Luke Combs won his second straight CMA Entertainer of the Year award in 2022 because he was an emotionally captivating and strategically sound choice.
I wonder why candidates from other countries haven’t done what candidates from my country could do, and why the heck do political candidates have to step back? Ah, this article won’t do much to answer why the winner won and why the other nominees lost, but it is as much about why the winner won as it is about why the entertainment awards winners can become breaking news.
The remaining four contenders for the 2022 CMA Entertainer of the Year accolade included Carrie Underwood, Morgan Wallen, Miranda Lambert, and Chris Stapleton. This time around, there wasn’t a clear frontrunner. The CMAs never disclose the voting outcomes, but it’s difficult to envision Combs completely surpassing Underwood, Wallen, and others.
There are three tent poles. Another artist in the No. 1 hit group dropped an album and toured. He also released an album and toured. After all, “CMAs the before night one” won the Country BMI’s Song of the Year award. All of Combs’ No. 1 hits, such as “Doin’ This” and “You” were recurrent and omnipresent. Wallen and Combs probably had the best resumes for voters who look at success in touring and streaming radio.
Recognition of the community’s pardoning must be acknowledged, regardless of agreement, as demonstrated by Wallen’s commercial triumph in 2022 and the declining number of demonstrators. Individuals can no longer assert that they are fearful of opposing him or racism. The general public remains unaware of the specific actions he has undertaken, and Wallen has not provided the kind of remorseful interview that many are seeking. However, musicians like Eric Church, whose words carry weight, and artists of diverse backgrounds such as Kane Brown and Jimmie Allen have openly declared that the “You Proof” vocalist has exerted the necessary effort. They have taken the lead in embracing his return. While some voters may have withheld their support due to his use of the N-word, it should not be perceived as an ongoing condemnation of his statements from February 2021.
Combs’ thoughts were improved when Voters simply resumed. Wallen’s presence on the radio has been truly reliable lately. His album, Dangerous, peaked 10 months ago and dropped 21 months ago. He is not in the cycle of releasing albums, and nobody has ever won their first try like Wallen did.
The man who made his family his top priorities, ranking them as number 1 and number 2, is truly someone voters just don’t know well. He is certainly not a person to be taken lightly, as he commands a significant amount of respect.
Even though previous albums commercially set the bar high, Combs proved to be an entertainer who held an edge. His album, “Year of the Album,” won the category, although it did not meet the high signal that it was expected to be. In June, she dropped “Rhinestones & Denim,” and her residency in Las Vegas was a mesmerizing spectacle. However, her eligibility for the Album of the Year closed window started after it, so technically, it shouldn’t be considered for this year. Many fans on social media were outspoken about why Underwood deserved to win, as her tour didn’t realize how many she truly deserved.
She may have won Combs when the winds shifted and felt, but she also earned a Palomino nomination for Album of the Year. Within her own record label, her second-best choice was probably Lambert, who was deserving while also being a part of this emotional argument. We can better explain this when we turn to the category that Stapleton continued to miss in.
Surely the balance shifted, having experienced recent tragedy, and she has loved everyone despite that fact, but she is deserving of the Female Vocalist of the Year and New Artist of the Year titles. Lainey Wilson’s big night is a great example of that. Recently, ACM and CMA voters have shown a tendency to vote for the best story and the candidates who have captured their hearts. It can be argued that Combs has a deserving list of accomplishments, but it could certainly be made a case that Wallen or Underwood have a better resume. There is a lot of room for debate within everything stated above.
It felt really, really good for many people to vote for Luke Combs, Wilson, Cody Johnson, and Carly Pearce, all of whom have followed the same path. Luke Combs, being one of the five nominees, has established a strong relationship with country radio through block voting, which has been instrumental in cementing his position as a top artist in the industry.
If you don’t know who he is, let me tell you that he is a man who has made his family his number one priority – and that’s not the only thing that makes him respectable. If he faced the same challenges every year, he could win this award, no doubt.
If you cannot win, do not play and do not pander. It is not pandering to recognize shows and awards that acknowledge it. She will be a favorite and she will lower her guard a bit if she notches a hit song and an album-defining nomination in 2023. The hosting and interviews are the dang thing she does, plus she does EOY. In previous years, she had a much better case, but she has never won CMA Entertainer of the Year, which angers Underwood’s fans and rightfully so.
How we perceive your music is just as important as how we perceive you. In the realm of country music, there are numerous innovative ways to introduce oneself to the country community, some of which require little surprise. I don’t want to imply that anyone should simply “deal with it,” as that would be even more insensitive. For certain artists, participating in multiple rounds of interviews can cause overwhelming anxiety. It is truly challenging to enter a room and respond to an unpredictable set of questions from journalists and radio personalities with varying levels of professionalism. Finally, I want to emphasize that this is a general observation and not directed at any particular artist: it is becoming increasingly evident.