It’s all politics.
At this point everybody knows how awards shows work, right? It’s a bunch of behind-the-scenes politics with the labels, managers and voters to decide who’s going to get this award in exchange for this artist getting this award…to the point that they really don’t mean anything.
There’s a reason all the winners come from the big labels, and the awards usually just shuffle around between the same few artists every year. It’s all politics, and it’s all about the money.
It’s a subject that comes up every year around one particular artist: Morgan Wallen.
Of course Morgan has had his own issues in the past, and a lot of people point to those as the reason that Morgan isn’t winning awards despite being the single biggest artist in country music right now. He’s selling out multiple nights at stadiums all across the country, his One Thing At A Time album is still in the top 5 of the Billboard album chart a year and a half after it was released, and his Dangerous: The Double Album is still top 10 after being released in 2020.
And look, I’m not saying that Morgan is even my favorite artist of this year’s Entertainer of the Year nominees. But it’s hard to deny that over the past year, he’s been the most successful.
So when he doesn’t win any awards, it kind of sticks out.
It’s a phenomenon that Rascal Flatts lead singer Gary LeVox discussed recently during an appearance on the Try That In A Small Town podcast with songwriters Kurt Allison, Neil Thrasher, Tully Kennedy and Kelley Lovelace.
While discussing the awards shows, the songwriters mentioned that Morgan can’t get any awards despite “outselling everybody.” And LeVox agreed:
“It’s so unfair…
You know how the show business thing goes, but to me, just being an honest person, if you’ve got the biggest single, you should win Single of the Year. If you sold more albums than anybody, you should win Album of the Year.”
The hosts then brought up the politics that are at play in the awards shows (with Gary telling a funny story about “What Hurts The Most,” which was one of the biggest songs of the year back in 2006, being snubbed by the Grammys in favor of “Ticks” by Brad Paisley), pointing out that it’s all about the backroom deals:
“Like in anything where there’s money to be made or power to be had, there’s politics at play. People think that the award goes to the most deserving, and that’s just not how it is.”
It’s unfortunate, not even for Morgan (he’s doing fine) but for all the artists who are never going to have a shot at getting the recognition they deserve because of Nashville politics.
