If you didn’t watch the CMT Music Awards on Sunday night, you didn’t really miss much.
In fact, if you DID watch the CMT Music Awards on Sunday night, your thoughts were probably something along the lines of…what the hell did I just watch?
The awards have generated a lot of conversation this year (which I guess was the point), but much of it has been negative.
Of course there’s the uproar over Kelsea Ballerini performing with drag queens, in an apparent swipe at Tennessee’s new law restricting children from attending drag shows.
But the biggest problem with the CMT Awards this year was the amount of time that was devoted to non-country artists and performances.
I mean, we had Alanis Morissette and Gwen Stefani both there to perform their (non-country) hits from the ’90s, Ashley McBryde and Wynona performed a Foreigner song for whatever reason, and the most hyped part of the show was an appearance from Megan Thee Stallion. What the hell are we doing here?
The best part of the night (and really one of the only decent moments) was the Lynyrd Skynyrd tribute, and that didn’t come until the very end of the show. The rest of it was almost totally unwatchable, and an embarrassment for country music.
And I know I’m not anywhere close to alone in that opinion: Just log on to any social media and all of the buzz is about what an absolute clusterfuck it was.
Country artist Ward Davis even gave us his thoughts on the CMT Awards, and said it even better than I can.
If you’re somehow not yet familiar with Ward, he’s an incredible singer and songwriter who also happens to be absolutely hilarious. (Remember his battle, and ultimate reconciliation, with the police department in Hays, Kansas?)
Ward’s never one to hold back, and during the CMT Awards he let us know exactly what he thought:
That’s a good question.
He also commented on the show’s bizarre decision to feature so many artists from the ’90s…from other genres:
And after the show, Ward summed up his thoughts on the spectacle – and said what we were all thinking:
“So I took a mental inventory of tonight, and I had to decide on my favorite thing about the Country Music Awards.
It’s tough… Megan Thee Stallion is hot, and it’s always a pleasure to watch Slash not give a shit. And Hootie and the Black Crows and my goodness Alanis Morrisette was like flipping through my CD binder back in 95. But like what the f*ck was that?
Country music has completely lost its identity. That thing that made music row special, is just a bunch of Dick-faced money grabbers, checking demographic algorithms and targeting kids and their parents and trying their stupid little f*cking hearts out to convince the world that it is it’s own art form, and it simply isn’t anymore.
It’s a f*cking mess. A giant pile of everything that amounts to nothing. There were moments of hope tonight, but every time I think things are getting better, I slip in the vomit they spew at me and realize it ain’t. Not fast enough anyway.
I like my little outlaw world. It’s cozy and We don’t need to get together 6 times a year to stroke each other’s wieners like those Dick bags do. Like maybe once a year. Maybe.”
Couldn’t have said it better.
And the thing about Ward and his “little outlaw world?” That’s real country music.
But if you watched the CMT Awards and thought that was country music, you wouldn’t even recognize the real thing when you heard it.
And shoutout Jelly Roll:
