Alright, so a mere couple of weeks ago I showed up here and declared that there were, ultimately, too many country music awards. And I gave some reasons why. But what about the specific awards programs, themselves? Well, this is a year where I’m going to get to them.

Except the CMT awards, which I’ve already skipped and which are awful.

In the previous writeup, I mentioned that the reason this proliferation is happening is that these things appear to work: Amazon is remaining in the “putting these on the air” business¹, which I can only assume meant that whatever they were going for, they accomplished². As a result, they’re sticking basically to what works, making only minor changes to the program, mainly to allow for a wider field of new artists. They also added a rule that if the nominees in a field fail to meet a minimum threshold of nominees (three), they will be put up for elimination by the powers that eliminate. 

¹ which switcheroo necessitated the chain of dominoes that ends in NBC re-entering the field with the People’s Choice Country Awards in the first place
² I can’t imagine what that was, but also I find just about every business decision related to streaming events to be just about impenetrable. 

That said, they have made one other change: they have gone back to the well of Reba as host. Maybe they’re hoping that she’ll bring everyone chicken fingers. Maybe they’re trying to annoy NBC, who would probably have wanted her around for their country music awards show, given their involvement in rebooting her sitcom³.

³ what a dreadful fucking planet to have to live on. 

By the time you read this, they’ll have already given out the radio awards. The performers have been announced but, honestly, you don’t need to know who they are. You’re not going to watch this anyway. 

Music Event of the Year
Also, we start off easy here: it’s “I Remember Everything.” Not even going to waste an Eric Church joke here⁴ 

THE RIGHTFUL WINNER: Zach Bryan & Kacey Musgraves, “I Remember Everything” 

⁴ this is the only category he’s nominated in, as a feature on Morgan Wallen’s “Man Made a Bar”. I’d credit that to him not releasing anything last year, but I’ve also seen the group categories and know that that isn’t stopping them anywhere else. 

Visual Media of the Year
A very silly thing to call a category, and a very silly category in which to nod to Tyler Childers, but I’ll take it anyway.

THE RIGHTFUL WINNER: Tyler Childers, “In Your Love”

Songwriter of the Year
I often have to consider this award in terms of “who wrote the least-terrible songs”, and in that case it’s far and away Jessie Jo Dillon. 

THE RIGHTFUL WINNER: Jessie Jo Dillon

Artist-Songwriter of the Year
See, they give it to an artist who also writes his own songs. Because they’re, fundamentally, a radio organization, it remains funny that they’ve nominated Zach Bryan for anything at all, but I believe in aphorisms, and most especially the ones about gift horses.

THE RIGHTFUL WINNER: Zach Bryan

New Duo/Group of the Year
Up there in the article about the rules, it points out that there is now a three-nominee minimum for a category to exist, so it looks like we’re squeaking in just under the wire. We are in a particularly solo artist-focused time here in mainstream country music⁵, and I can see that we’re letting so few groups through the gate that the pickings are pretty thin. 

THE RIGHTFUL WINNER: Tigerlily Gold 

⁵ an often solo artist-focused genre to begin with

New Male Artist of the Year
I kind of like that “Wildfire” song. It was, like, forever ago, but I liked it, so I suppose since rules mean nothing and words have no content, let’s give it to Nate Smith.

THE RIGHTFUL WINNER: Nate Smith

New Female Artist of the Year
I wonder if there’s a way to bet on any of these people making literally any other appearance at one of these things? I would like to place some bets, is what I am saying.

THE RIGHTFUL WINNER: Kylie Morgan

Song of the Year
“Fast Car” forever, honestly. Not much to add.

THE RIGHTFUL WINNER: Tracy Chapman, “Fast Car” 

Single of the Year
Every time it comes up, I want to make a distinction between thinking “Fast Car” is a great song and thinking the Luke Combs version is merely ok, but here we are again, and it’s the case that it’s the best of this batch anyway.

THE RIGHTFUL WINNER: Luke Combs, “Fast Car”

Duo of the Year
BROOKS & DUNN?! Oh jesus take the wheel.

THE RIGHTFUL WINNER: The War and Treaty

Group of the Year
You must explain to me how this isn’t the result of some extremely generous fudging of activity and eligibility dates, because man, I’ve got some questions about just what, exactly, some of these folks are here nominated for.

THE RIGHTFUL WINNER: Flatland Cavalry, who are new to this sort of thing, and who are, while not great, precisely, at least ok. The ok-est group in all of mainstream country, that’s what we’ve got here. Mostly. 

Male Artist of the Year
Oh man, it’s been so long since I wrote one of these, I forgot that I probably haven’t lodged any official complaints about CoJo! Well, there’s still two more of these this year. I’m sure it’ll come up. 

THE RIGHTFUL WINNER: Chris Stapleton, Higher

Female Artist of the Year
For the first time in a couple of decades, neither Carrie Underwood nor Miranda Lambert is in this category. What an occasion.

THE RIGHTFUL WINNER: Kacey Musgraves, who would have won anyway

Album of the Year
Barf barf barf barf barf.

THE RIGHTFUL WINNER: Chris Stapleton, Higher

Entertainer of the Year
So one of the more important features shared by the ACM and the CMA awards are that they crown someone the “entertainer” full stop, as a way of acknowledging, say, really well-done tours or whatever. It’s a very good idea! It sort of needs to be bound by genre to work effectively, but I must say that, after all this, I genuinely like it, at least theoretically. Not, like, practically. In point of fact most of this is quite unentertaining, really. 

THE RIGHTFUL WINNER: I mean, I am more entertained qua entertained by Jelly Roll than any of the rest of these people. He seems fun!

I don’t use this space as a personal, feelings-type blog very often, and I’m not going to start now.

You think, every time, that this is going to have been the last time that the death of someone you know as a famous person will stop being viscerally upsetting. And, well, mostly it is, right? Mostly it’s different. There’s just not space in there for the kinds of things that used to be important in that way, or you just don’t put that much of yourself into a relationship with someone you’ve never met. Either way. 

But Steve Albini got in there (my head, I mean) when there was lots of space. He represented a lot of things to me over the years, some specifically biographical, some that were awfully personal, but mostly, the same things that he meant to everyone else: that you could, in fact, live your life by defining success yourself, and living up to it. That you didn’t have to do things a certain way just because that was how you were told to do them. 

Most importantly, that your opinions only really have to make sense to you, that you don’t have to substitute anyone else’s judgment for your own, and that the best way not to be associated with something is not to be associated with something. Recently (and, as much-noted in the obituaries that are already flying pretty quick) he’s also made soemthing of an exemplar of being willing to confront and deal with the mistakes he made in the past (especially related to a particularly nasty sense of humor and a callousness about the actual harm that jokes can do to people¹), and to make whatever effort necessary to change that this required. 

¹ see above w/r/t “specifically biographical” if you’d like to connect a dot, here. 

Oh, and that contracts are a fucking scam that only protect the interests of the party with more money, but that could probably also be classed as “pretty narrowly specific.

