Who can figure out Kanye West. I can't, and doubtlessly Taylor Swift can't today either, especially after he accused her of riding the wave of sympathy generated by his outburst last year at an awards show. West just released a new disc "My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy" [...]

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Kenny Chesney has a good rep. He seems like a nice guy, who has obviously connected extremely well with his fans. Now, Chesney has gotten involved, unfortunately, in a difficult situation thanks to the good folks at Ticketmaster, who somehow gave out the wrong price for tickets to his June 18, [...]

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Is anyone getting tired of awards shows yet? Well probably not the record labels because the shows all help to build CD sales, such as they are these days. The American Music Awards, created by Dick Clark in 1973, were at it again Sunday. Clark is no longer involved, but he started the AMAs to [...]

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Garth Brooks is doing nine shows for charity in December to aid the victims of May's devastating floods in the Nashville area. This was not the first time that the superstar helped those in need. About four years ago, Brooks did concerts in California to help those affected by wildfires. [...]

Continue reading "Garth, StubHub and scalpers of charity gigs"

It was quite the day on Tuesday for Keith Urban as he took to the rails to push his brand new CD, "Get Closer." Urban seems to be following in the footsteps of other artists when comes to promoting their CD on release day. In fact, Urban brings Taylor Swift to mind in considering [...]

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The results are in from the Country Music Association awards from Wednesday, and it's hard to argue about with the winners. Miranda Lambert, of course, racked up three awards, and while one of her songs - The House That Built Me - earned the songwriters an award for Song of the Year. Blake [...]

Continue reading "CMA results: no arguments here"

About the only big surprise of the CMA Awards Wednesday was that Blake Shelton won Male Vocalist over the likes of Brad Paisley, Keith Urban and George Strait (Dierks Bentley also was nominated, but I thought he had even less of a chance than Shelton). It proved to be a great night for [...]

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The performance of Gwyneth Paltrow at the Country Music Association awards Wednesday was a big deal. So much so that ABC kept hyping her appearance to sing the title track of her forthcoming movie "Country Strong." Paltrow is an actress, not a singer. Marriage to Coldplay lead [...]

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The biggest award of the night at the Country Music Association awards, of course, is the final one - the Entertainer of the Year. Voters had a chance to pick from among Lady Antebellum, Miranda Lambert, Brad Paisley, Zac Brown Band and Keith Urban. Last year's winner, Taylor Swift, was [...]

Continue reading "CMA Awards: the final prognostication (part 6) Entertainer"

Figuring out who may win Country Music Association awards is never easy. Some of the categories are far easier - you know Steel Magnolia is not going to win the Vocal Duo Award. Ditto for all those years the Warren Brothers were nominated for awards. It just wasn't going to happen. No way. No [...]

Continue reading "CMA Awards: more prognosticating (part 5) Male Vocalist Award"

Forget about all the recent hoopla surrounding Taylor Swift and the big sales and marketing push behind "Speak Now." That will not make any difference, of course, when it comes to whether she wins a Country Music Association award tonight. But Swift has enjoyed a lot of success in the [...]

Continue reading "CMA Awards: prognostication continues (part 4) - female vocalist"

The hunch here is that Lady Antebellum will take Album of the Year honors with "Need You Now," which came out in January. That would be due to the increasing popularity of the trio rather than the hit-or-miss quality of the CD. There are some strong songs, particularly the title track, [...]

Continue reading "CMA Awards: the great prognosticator (part 3) - album of the year"

When it comes to the Country Music Association awards for Single of the Year and Song of the Year, I would suspect that many fans out there aren't sure exactly what the difference is between the two. The former is for an individual song only, while the Song of the Year goes to the [...]

Continue reading "CMA Awards: the maybe not so great prognosticator (part 2)"

It's time to play prognosticator, something I don't tend to do very much. So with the Country Music Association awards happening tomorrow night, let's take a stab at some of the awards. The Vocal Group Award honor will be from among Zac Brown Band, Little Big Town, Rascal Flatts [...]

Continue reading "CMA Awards: the great prognosticator (Part 1)"

One of the annual rites of the country calendar - the Country Music Association awards - are coming your way Wednesday night. So whether Miranda Lambert will rack up a lot of awards to match or come close to the amount of nominations she received (nine) is obviously debatable, but I am concerned [...]

Continue reading "CMAs: shtick or music rules?"

Garth Brooks hasn't played in Nashville since 1998 amazingly enough, but the country superstar, who spends a chunk of time in Vegas these days, is coming back to the country music capitol. Brooks is playing nine shows in December to benefit the flood victims of May's terrible [...]

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To say life has been good for Taylor Swift would be a huge understatement. She probably could not have wished for much more out of the release of "Speak Now," her fourth disc, which came out last week. To no big surprise, the release, which has garnered probably the best [...]

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