Gotta give credit where it’s due.
The 2025 CMA Awards were held last night at Bridgestone Arena here in Nashville, and it was a big night for Lainey Wilson.
Not only did Lainey host the show, but she also took home the trophies for Entertainer of the Year, Female Vocalist of the Year and Album of the Year.
Of course there were people who were upset that Lainey won so much, and that Morgan Wallen was snubbed from ANY awards despite being inarguably the biggest artist in country music.
But despite the disagreements between fanbases, I think we can safely say that this was the best CMA Awards we’ve seen in years.
For starters, the Country Music Association seems to finally be listening to fans who have been complaining for years about all the pop stars taking performance slots away from actual country artists. I mean sure, we got a collab between BigXthaPlug and Luke Combs that was by far the worst performance of the night, but even that one’s not quite as egregious since the Texas rapper has recently been dipping his toe into the country music world. And they actually sang a song they released together instead of a random duet in an attempt to boost TV ratings.
Instead of nonsensical pop duets, we got some incredible performances from roots artists who have been overlooked in years past. And because of that, we got two of the best performances of the night from the Red Clay Strays and Stephen Wilson Jr. Heck, Stephen Wilson Jr. even got TWO performances with his duet with Shaboozey, which turned out to be a great performance too.
And speaking of Red Clay Strays, we finally saw the band from Mobile, Alabama get their much-deserved award for Vocal Group of the Year. It would have been an absolute travesty if they had lost to bands like Old Dominion and Little Big Town, but we’ve been conditioned in the past to see disappointing and confusing results, which made it all the better to see them get this one right.
In fact, I think they got most of the awards right – or at least didn’t get them egregiously wrong. Zach Top winning for New Artist of the Year, Cody Johnson finally winning for Male Vocalist of the Year…it seems like it was the year the deserving underdogs finally got their recognition, and fans were clearly excited to see some new names on stage.
It’s hard to really point to any lowlights from the evening other than the BigXthaPlug/Luke Combs performance. I mean sure, did we really need a medley of decade-old songs from Old Dominion? No, not really. And while it was nice to see Patty Loveless on the stage, and Vince Gill being honored with the Willie Nelson Lifetime Achievement Award, it would have been nice to see more performances from some of the legends of country.
But compared to years past, this year’s show was far and away the best we’ve seen in quite some time. It felt like a turning point not only for the CMA Awards but for country music, where some of the non-mainstream artists finally got a seat at the table.
Will that actually happen? Who knows. But I’m a lot more optimistic after last night’s show than I was before it started.