Anyway, this is particularly devastating, is what I’m saying. And, like most deaths of people who were important in communities to which I belong, I feel like I don’t have a tonne to say about it that hasn’t been pretty well covered by others. 

But it’s important to like the things that you like. Steve taught us that, also. The two benefits of Albini interviews were that you could probably find out about a band you’ve never heard of, and you can probably wildly disagree with him about a band he doesn’t like², and that means liking them the way you like them and, well. 

² I’m wearing a t-shirt celebrating the band Fucked Up as I type this. 

And, thus, it is important to say: thanks, Steve.  

Shabaka – Perceive its Beauty, Acknowledge its Grace (it’s like if you imagine if, when Michael Jordan left basketball to work off a suspension for gambling pursue his passion for baseball, he had actually been super-great at playing baseball, also. Only much quieter.)

James Elkington & Nathan Salsburg – All Gist (every time they make an album together, I’m astonished at how good they are at this)

Big Brave – A Chaos of Flowers (there, see? There’s still loud stuff in there.)

Oren Ambarchi, Johan Berthling, Andreas Werliin – Ghosted II (Did you know that all that stuff Oren Ambarchi is doing, he’s doing with a guitar? Wild!)

Metz – Up On Gravity Hill (sometimes I like things that just aren’t that complicated)

A decade ago, a once-venerable institution of fast-casual dining, formerly owned by Darden, went through hard times, and I helped them by explaining their menu to them. Now another former Darden property is hitting the skids, and I must confess, I am more at a loss to be helpful, especially given the circumstances. Nevertheless, I am able to comfort, so let’s examine what we’ve got here. 

Red Lobster is, and there’s no way around this, in some real trouble. They are doing all of the things that you’d expect a company that was about to file bankruptcy to do, from hiring a CEO that specializes in running companies about to file for bankruptcy, and getting advice from a law firm that deals heavily in such things, trying to shed some leases and onerous contracts, all the way to such classic signs as losing lots of money, losing a key investor, and not being able to pay their dang bills.¹

¹ really, it seems like this last one should be taking up more of the conversational space than it is, you know?

And that is that, I suppose. That’s how things go in the society we’ve built, giants rise and giants fall, and corporate restaurants often choose to bow to winds that you wouldn’t think would take them down². But then the reportage started to take on a tone. It turns out I wasn’t conceptualizing what a monumental miscarriage of justice had been undertaken here. 

² I will take this opportunity to note that this isn’t like when I did this for Applebee’s or Cracker Barrel. I don’t think I’ve ever chosen to go to Red Lobster on my own, but I’ve had a good time every time I’ve been there more or less, and as recently as, like, ten months ago. I also did my part by not ordering even one single shrimp at that time, but we’ll get there. 

The tentpole of the reporting here comes from the Bloomberg article linked as “in some real trouble,” and if you click on it, you’ll see reasons cited from labor costs³ and supply chain issues, to the seemingly-much-more-salient problems with their leases⁴ and their, you know, general existence as a restaurant in 2024. But that’s not where the folks helping guide further reporters steered them. No sir, the cause of the demise of Red Lobster was the shrimp. The endless shrimp. 

³ a familiar bugaboo that is total bullshit, but separately from the rest of this
⁴ which itself stems from a decision they made a decade ago to sell off the land their stores were on, a risky cash-generating move that in this case very much turned out to be a mistake. But of course, that mistake would rely on them actually blaming their own management, and why would they do that when there’s a perfectly good opportunity to blame the customer? Keep reading. 

At this point, it becomes the only thing anyone wants to focus on, and, to be clear: it is a boondoggle. Just a real dang-ol’ disaster. They decided to offer their endless shrimp⁵ as a permanent, forever menu item, and then the losses, which were at double digits before they made the decision, suddenly increased with rapidity, even as traffic itself went up. Like, to the point where the CEO of Thai Union⁶ said they “knew the price was cheap, but the idea was to bring more traffic in the restaurants…and it didn’t work.”

⁵ shrimp! Without end! An endless, mind-bending stream of shrimp!
⁶ mentioned above as the key investor that got chased off

Indeed it did not. Perhaps our fella should have learned the only business lesson it would be possible to learn from Tony Wilson. Or perhaps, alternately, a company that was in a position to be desperate enough to make that kind of call wasn’t in good enough business shape to try much of anything, and it’s very easy to scapegoat the customers for taking full advantage of their corporate providers by demanding unceasing shrimp. The shrimp whose limits cannot be comprehended by man. 

Or woman or neither, honestly. There’s no reason to gender who would fail to comprehend the limits of the shrimp. 

So anyway, the moment someone decided to blame the customers for failing to order non-shrimp-related items, all the stuff about how, like, they only want to charge rent and not pay it, or their business requires them to not pay people in order to be profitable⁷ or, like, how they attributed their entire Q3 and Q4 losses to the shrimp and not to whatever caused them to lose an enormous amount of money before that point⁸, it was open season on the customer, for failing to eat at Red Lobster correctly,⁹ and only gluttonously desiring shrimp without end, amen, amen.  

⁷ which is, of course, what people mean when they bitch about “labor costs”, which also features in some of the coverage.
⁸ I get that the shrimp didn’t help, but see above w/r/t the position of the business, and also bear in mind that the sort of “excess” amount is, at face value, something more like $5-6 million, assuming losses only held steady at where they were at, and you start to see why it is not, in fact, the fucking shrimp. 
⁹ in fact, with brass balls: “something which was different from our expectation is the proportion of the people selecting these promotions was much higher compared to expectation” 

But, fair enough: nobody can look at even the least-favorable numbers there and deny that we, the Red-Lobster-ing proletariat are, in part, to blame, for not understanding that in order for there to be an end to the expense, there must be an end to the shrimp. But, I ask them, what if this Squillan bacchanal was, in fact, not the worst-case scenario?

What if they could save face by considering that, in fact, it could have been worse? Picture with me: a world where Red Lobster had offered any of their other sea meats for the consumption of the public in all of their unspeakable appetites. 

And so, despite having already done my part for the Powers that Lobster¹⁰, here I will also provide that comfort, with a list of the other Red Lobster meats, in order from most to least disastrous.

¹⁰ once more, by not eating the shrimp in the first place

I’m also ignoring sides: that would be its own big swing, and would work different. I’ve also ignored all the stuff they already offer all you can eat (to wit: shrimp and biscuits), as well as all the stuff they used to offer all you can eat (soup and salad, if ordered that way specifically) because clearly this has already been attempted. In that spirit, I have also ignored currently-extant menu items that involve, say, varieties of shrimp that are already disqualified (the parrot shrimp salad, the crispy dragon shrimp). I have, then, further eliminated anything that would be conceptually absurd (bowls mostly)¹¹. I have also separated out variations on a single meat when it made sense to (the steaks are fundamentally different questions, as are the lobster preparations). 

