What’s an award show without just a little bit of drama, right?
Brothers Osborne won the ACM award for Duo of the Year last night, and TJ mentioned in his acceptance speech that he was thankful for the win, mostly because of the momentum something like that can give an artist.
And he said that because their single, “I’m Not For Everyone,” was just pulled from country radio last week. It was sitting at #33 on the Billboard U.S. Country Airplay chart at the time.
He did not specify who “they” was in terms of who made the decision to pull the song, but it seems likely that their label, EMI Records Nashville, ultimately decided to do so due to a lagging and slow climb on the country charts.
Still, TJ was thankful to take home a trophy at the show:
“About a week ago, they pulled our single from country radio, so I needed a little wind put in our sails.”
According to Billboard, John clarified after the show in the press room that it was said “in jest,” but TJ doubled down on the sentiment that what he said was true, and that radio play for certain artists is still issue on country radio… even if you have a big label behind you like they do:
“I mentioned this recently in an article, just with us feeling like we’re underdogs the whole time. And that’s part of it, is that we don’t get necessarily a lot of the love that some of the other artists do on radio and I’m not necessarily criticizing anyone specifically for that, but it’s just a fact, and to be there tonight, I guess some people were upset that I said that.
Like, I said a true statement. I don’t know, our single literally got pulled last week and we just won an award. If you’re upset about that, maybe you’re part of the problem.”
I mean, he’s not wrong… and you know what, good for him for standing his ground and speaking up at an industry event like that. Most artists wouldn’t even dream of it.
It’s no secret that country radio has been less than desirable over the years…
John, who took a more “diplomatic” approach to discussing the issue, said he’s thankful that there are so many other options now for artists to put their music out without necessarily needing radio play to build a solid fan base:
“There are a lot more avenues. To have a lot of success at radio is really amazing and has done a lot of people a lot of good, has changed their lives, but there’s more than one way to do it.
At one point there wasn’t, and now there are a lot of ways. We see people getting successes through winning awards, and our beautiful industry lifting us up, and other people building their careers just via the Internet with no record deals at all.
So there are a lot of opportunities for lot of artists and in my own humble opinion, I think that is amazing. I think that’s incredible and a beacon for us in this industry.”
I mean, really, who even listens to country radio anymore these days anyways?
The duo performed twice last night, including singing “Skeletons,” the title track from their fantastic 2021 record:
And they closed out the show with Brittney Spencer, singing “These Boots Are Made for Walking”:
