Last week, the Country Music Association (CMA) Awards nominees were announced with many of the usual artists receiving major nominations. Morgan Wallen led the charge with seven nods including Entertainer of the Year while other major artists such as Jelly Roll and Cody Johnson received five respectively.
It’s no surprise that the biggest topic of conversation revolving around the CMAs every year is the highly-coveted Entertainer of the Year award, and this year proves no different. Despite the nominees being Luke Combs, Jelly Roll, Chris Stapleton, Morgan Wallen and Lainey Wilson, many noticed the surprisingly lack of the one-and-only Zach Bryan.
Despite selling out arenas, amphitheaters and football stadiums and putting up mammoth streaming numbers and record sales, the “Something in the Orange” singer was left off of the Entertainer of the Year nomination and only received one award for Musical Event of the Year (“I Remember Everything” feat. Kacey Musgraves).
Bobby Bones, arguably the biggest voice of country radio today, took to TikTok yesterday and sounded off on this year’s CMA Entertainer of the Year nominees, noting who he thinks the three artists that should truly be considered for EOTY are, “There really is only one tier, like a top, top tier that should be considered for that award… That tier, this year, should be [Morgan] Wallen, [Luke] Combs and Zach Bryan. That’s it.”
He then went on to note how he believes that the main reason Bryan isn’t nominated is because the CMAs are so strongly tied to Nashville and the music industry, something that the Oklahoman singer/songwriter has tried his best to distance himself from, “Zach Bryan’s not nominated. Again, that’s not surprising because it’s such an industry-nominating situation. I’m sure there’s a bunch of people are like ‘Zach Bryan doesn’t do radio shows.’ It doesn’t matter; he should be up for it.”
Bones, sporting’ a Kip M more T-shirt, pointed out how unprecedented it is for Combs, Wallen and Bryan to have this much success touring at such a young age, comparing their success to legacy acts such as Garth Brooks, “There’s three artists under the age of 40 that are selling out football stadiums, not arenas, football stadiums. When you look at Garth [Brooks], Kenny [Chesney], and they’re legendary heritage acts. And for them to sell out a stadium, again not an arena, a football stadium, 60, 70, 80, 90 thousand, and you have Wallen, Combs and Zach Bryan doing it now which is wild.”
He finished by saying that Wallen or Combs should win it if the CMAs are based in reality, “Wallen and Combs are both nominated. One of them should win it for sure, meaning if it was based on reality, not industry-ality. I’m definitely not saying anything’s rigged, I’m just saying it’s different whenever the industry votes as opposed to the fans.”
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