¹¹ although it must be noted that while “lobster” is included, I could find no way to work “lobster flatbread” in there, so while the funniest thing to imagine is the poor waitstaff trying to figure out how to cook these, presumably in the same oven as the cheddar bay biscuits which are, famously, not in fact big enough to accommodate the suffering. I love it. But it doesn’t work for our purposes here. 

And that’s it!

6 oz Filet Mignon
It’s boring, but man would this sure have been a bad idea.

Lobster Tails
Or, as the menu only ever calls them, “Classic Maine” lobster tails, obviously this is also a bad idea. See how far you guys are ahead of the worst case scenario?

Sea Scallops
They’re only available grilled, no less!

Atlantic Salmon
The prospect of having to eat all the cooked salmon¹² someone else could eat makes me sad. I would, however, eat however much raw salmon they were willing to hand me. Well, probably not 

Red Lobster’s salmon but like. You get it.

¹² having said that, I think the New Orleans salmon might be the thing I got last time I was there? I contain multitudes, let me tell you. 

Snow Crab
I mean, the presence of “Garlic Butter” and “Honey Sriracha” options makes this sensible, if obviously cost-prohibitive.

12 oz Grilled Strip
There are more strip steaks per cow than filets mignon, certainly, but we’re still talking about an expensive all you can eat item. 

Rainbow Trout
We’re really just running through relatively-expensive proteins here

Bacon Cheeseburger
It would be disastrous for a bunch of reasons, not the least of which is the time it takes to make an individual burger. This wins the award for most conceptually hilarious choice.

Roasted Caribbean Rock Lobster
I have a fun idea: let’s not make a B-52s joke this time!

Creamy Lobster
All-you-can-eat-creamy lobster! Consider the lobsterbilities! Specifically the creamy ones! Creamy!

Stuffed Flounder
If they offered it in combination with the crispy flounder as an option, it still wouldn’t move what a terrible idea this would be

7 oz Sirloin
I mean, isn’t this what Golden Corral already gives away all the time? It’s a pain to cook, certainly.

Shrimp 
I mean honestly you guys are here, you know? That’s about the cheapest it could get and still have options enough to not just be shooting fried fish at people out of a firehose. See, this is also how we know it wasn’t the fucking shrimp. In case you wanted another argument there. 

Hand-Breaded Calamari
Tis a consummation devoutly to be wished

Clam
Clams only appear on the menu in the form of strips (and chowder, technically), which does sort of limit the variety a bit

Crispy Flounder
Separated from the stuffed flounder by dint of the latter being such a markedly different situation. We’re in the basically-interchangeable “fried seafood” part of the menu

Cod
See? This would just be straight-up “fish fry” territory, since cod is only on the menu as the “fish” component of the “fish and chips”

Chicken
I’m genuinely surprised that there aren’t more “endless chicken fingers” situations. I suppose there’s a good reason, but I’ll be darned if I know what it is, and I certainly don’t think it can be attributed (the reason that is, given that it’s a good one) to Red Lobster’s decisions, so maybe they should try it? I mean, they also have grilled chicken. This doesn’t seem like a terrible idea.

Langostino
It’s in the dip and on the lobster flatbread¹³, and you could just get like, a bowl of it I guess? with lemon or something? A fritter? Individual uh…nuggets? Get mayonnaise involved or something? Might taste good on a biscuit? Very financially doable, though.

¹³ hey, I got to mention it after all!

Bay Scallops
On the one hand, this would be pretty easy to provide. On the other hand, I’m pretty much already eating all the bay scallops I can eat as we speak¹⁴?

¹⁴ or at least all that I care to eat, by which I mean: none. 

Mussels
I mean, god, they’re like eight cents a pound, I bet you could talk a waiter into bringing you extra orders of mussels like, as it is. They’re only allowed to have three tables. They’ll bring you all kinds of stuff if you tip enough. Maybe order an extra lobsterita¹⁵.  

¹⁵ do not do this

Lobster Dip/Crab Queso
I put it to you: this would, in fact, rule. all you can eat dips! Why are they not doing this! Red Lobster I am giving you this idea for free!

2024 was always going to be a momentous year, with two separate major wars threatening to converge into a wider one, a United States presidential election that could, in fact, be a worst-case-scenario level disaster, and various and sundry other major-league portents related to the hability of the Earth being just about at an end and people generally not being able to live under all sorts of these conditions. And, more importantly for our purposes here, we have four fucking country music awards shows.

Four of them.

Four. 

Now, it really is the case that there have been three country music awards¹ since 1967, with the addition of the awards-granting program that is, currently, the CMT Awards². This is, also, too many country music awards, but given that I spent all of 1967 waiting for my parents to fully enter puberty so they could eventually meet and etc., I was not particularly aware of the conditions under which the Music City News Awards, as they were then called, entered the world. 

¹ I’ll get to a “major” vs. “minor” distinction in a bit, but will limit this footnote to saying that the “major” status of several of these awards changed over time as various entities were in control of various version of various programming over the course of several different (one might even say “various”) media, and that I’m not going to get into a detailed history of the whole thing in the step-by-step way it would take to keep track of how seriously to take any given awards situation at any given moment, especially in this particular field. 
² addendum to FN1: since you, the reader, are aware that there were not music videos in 1967, and that CMT is itself a late-coming nineties-borne addition to the MTV family of products, you can perhaps start to see how the field of country music awards-granting presentations gets confusing and anachronistic in a dang-ol’ hurry. 

But I sure was here when the People’s Choice Country Awards arrived and muddied the waters. Or, like, cluttered the field of streaming services and, ultimately (although probably not most importantly), the table of contents of this website. 

On the one hand, it seems to make sense. Everything in the record-selling world is currently bending toward the waters of mainstream country music. Even several of our nation’s largest pop stars are making inroads (or, in at least one case, splashy outroads) into the field, and clearly if television broadcasting entities are interested, then there’s got to be money there. The way the industry itself is currently arranged, at least in terms of its outward-facing reporting, it is basically impossible to know what the actual revenues are, or even where they’re actually coming from, but it’s apparent that being in the country music business is, if not outright lucrative enough to keep everyone happy, apparently tempting enough for people to keep trying. 

Or really just NBC to keep trying, because that’s where we really are here. It was always the case that the CMA’s and the ACM’s³ were the sort of Coke and Pepsi of the situation, with the CMTs as a sort of lagger in the field⁴. And now the PCCAs are sort of positioned down with CMT awards, and now we have a fun little dichotomy where there’s two of them that matter (or that someone wants us to believe matter) and two that cannot possibly matter and, frankly, that’s where things can get interesting. 

³ it is worth perusing the wikipedia page for the ACM awards to see just what a shitshow they often devolve into being, and to marvel at how, in fact, this might be the one we don’t need. 
⁴ even though the ACM Awards started one year before the program now known as the CMT awards. My first inclination is to think this is silly, but it’s worth remembering that I also actively skipped them this year, because they are stupid. 

