If there’s one country artist whose fan group is historically very outspoken, it would be Carrie Underwood.
The recent queen of country music has forever been a huge drawn and top notch performer, her voice easily going down as one of the best in the genre’s history, and that has garnered her an enormous following that is never shy to express their opinions, especially when award season rolls around.
Last night, the CMA Awards took place at the Bridgestone Arena in Nashville and all in all it was actually a pretty good show.
Post Malone made a huge splash when he joined Morgan Wallen and Hardy for a cover of Joe Diffie’s classic “John Deere Green” before a studio version was released and sent to country radio, but the clear winner of the night was Lainey Wilson.
Lainey took home 5 awards last night, including the biggest of them all with her first ever win for Entertainer of the Year.
Obviously, this was a huge moment for her and I truly believe it’s a great moment for country as a whole, considering she puts out actual country music and has the personality to be the face of the genre for many years to come, but that didn’t stop a lot of people from voicing their disapproval.
Morgan Wallen fans were quick to point out that he walked away empty handed despite having by far the biggest album and going on a huge headlining stadium tour that was sold out, but it wasn’t just his fans that were pissed off about Lainey taking the biggest piece of hardware home.
Carrie Underwood’s fans came out swinging.
Despite being the face of women in country music for well over a decade, Carrie has never actually been the CMA Entertainer of the Year. While some (myself included) would say that her music of late has been sub-par, she is still a major touring force and is always present when the who’s who of Nashville gathers. In the past year, she headlined the massive Denim & Rhinestones arena tour, held a Las Vegas residency, performed with Guns ‘n Roses… if not now, when?
But strangely, Carrie was no where to be found last night, her absence another puzzling question left burning in fan’s minds. She had been a major part of the awards for 18 straight years and no one knows why she wasn’t part of this year’s festivities.
Given she didn’t win a single award and was not even in the crowd, Carrie’s fans unleashed on X, voicing their displeasure with the entire thing.
And that’s only a few of the statements out there; there are a lot of unhappy Carrie fans…
I get where they’re coming from. It is wild that Lainey won the award before Carrie and Miranda Lambert did, and did so opening up for some of the other nominees, but that is more telling that Carrie was robbed in previous years and maybe this is a sign that things are turning around for women as a whole?
Either way, few people in this industry work as hard as Lainey Wilson does, and you can’t say she doesn’t deserve it. Do others deserve it too? Yeah, but there is rarely a clear winner at these things.
You’ve got a big fan in me, Lainey, and I truly believe this win is a major step forward for the whole genre and the women of country music. And if nothing else, it’s a turning point in the industry. No Carrie Underwood, no Thomas Rhett, no Jason Aldean, no Blake Shelton… hell, Florida Georgia Line is no more, Maren Morris got out of country music, Kane Brown seems irrelevant… the future of country music is with artists like Lainey Wilson and Cody Johnson, and even with indie artists like Zach Bryan. And that’s a good thing.
Check out Lainey and Carrie teaming up for an Alan Jackson tribute at last year’s CMA Awards below.
