Thanks to Aaron Beck for letting us re-post his piece about last week's Country Music Awards. I didn't want you to miss it. Colin G.
Twenty years ago, today's-hot-young-country country was hilarious enough. But the new breed is taking it to Spinal Tap levels. Things I loved about last night's Country Music Awards, which - in a perfect world - would be aired for 3 hours every Wednesday night:
1) That all the aw-shucks dudes are so supernaturally clean.
Seriously, does a team of handlers power wash these fellas all day
before these shows? I mean, Vince Gill, one of the cuddliest
pop-country singers 20 yrs back, today is as threatening as a Hell's
Angel in comparison.
2) That the names of all the singers sound like characters from
General Hospital. I give you Luke Bryan, who dodged some nasty
lightning strikes last night (see photo).
3) "Outlaw" Eric Church. This guy. My God. Trying way too hard, dude.
Waylon Jennings had more "outlaw" in any one of the goddamn toes he
had amputated right before he died of "the sugar."
4) That the songs are either Spring Break Country-ish (let's go to
Cabo der der der der der) or "rockin' " a Coldplay/Bon Jovi/Journey
vein. Hilarious.
5) That an award dubbed "Entertainer of the Year" is given to someone.
Always seems like the winner of this ought to be juggling a kitten, a
chainsaw, and an apple, rather than singing lyrics written by seven song-
factory-line-workers in an office near Vanderbilt.
6) That said winner will then thank his manager at Mercury South, his
publicist, the guy who precision trims his 3-day beard, and then point
to the roof of the building and thank Jesus, who no doubt is wearing
fashion jeans and a sleeveless black T while glued to his fresh
900-inch flat screen in his new condo in a new mixed-use building in a
neighborhood full of earth-to-mouth gastropub-dive-bar concepts.
7) That the Dierks Bentley song "Drunk on a Plane" wasn't written by
Weird Al or Ray "The Streak" Stevens.
8) Florida Georgia Line! Yes! These top-shelf cornballs are a couple
clicks away from Chippendale's auditions at 2 p.m. on a Monday
afternoon in Tampa at the former Structure store in the West Shore
Plaza.
9) That rootin', tootin' Garth Brooks is still with us and possibly
could revive Chris Gaines and tour with Keith Urban.
10) That, based on all this evidence, that there's a big chance this
time next year that you'll catch my new band, Tanktop, featuring Cody
Papaw on lead vocals, performing our first sensitive-man single "You
Call Me Stupid, I Call Me Country (While Ya'll Treat Me Like That?)."