Or they could get interesting, if something were to change.  it’s hard not to notice how these things, and mainstream country music in general, feature a very, very small pool of nominees, even for their own awards. So how different can they be, really? It’s all a pretty closed-in system, where the same handful of names are shuffled around back and forth in an official-seeming arrangement of publicity-sharing⁵. It’s all pretty boring, and it’s hard to imagine what could make any of it work as a televisual spectacle.

⁵ I don’t mean to imply any more conspiracy here than necessary, I just think that when you’re only coordinating a tiny number of artists and their attendant releases, as the mainstream country industry is doing, it’s a lot easier to coordinate around what everyone else is doing. Honestly, the ability to not interrupt other people’s publicity in increasingly petty ways is a favorite tactic of Taylor Swift, who provides the current template for pop country stardom, maybe they’re just trying to head copycat pettiness off at the pass. 

Luckily that hidebound narrowness, about which I have little to say except disapproval most of the time, is the thing that might make this possible. What if we level the playing field, let everyone stand on the merits of their award-granting, and decide if we do, in fact, need four of these things. They⁶ have several categories, and lots of history (except the one that doesn’t and the one that’s always sucked), so we can get in there and really get to the bottom of just what it is, exactly, we are doing here. 

⁶ look, also this is true for most music awards shows, and certainly I could go through anything and look for these redundancies and point out that we have too many awards shows and, in its way, it’s kind of the whole entire thing I’m doing here, but work with me here. 

Entertainer of the Year
(at the People’s Choice Country Awards this category is called The People’s Artist, because that’s how the People’s Choice folks title things. The CMT awards don’t give out awards for artists, only videos, so we’ve already broken the premise, here.⁷)

WHO WON LAST YEAR: Lainey Wilson (CMA), Chris Stapleton (ACM), Morgan Wallen (PCCA)

WHO DID THEY BEAT: Well, all three were up for CMAs, and at least two for each of the other two. Also, everybody except Wallen had to beat Carrie Underwood, the sort of dynastic champion here. Morgan Wallen came in ahead of Zach Bryan, but I already mentioned my feelings about that at the time. 

ANYTHING TO ADD?: I actually think that the CMT awards not having artist categories bolsters my belief that the reason all of this is the way it is is because someone is intentionally trying to make sure that nobody interferes with anyone else’s publicity cycle. I developed this theory a handful of paragraphs ago, and now I’m running with it. 

WHO WAS RIGHTEST?: In a way, the CMT awards were right, because all of this is pretty bad. That said, Laney Wilson and Chris Stapleton are better than the usual faire, but also nobody except the PCCAs nominated Zach Bryan, and then they went the wrong way with it anyway, so we’re not coming particularly close to “right”, here. 

⁷ It’s my premise, I’ll break it if I want. So there. 

Female Artist
(“Female Vocalist of the Year” at the ACMs, and I’m including “Female Video of the Year” from the CMT awards)

WHO WON: Lainey Wilson. Four times. 

WHO DID SHE BEAT: She didn’t, notably, defeat Carrie Underwood at the ACM or CMA awards in this category, despite having to do so in order to be Entertainer of the Year. I’m sure that makes sense to someone. 

ANYTHING TO ADD?: Genuinely, the way these lists are shuffled among the, like, twelve people total that are allowed to be on tv in this genre is insane. 

WHO WAS RIGHTEST?: I think that Lainey Wilson was basically the correct choice all four times, of the options presented, but there’s no way I could all any of that “right”

Male Artist
(“Male Vocalist of the Year” at the ACMs, and I’m including “Male Video of the Year” from the CMT Awards)

WHO WON: Chris Stapleton (CMA), Morgan Wallen (ACM), Jelly Roll (CMT, PCCA)

WHO DID THEY BEAT: Morgan Wallen beat Jelly Roll for People’s Overall Blah Blah, and did not do so in the gendered categories. I’ll go ahead and blame the war on woke or whatever. 

ANYTHING TO ADD?: I mean honestly, nowhere are these things more transparently about trying to get people that the home audience will recognize on tv than when granting winners that goddammit are not even internally consistent⁸

WHO WAS RIGHTEST?: Oh, the Morgan Wallen vs. Jelly Roll decision makes this one real easy to call for the CMAs, and Chris Stapleton. 

⁸ ALL I’M SAYING is that if you’re the best of the entirety of a set, you must also, necessarily, be the best of any given subset of that set. We aren’t going to give the NBA championship to Denver, and then also give Boston the “Championship for a city I don’t ever want to drive in again” award. It’s got to be Denver for both things. 

New Artist
(“New Artist of the Year” at the CMA, “The New Artist” at the PCCA, and one each for male and female at the CMT and ACM awards)

WHO WON: Jelly Roll (CMA, PCCA & CMT), Hailey Whitters (ACM), Zach Bryan (ACM), Megan Moroney (CMT)

WHO DID THEY BEAT: I mean, everyone who isn’t Zach Bryan (or a lady) up there beat Zach Bryan except for with the CMTs (obviously)

ANYTHING TO ADD? I mean, it means the only person that actually beat Zach Bryan as such is Jelly Roll, but he seems like a nice guy and I probably don’t need to keep pointing out that I don’t like his music. 

WHO WAS RIGHTEST?: The ACM Awards for correctly choosing Zach Bryan when given the opportunity.

Song of the Year
(the CMA and ACM awards give one each for song and single, but for both awards it’s the same song in this case, so there’s really only four winners total. Also I’m just using the “video of the year” category for the CMTs)

WHO WON: “Fast Car” (both for Luke Combs and Tracy Chapman at the CMAs), Cole Swindell’s “She Had Me at Heads Carolina” (ACM), Jelly Roll’s “Need a Favor” (PCCA), Kane Brown and Katelyn Brown’s “Thank God”

WHO DID THEY BEAT: Most of them actively beat HARDY, and you all know how much I love it when HARDY doesn’t win things, so I’m a little more buoyant about this category than I usually am. 

ANYTHING TO ADD?: The song categories are also being sort of breezed past because they’re the place where all of these things shake out the worst: a half-dozen songs you’ve already heard a squillion times, that all sound identical because they’re all produced the same way by the same set of people. Well, it’s all just the worst, I tell you. 

WHO WAS RIGHTEST?: The CMAs. “Fast Car” sounds good when just about anyone at all sings it. It’s a genuinely all-time great song. 

Album of the Year
(Called The Album of 2023 by the PCCA)

WHO WON: Lainey Wilson, except at the PCCA where it was Morgan Wallen

WHO DID THEY BEAT: Well, Morgan Wallen beat Lainey Wilson, Lainey Wilson beat Morgan Wallen, and really this is the problem. In a sea of the same names, the same people make the same decision about the same music all the same time. 

ANYTHING TO ADD?: For all that, this category seems to have the most fluidity, probably owing to publicity cycles and all that. Once again. Because it is a conspiracy. 

