gives them confirmation that they are doing something right and their target audience likes what they are doing.
Women were nominated for every category for which they were eligible.
There’s been a lot of talk in recent years about women not getting equal treatment in the country music industry. They don’t get as much mainstream radio airplay as their male counterparts and they don’t get as many award show nominations. I don’t think they are purposefully trying to block women, but it has happened. I think it is a big deal that so many women were nominated for this year’s CMT Music Awards. It is definitely a step in the right direction.
I think female artists in country music are a perspective the genre needs and I think there are some great female artists who are making some great music right now. I am very happy that some of them are getting some recognition at the CMT Music Awards.
Artists who aren’t typically nominated often at award shows are nominated.
I don’t like the word snubbed because the word implies some artists are intentionally left out when it comes to other award shows. I don’t believe that is what is happening. I think there are simply so many talented artists that it is impossible for everyone who deserves a nomination to get one when there are only four or five nominees in every category.
I think one thing CMT does right is nominate multiple artists in a given category. More nominations are good for everyone.
Music videos are an art form.
Many music videos are more than just an artist singing a song. Some videos are more like mini-movies and feature the artist acting, as well as singing. The artists who make the best videos need to be recognized.
It takes a different skill set to make a great video than it takes to write or record a great song. I love to see the artists do some acting in the videos. Most of them do a really good job.
A great video starts with a great concept. They have to find a way to tell the story in the song. I have seen some video that took the lyrics of the song to a deeper level or even changed the way I listened to the song. As far as I know, the CMT Music Awards is the only award show that recognizes excellence in country music videos.
It takes place during the week of the CMA Music Festival.
The CMT Music Awards are broadcast live from the Bridgestone Arena in Nashville on the night before the CMA Music Festival officially starts. This means thousands of country music fans are already in Nashville. The ticket prices for the CMT Music Awards are affordable. These two things make it possible that that average country music fan can attend the show.