The Twang Has Twung

Here at JMW we are not the biggest fans of country music. So it was with much trepidation that we were made to watch last nights CMA Awards Show. What we saw both surprised and saddened us.

First, someone took the awards show and turned it into a concert. Several times there were four performances between awards presentations. While this may be a positive for country music fans, this is at heart an awards show. To compound this problem all of the performances seemed to be either lip-synced or assisted by an underlying song. So therefore there was no real difference between watching these and listening to the CD's or radio. This became evident for poor 18 year old, recent high school graduate, Taylor Swift. The technical folks seem to have left her out to dry and did not turn on her underlying song that she was to sing with. It seems she didn't know this as she sort of half sung/half mumbled a song that was cringe worthy.

This brings us to our second and main complaint after watching last night. The current crop of Country Music singers can't sing. They are all bleached blond, chiseled body, sculpted hair recording studio acts that can't sing any better than your average bum off the street. The only time more than one octave was used was if it was a mistake or if one of the old guard of country was performing. They should think about separating the two sections of country because it is embarrassing to the new singers when a 75 year old George Strait can belt out a tune that gets everyone's toes tapping and the next performance Rascal Flatts has cured the insomnia of most of the audience.

While we are not fans of country music, even we can tell the difference and ask to have more Martina McBride, George Strait, Brooks & Dunn and even more Kid Rock (somehow he became country) and less of the cookie cutters that are just pretty on the eyes. And an award every now and then on an award show would be a novel concept.