WHO WAS RIGHTEST?: Oh, any of the Lainy Wilson ones are probably closer to being right than the PCCAs, which is just about where all of this goes.

So what did we learn here? Well, not a whole lot we didn’t already know. It’s impossible to trust any of these awards-granting bodies any further than I can throw them. Examining how they grant awards really just shows you that the PCCA are staking out the part of the culture wars that still embraces Morgan Wallen, that nobody could possibly care about the CMT awards, and that whatever the ACM and CMA awards are competing with each other for, it doesn’t matter to anyone but them.

In short: there is not enough content allowed into the mainstream country world to sustain even one non-boring telecast, let alone four, and my suggestion is in fact, to shut the whole thing down and start over from scratch.

Thank you for your time. 

I’ve mentioned previously¹ that one of the primary things I’m doing here, at least in terms of award shows, is keeping track of the ways in which the megacorporations that own the entertainment concerns that are in charge of making things popular are failing to do so. Mainly I do this through the vector of awards, but also occasionally through charts and, once a year, through rounding up as many superhero movies as I know enough about to have feelings, and then judging them. 

¹ “About” page coming (probably) sometime in 2024, thirteen years into the existence of the goddamned website

And so I feel it’s appropriate, here, to say: I think this whole superhero business is officially on the wane as the dominant mode of cinematic entertainment. Oh, who knows how long that decline will last², but we’re probably heading into it. Marvel is too bloated, DC is trying again to completely relaunch everything, scattered other things are out there trying to exist and mostly looking dumb, and, basically, the same fatigue and overexposure are chasing people out of the superhero-entertainment market in the twenties as did so in the nineties³.

² and really, if the most obvious predecessor, the western, is an indication, it’ll never really actually go away
³ the parallels to where superhero movies are at now and where superhero comics were at in the nineties is a matter of later, and more in-depth discussion. 

And, of course, I, like a bunch of other people, endured all of this, and the subsequent fallow period where superheroes were stupid again, and still stuck around, so I’ll probably be there after all this is over, too.

Maybe at that point I can finally get around to writing about comics here. 

Anyway. Onward.

The Authority
WHAT IT IS: The comic is the result of DC buying Jim Lee’s Wildstorm imprint and salvaging this team – yet another group of bloodthirsty antiheroes that will totally murderize people in order to save them or whatever. It’s probably the most surprising of the movies announced as the first part of James Gunn’s vision for the DC movie universe.

WHY YOU SHOULD BE EXCITED: The Authority has a lot of fans, due largely to runs by Warren Ellis⁴ and Mark Millar, and it’s better than most of its “murder-happy rag-tag group of base invaders” contemporaries by being, generally, more clever. So there’s a lot there to start with, especially when you consider that it’s also James Gunn’s primary mode of superhero storytelling. 

⁴ it is my least favorite Warren Ellis comic book, unless it’s Planetary. Or his James Bond comics. I’ve never read those, they might be awful (plus: I hate James Bond to begin with). 

BUT I’M WAFFLING BECAUSE: Well, we have no idea who is involved with it, what it will entail, or how it will come to entail any person or whatever. There’s no reason not to be excited if it’s something you’d like, but I’m not going to bother having a single damn feeling about it until I know who’s involved. 

Avengers 5
WHAT IT IS: Well, it’s no longer called Kang Dynasty, on account of Jonathan Majors’ legal troubz. 

WHY YOU SHOULD BE EXCITED: I reckon this is when we’re going to get an idea about who is going to replace Kang as the over-villain of the MCU at this point. The smart money is on Dr. Doom, but there’s a lot to like about Galactus as well. We didn’t really get enough Adam Warlock for it to be the Magus, but that’ll always be my long-shot preference⁵. Anyway, it’ll probably be basically fine in the way that most Avengers movies are. 

⁵ one of the many things we will have lost when we lost Kang is an ability to recreate the truly bonkers Jim Starlin Infinity War subplot that is basically a Kang/Doom buddy heist plot. Nobody had more fun than Jim Starlin. 

BUT I’M WAFFLING BECAUSE: There is, undeniably, an air of fatigue about the whole thing, and I think it would help if they’d quit assembly-lining these things out so quickly, and that’s not going to happen. So basically it’s probably going to be fun to watch, but it’s very difficult to get actually excited about it. And, really, a couple of the Avengers movies are actively not good as it is. 

Avengers: Secret Wars
WHAT IT IS: The sequel to the above movie

WHY YOU SHOULD BE EXCITED: Because maybe even if Avengers 5: Actually the Villain is The Owl is bad, this could be redemption!

BUT I’M WAFFLING BECAUSE: Again, this is so far out and behind so many veils that it’s hard to feel much of anything at all. 

The Batman: Part II
WHAT IT IS: This has officially been declared an “Elseworld” story to the mainline DC situation, so that’s fun. It’s the sequel to the Batman, which, of course, also already contained its own sequel. 

WHY YOU SHOULD BE EXCITED: The Batman was so good, and Matt Reeves hasn’t dropped very many balls to date. It also might have a Joker in it. People get excited about that shit. 

BUT I’M WAFFLING BECAUSE: The Batman was a whole-ass movie too long, and I’m not convinced that anyone involved has learned restraint. 

Blade
WHAT IT IS: So, one of the things contributing to the current disintegration of the superhero cinema hegemony is that Sony has no fucking clue what to do with their Spider-Man-less Spider-Properties. But they’re going to try. 

WHY YOU SHOULD BE EXCITED: Hey man, Blade worked as a movie back when no superhero movie was worth watching. Mahershala Ali is great even in stuff that isn’t great, a quality he shares with Wesley Snipes. There’s no reason not to believe that there’s just something about Blade that works on film. Plus, the Venom movies are kind of fun. Maybe it’ll be at least as good as those!

BUT I’M WAFFLING BECAUSE: I mean, that up there represents just about all of the reasons to look forward to this one, and it ain’t much. 

The Brave and the Bold
WHAT IT IS: Another Batman! Like, a different one! A totally different Batman, this one in the “Real” DC Universe, who thus (thanks to The Flash) has nothing to do with any other Batman! Also Robin! 

WHY YOU SHOULD BE EXCITED: We haven’t had an actual live-action Robin in forever⁶. That’s…something. 

⁶ sorry again, Joseph Gordon Levitt

BUT I’M WAFFLING BECAUSE: So. Many. Batmans. 

Captain America: Brave New World
WHAT IT IS: Sam Wilson’s big-screen debut as Captain America, and the movie that will drag Harrison Ford reluctantly mumbling into the MCU. 

WHY YOU SHOULD BE EXCITED: Ford is playing Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross, and that’s going to tie Captain America into the Thunderbolts another, less-necessary way⁷. Plus, you know, I like Anthony Mackie and I’m happy he gets to do this. 

⁷ U.S. Agent was already introduced in the Falcon and the Winter Soldier tv show. We didn’t need another way

BUT I’M WAFFLING BECAUSE: It’ll probably be fine, but I suppose there’s an awful lot of dang characters going on, and one of them is uh…The Leader, so that’s….bad. I mean, maybe it’ll be fine. But it’s probably not. 

