Improving the ACM Awards
What’s the #1 thing the ACM could have done to improve last night’s awards show? It can be something they should have included, something they should have left out, or something they should have handled differently. Pointing out that most of the show sucked doesn’t count as a response. Let’s try to be constructive here.
My first thought was to get rid of fan voting, but I’m honestly not sure that the results would have been much better if the voting had all been done by industry folks, so I won’t go with that one.
Instead, since I think that the show was slanted pretty heavily toward new sounds in “country” music (though Adkins, Johnson, and Womack offered reprieves), I think they should have given the Miley Cyrus performance slot to Loretta Lynn to balance things out a bit. Not bloody likely, but it would have brought a legendary element to the show that was sorely missing. As it was, Reba and George were pretty much the token legend types (with careers dating back to the ’70s), and the songs they performed weren’t exactly radical departures from the rest of what was being played on the show. Loretta would have dug in her heels and offered a legendary performance – not just a safely contemporary performance by someone who happens to have been around for a long time.
So, there’s my fanciful suggestion. What’s yours?
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I think I could have done with a little less time. For me, and alot of people at work, I was ready to not be watching that at about 9pm.
Loretta would have been a great addition! I have a thought that maybe y’all won’t agree with – but, what about a spot where they feature some of the up and coming and lesser known acts. I would have loved to see Sunny Sweeney, Sarah Buxton, Emily West, Elizabeth Cook, and Caitlin rocking that stage last night – all performing together! I think there really is some excellent country music being made by these ladies, it would be nice to see the Academy recognize it. They could have done a tribute to Loretta, and then Loretta could have come out and, oh stop me now! I can almost close my eyes and see it! I felt like I was watching “Entertainment Tonight” last night. I’m not going to say that I hated the show – but, I didn’t understand the need for presenting the Crystal awards on air. Admittedly, Taylor and Jennifer deserve recognition for their accomplishments. They have both brought a lot of attention to the genre, and that’s a good thing. It was all just a little slick for me. I also don’t like the fan voted awards, but, if they were chasing ratings – Taylor and Carrie’s fans probably gave them their best ratings ever! Also, regarding fan voting – one vote per person please.
I think part of the reason the Milestone awards would be argued to be given on air, is for recognition outside of the industry. Taylor has received plenty of placards for her tremendous record sales, they wanted the audience to know about it.
The awards shows aren’t going to improve unless country radio improves, which will be happening any moment now, I’m sure. Yeah, that New New Traditionalist movement will explode soon, very soon…
Personally, I’d love to see a small segment in these shows dedicated to Americana or alt-country — whatever you want to call it. Read off the male, female and group of the year, the album of the year, and a performance by a couple of the winners, and it wouldn’t take more than 15-20 minutes. A Hayes Carll or a Kasey Chambers/Shane Nicholson performance would have made the show much more palatable.
They’ve gotta ditch the voters-choice things, or else the Entertainer Of The Year award is going to come down to an annual popularity contest between the Carrie Underwood and Taylor Swift fan armies.
A few more veteran acts would go a long way toward adding some needed prestige to the show, which in turn would benefit the younger acts. And you can’t just keep doing fan voting for a couple of arbitrary categories — make it all of them or none of them, please.
Ok..there is a need for fan input but what about if it accounted for only 1/3 of the power? That way if their artist has the votes needed from the ACM powers, they will still win. What is the division right now? Is it all fan votes? Is there no 50-50? I think it’s the reason that Julianne Hough won top new artist as well. Next year? Definitely Taylor would win as Carrie won’t have another major tour until the following year and this year is Taylor’s major tour. It will be a given unless they change the voted somehow.
I also agree that another more successful country artist should have had Miley’s spot. They earned that spot..Miley didn’t. Also, why not have a 50-50 split of traditional performers/vs contemporary.
That “milestone” award…was stupid. It made the value Garth’s award last year worth nothing.
If they must have fan voting, why not create a new category and call the Fan’s Choice or something like that, and leave the rest of the award to the industry insiders to decide? It really does cheapen the Entertainer of the Year award to have it selected by the fans.
I don’t think the fan voting was an issue at all. What the industry feeds, the fans will eat. It still would have been a disgrace either way, in my opinion.
Tell Miley to pack her bags and go back to Hollywood. All she is doing here is becoming a marketing muse. Instead of 6,000 youtube videos being posted of Taylor, now there are 12,000 videos, 6,000 of those are Miley. The ACM’s and “country” music wanted attention, and they sure got it.
I agree with recent comments, that some alt-country, or just some real country could have been on display a little more. All of this pop, nashvegas, same ‘ol same ‘ol is getting so old! Why are people buying into that crap?
And I think there should be an age limit on dressing like teens and frosting your tips. That’s one way to keep Rascall Flatts from dominating. I am so sick of these non-artist, metrosexual, pop lounge singers winning everything.
I agree with Razor X’s “fan award” idea. Having a popular vote for an “Industry” award just cheapens the award and the organization.