The Crow
WHAT IT IS: A remake of my (probably) favorite movie. 

WHY YOU SHOULD BE EXCITED: I guess if the thing you like about The Crow is the face paint, this is the movie for you.

BUT I’M WAFFLING BECAUSE: I’m not waffling. I’m not interested. 

Deadpool & Wolverine
WHAT IT IS: The third Deadpool movie, and the first post-MCU movie with any of the characters that had formerly belonged to Fox in it. 

WHY YOU SHOULD BE EXCITED: I mean, mutants in the MCU is a reason to be excited in general. The Deadpool movies are good, largely because they’re low-key enough to sort of get away with a lot more. It’s easy to get excited about it. 

BUT I’M WAFFLING BECAUSE: It’s under some new creative leadership (the guy that directed Free Guy is directing this), but it remains to be seen if that’s going to be any real concern. 

Fantastic Four
WHAT IT IS: Much as Deadpool and Wolverine represents one half of the reintegration of the Fox superheroes into the Disney fold, this represents the other. Most of the guesses for who is going to replace Kang as the Big Bad in this phase of the MCU come from the pages of Fantastic Four, so it’s also at an opportune time for The Mouse. 

WHY YOU SHOULD BE EXCITED: Even if they don’t draw their overvillain from the Fantastic Four stable, there are some really excellent, highly cinematic villains in there that anyone that gave a shit about it could make pretty compelling movies out of. While it’s true that the previous attempts at making movies out of Fantastic Four have been pretty miserable, I maintain that there’s a lot of stuff about it that really should work on film. I’m always willing to give a Fantastic Four movie a chance, is what I’m saying. Just make it fun – the comic was a rare bright spot in the grimdark nineties partly because it wasn’t so heavy all the time. Anyway, Pedro Pascal is great, and I’m as sold on Riche from The Bear as The Thing as anyone. It’s being directed by the WandaVision guy, which means that we know the director is at least capable of the right tone. As I write this, I realize that I’m legit kind of excited about this movie. I’ll be darned. 

BUT I’M WAFFLING BECAUSE: I suppose the flip of my belief above, that we could get lucky and Blade could just be an easy thing to make movies about, is that there is something unknowable about the fundamental nature of Fantastic Four that makes it unfilmable. I don’t think that’s the case, but it might be. 

Joker: Folie a Deux
WHAT IT IS: The sequel to Joker. It’s got Lady Gaga in it, and it’s going to be a musical. It’s going to be a musical because this time, instead of hallucinating a single person⁸, he’s hallucinating the whole world. People are going to argue with me about it being good. I will not enjoy either the movie or the arguments. Some things really are that predictable. 

⁸ spoilers for The Joker, I guess. Thank me later. 

WHY YOU SHOULD BE EXCITED: Because you think Lady Gaga looks good in short shorts? Because you’re a Joaquin Phoenix completist? Because you can’t imagine not watching something so deeply ill-conceived? Because they somehow also got Steve Coogan and Catherine Keener to do this? I mean, at least one of those things is true for me, but they all seem like they could be equally valid. 

BUT I’M WAFFLING BECAUSE: Look, the first movie had whatever fans it had, and some of those were obvious shitheads, but lots of things attract shitheads. Nevertheless, there’s a nonzero chance that this could be…good? Like, Todd Phillips is, fundamentally, a person who came up through comedy. 

Kraven the Hunter
WHAT IT IS: A hunter dedicated to hunting the most dangerous game: irradiated teenager⁹

⁹ I stole that joke, but it was from over twenty years ago and a website that doesn’t exist anymore, so I think the statute of limitations on it is up. 

WHY YOU SHOULD BE EXCITED: I mean, if they just give it a little, this could be an even bigger boondoggle than Madame Web, and that would be something. 

BUT I’M WAFFLING BECAUSE: I mean, I’m not waffling. Unless the Kraven the Hunter movie is how they’re to smuggle in Squirrel Girl¹⁰, there is very little that could convince me any of this should be happening. Although I am dedicated to the Sonyverse’s dedication to leading actors named “Johnson.” I kind of want an all-”Johnson” live-action Spider-Verse. 

¹⁰ they’re friends.

Shang Chi 2
WHAT IT IS: The sequel to the currently-reigning champ in the “least likely Marvel comic to have been adapted into a major motion picture” sweepstakes. 

WHY YOU SHOULD BE EXCITED: The first one was a tonne of fun, looked great, and had that top-flight bus scene, so hopefully we just get a little more of that and everyone goes home happy. 

BUT I’M WAFFLING BECAUSE: I mean, if there’s one thing the Marvel Ongoing Hegemony Situation can be relied upon to deliver, it’s entertaining action movies, even if they aren’t always interesting. But, you know, there’s always exceptions, I suppose. 

Spawn
WHAT IT IS: Another go at adapting Todd MacFarlane’s signature comic, this time with Jamie Foxx. I don’t know, man. 

WHY YOU SHOULD BE EXCITED: People like Spawn, and you could probably go ask them why. I, for my part, really enjoyed the comics when I was wee, and have since almost entirely forgotten what I liked about them. I mean, other than his costume, which rules. 

BUT I’M WAFFLING BECAUSE: There’s no way this is going to be good (if it even ever actually happens), there’s genuinely no reason to waffle. 

Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse
WHAT IT IS: The sequel to the currently-reigning best superhero movie ever made (Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse), which was itself also the sequel to the former best superhero ever made (Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse)

WHY YOU SHOULD BE EXCITED: The first half of this movie is great, and it’s very unlikely they changed enough about this to change that. 

BUT I’M WAFFLING BECAUSE: I am not waffling at all, except that it’s currently indefinitely delayed. That seems less about the movie than the current state of the studios, though. 

Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow
WHAT IT IS: An adaptation of the Tom King run on the comic (which I loved in this very space, even). 

WHY YOU SHOULD BE EXCITED: Well, it’s one of the opening salvos in James Gunn’s tenure as the uh..universe-runner (?) of the DC movies, and he’s got an awfully good track record with making these things work. The source material is relatively freestanding, and is, of course, wonderful. 

BUT I’M WAFFLING BECAUSE: I feel like we already reached absolute perfection the first time we made a Supergirl movie, and I don’t want to tempt fate. 

Superman Legacy
WHAT IT IS: Another Superman movie. This time under the helm of James Gunn (see above), and returning the S-Dawg to his status as the flagship of the DC Cinematic Commerce Extraction Universe. 

WHY YOU SHOULD BE EXCITED: Hey man, if there’s anyone on Earth whose vision of Superman I can be convinced to give a shit about, it might very well be James Gunn. Plus, there is a good Superman movie back there! It can happen!

BUT I’M WAFFLING BECAUSE: Superman is often very, very dull, for a number of reasons that seem to be built into the character. 

Swamp Thing
WHAT IT IS: Another adaptation of everyone’s favorite plant that thinks it’s people.

WHY YOU SHOULD BE EXCITED: It’s meant to be a horror comedy! Also, Swamp Thing is, in most tellings, a really excellent piece of superhero writing, and Swamp Thing arcs have been written by literally some of the greatest comics writers of all time, so the source material is there. Also the cast is really funny! And it’s meant to be a horror comedy!

BUT I’M WAFFLING BECAUSE: Well, we still don’t know anything about this version of the DCEU, but I do trust James Gunn’s taste in horror comedies. 

Thunderbolts
WHAT IT IS: Marvel’s very own Suicide Squad, because that’s clearly where we need to be at right now. It’s a team up movie¹¹, and it features more of Harrison Ford as Sam Elliott.  Also, late-breaking news: it has an asterisk in the title now.

¹¹ Bucky, Ghost (from the Ant-Man movies), U.S. Agent (from Falcon and the Winter Soldier), Yelena, Taskmaster, Red Guardian (all from Black Widow), and Sentry

WHY YOU SHOULD BE EXCITED: I mean, several of those characters are good in other movies. That’s nice.  Plus: bonus asterisk!

BUT I’M WAFFLING BECAUSE: Man, at this point why are we still casting Harrison Ford in stuff? Also why are we doing this? Also, did we have to replace Sam Elliott, come to think of it?

Venom: The Last Dance
WHAT IT IS: The third, and presumably final, in Tom Hardy’s fun but deeply flawed Venom series. Although, we’ve also got a piece of the symbiote in another reality, so who even knows? 

WHY YOU SHOULD BE EXCITED: The person who wrote the first two is also directing this time, so maybe it will have an entirely different set of flaws? 

BUT I’M WAFFLING BECAUSE: The flaws, man. The flaws. 

Whatever Ta-Nehisi Coates is doing with J.J. Abrams and Superman
WHAT IT IS: Look, it doesn’t have a title or a release date or anything, so I had to put all the information I know about in the, you know, bold part.

WHY YOU SHOULD BE EXCITED: This is an Elseworld thing, I would imagine, and so TNC would be allowed to do whatever he was doing with it. That sounds great. Let’s have it.

BUT I’M WAFFLING BECAUSE: JJ Abrams has hurt me too many times for me to be fully committed to my excitement in this regard. 

So in previous Considered Looks, I looked at things that were specifically enshrined, either by popular money-spending opinion or by a single, deeply flawed organizational body. Now I’m going to look at something more incremental – the Grammy Award for Best New Artist. 

I’ve mentioned it before, but the Grammys are, like most large industry-type awards shows, heavily intertwined with advertising the things they’re awarding. There’s an aspect of the awards that has to do with both shoring up the credibility of the awards themselves and with selling more copies of the albums¹, thus making the record label system that also props up the Grammys themselves more prosperous. It’s a sort of symbiosis – the Grammys exist to drive sales, which itself helps the labels and industry-sectors that require those sales to continue doing business go along with the existence of the Grammys.

¹ this is why the eligibility period cuts off not at the calendar year, but rather at the beginning of the fall major-release glut – those albums just came out and sold a bunch of copies (in theory) over the holidays, and don’t need the boost of an awards show in February as much as someone whose record came out the previous summer might. This is all fairly-simplified, but also I’ve gone over it a bunch in previous Grammys writeups, so I’m trying not to repeat myself too much. 

More specifically, though, the Best New Artist Grammy is more interesting than, say, Artist of the Year because there’s a bit more of a nebulous idea of what it is even meant to represent. It’s a sort of “rookie of the year” award², which comes with the generalized expectation that not only did this act/band/musician/whatever have a good year, but that they would continue to do so. Since there’s no easy way to predict anything at all in the world of music, and least of all commercial or artistic success, this means that it’s interesting to see who, of all the people that had a good year in any given Grammys eligibility term, managed to have any other good years. 

² although the terms of eligibility have occasionally meant that “new” is a pretty liquid term. 

That also, of course, leads one naturally to the oft-repeated notion that the category is cursed. There are, of course, no such things as curses, but it is interesting to see how, even when things were “healthy” for the Record Selling Industry they were unable to sustain the kind of success they were honoring here with any real consistency, and, for the better part of the last couple of decades, the award has shifted from one marking pop success to one that seems to be doing….something else, with some weirdly credibility-focused-seeming choices that seem less predictive and a more a way to get an award to folks with more cult followings that would otherwise not pay attention to the Grammys. 

Journey with me into the general morass of the folks that the record selling industry decided were, at one point, promising youngsters, and how correct they might have been! Or not! 

Previous Considered Looks can be found here and here (and going backwards from each). Previous parts of this series can be found at the links: one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine and ten.

Billie Eilish
WHO IS SHE?: I’m assuming you all remember who Billie Eilish is³, so I will point out that she is the only white person in this section of the list, which is something? Or, in any event, it gives me something to write in this spot.

³ although I will shout out her recent criticism of the “many novelty vinyl editions” craze that also drives me nuts, so way to go B.E.

WHO DID SHE BEAT?: Lizzo, who wasn’t new at the time⁴, and Rosalía.

⁴ she made a record with Doomtree’s Lazerbeak who, come to think of it, had a real rough last few years for his (I presume) former collaborators

WAS SHE NEW?: I mean, she was pretty much new to being “alive on earth,” so yes I think it’s fair to say she was new to music

AND…? She seems like a smart and interesting young person, and I still don’t like a note of her music. 

IS SHE CURSED?: She’s doing fine.

Megan Thee Stallion
WHO IS SHE?: A rapper who just came out on top in a very entertaining beef with Nicki Minaj. Also, I called her for being the rightful winner in the first place, so I feel very smug about that. 

WHO DID SHE BEAT?: Kaytranada! I mean, 99.9% came out in goddamned 2016 and thus could not be further from being new, but she still beat Kaytranada. Also, Phoebe Bridgers, which is somewhat more surprising. 

WAS SHE NEW?: Not really

AND…?: She’s always taller than I remember her being. 

IS SHE CURSED?: I mean, she fucking well might be. Not career-wise, but you tell me the last couple of years haven’t seemed like Megan Thee Stallion was cursed. 

Olivia Rodrigo
WHO IS SHE?: The former star of that one episode of New Girl

WHO DID SHE BEAT? Arooj Aftab, and several nepo candidates.

WAS SHE NEW?: Yep

AND…?: I also decided in favor of O.R. at the time, but like, I still have basically nothing to say here. 

IS SHE CURSED?: I mean, we’re so close to the present that in most cases we’re only just getting around to the follow up, so probably not? I mean, I didn’t much care for Guts, but I’m hardly the only person that matters here. 

Samara Joy
WHO IS SHE?: A perfectly fine vocal jazz singer

WHO DID SHE BEAT?: Wet Leg, and Molly Tuttle, which is bad enough, but this year it went to a jazz act that wasn’t Domi & JD Beck, and that is bullshit. The Grammys are bullshit, man. 

WAS SHE NEW?: Sure

AND…?: It will never be the case that I will think the Grammys made the correct choice when they give to a vocal jazz performer, even though it happens very fucking often. 

IS SHE CURSED?: No, but again, this just happened, so who knows?

Victoria Monét
WHO IS SHE?: A veteran songwriter who managed to have a huge hit album last year, a thing that genuinely did seem kind of unlikely. 

WHO DID SHE BEAT?: Noah Kahan, which is a shame, and also The War and Treaty, which is even more of a shame. 

WAS SHE NEW?: Not really, but it was a nice moment anyway. 

AND…?: I like Victoria Monét in general, as far as it all goes.

IS SHE CURSED?: Not in the month and a half since it happened, no. 

And so we come to the end of the formal examination. I’ll have the complete findings in a few weeks, along with the rankings, but I think we can decisively say a couple of things right off the bat: 1) curses aren’t real 2) the Grammys have no better idea than anyone else what’s going to seem like an idea tomorrow and 3) this mostly goes to ladies now. 

Tune in next time, when we make it official!

Which of course means every song on every single.

Summer Babe

Trigger Cut

Gold Soundz

You’re Killing Me

So Stark (You’re a Skyscraper)

Camera

Internal K-Dart

Raft

Shady Lane (Krossfader)

Cut Your Hair

Spizzle Trunk

Baptist Blacktick

Unseen Power of the Picket Fence

Mussle Rock (is a Horse in Transition)

Recorder Grot

Box Elder

Harness Your Hopes (Live Brixton Academy, London, November 20, 1999)

Give it a Day

Father to a Sister of a Thought

Coolin’ By Sound

Spit on a Stranger

False Skorpion

Stereo

Major Leagues (edit)

Price Yeah!

Mercy Snack: The Laundromat

Range Life

Decouvert de Soleil

Easily Fooled

Forklift

She Believes (edit)

Your Time to Change

The Killing Moon (BBC Evening Session January 15, 1997)

Birds in the Majic Industry (B-side)

Stub Your Toe

And Then (The Hexx) (7” Version)

Gangsters & Pranksters

The Classical (BBC John Peel session August 21, 1997)

Rattled by the Rush

Stare

Strings of Nashville

Perfect Depth

Carrot Rope

Sue Me Jack

Kris Kraft

I Love Perth

Recorder Grot (Rally)

Extradition (Alternate Version)

Exit Theory

Haunt You Down

Black Out (alternate version)

Major Leagues (Demo Version)

Maybe Maybe

Kneeling Bus

Saganaw

Jam Kids

Moor Mother – The Great Bailout (look, I’m a simple man, and she ends up at the top of these lists more often that she doesn’t, but you must believe me when I say: this one is really really good. Like, even moreso)

Jim White – All Hits: Memories  (true story: Jim White is my favorite currently-operating instrumentalist. By which I meanof all my favorite instrument players, he’s my most favorite. I don’t think he’s like, a student of the philosophical school of instrumentalism. Or whatever. Just want to clear that up.)

The Messthetics & James Brandon Lewis – S/T (I mean, at this point everybody can more or less guess what this sounds like, and goddammit, it delivers, and I love it)

Ben Frost – Scope Neglect (Holy shit guitars for real! Not like, buried under all the synths and stuff! Ben Frost you have done it again!)

Pissed Jeans – Half-Divorced (Oh hey, these guys also use guitars. That’s less surprising, but no less rewarding, and they’re much funnier than Ben Frost. Let’s hear it for guitars, I guess?)

Well, folks, it’s time for the iHeartRadio Music Awards. Ten years ago, ClearChannel changed their name and now, somehow, still have an awards show on the air. Wonders may never cease. I will say that I first started predicting they were not long for this world in 2019, and, in fact, I am wrong. Again, the wonders. Totally not ceasing.  

And, in fact, far from going gentle into that dark night, they’re adding categories! Lots of categories! A best new artist in every genre! A best album in every genre! So many genres! So many formats! We can all hardly contain ourselves! Also, if the Wikipedia page is to be believed, there’s also like, half a dozen other categories that even the iHeart website doesn’t know about. But I’m not going to concern myself with them. There simply is no time.

So away we must go!

Favorite Debut Album
Man, we are really playing fast and loose with the word “Debut” here. I suppose it’s my problem more than anyone else’s, and it’s especially baffling that I care this late in the game, but also: you’ll notice that a running theme here is that all of these categories are pretty bad, and not even in an interesting way, so I kind of have to go with what I have here, and what I have here is: several of these people are several attempts deep into a career, here.

THE RIGHTFUL WINNER: Raye, My 21st Century Blues which is, of course, Raye’s third album. You see what I mean? 

Favorite Tour Style
Yeah fine. I mean, I get it, but really, I think maybe whoever finished this list should have listened to whoever told them that this was a stupid category. I must assume that person exists, because “best use of clothing to stay visible from a stage” should probably go to a costume designer, but we are, instead, pretending that these folks are responsible for that stuff themselves. Be better, ClearChannel. 

THE RIGHTFUL WINNER: Elton John, now and always. 

TikTok Bop of the Year
I mean, I am every bit as susceptible as everyone else to “Boy’s a Liar Pt. 2”, and if TikTok is responsible for it, then I suppose it must receive due credit.

THE RIGHTFUL WINNER: PinkPanthress and Ice Spice, “Boy’s a Liar Pt. 2”

Favorite On Screen

Why on Earth are we calling the “best concert film” category¹ this? This is stupid. Did anyone look at this before they hit publish? Is there some intern somewhere that got stuck with this? Did Mr. Peantbutter lose the list and have to make the category names up on the spot?

THE RIGHTFUL WINNER: Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour

¹ which has, you know, nothing the fuck to do with radio in the first place

Favorite Tour Photographer
Huh. I mean, I guess I can look at pictures as well as anyone, but I gotta tell you, I think this category stumps me every time.

THE RIGHTFUL WINNER: Mason Poole (Beyoncé)

Social Star Award
I really do think that this one speaks for itself most years, and here I must say: Noah Kahan appears to have done all that himself (from Vermont, no less!), and receiving any sort of award for getting famous from an organization that represents the fucking radio is so surreally funny that I can’t imagine thinking it should go to anyone else.

THE RIGHTFUL WINNER: Noah Kahan

Best Fan Army
I will confess that one of my small pleasures is the little puzzle game that comes when I try to figure out to whomst these armies belong without looking it up. I got almost all of them this year²!

THE RIGHTFUL WINNER: They’re all winners, really. I’m not going to yell at people for liking things, mostly. Also, I have absolutely no way to know how to evaluate this. 

² I’m still old

Best Music Video
Not a strong crop, but the makeup in that Doja Cat video looks complicated. Maybe give her an award for sitting in the chair for that long.

THE RIGHTFUL WINNER: Doja Cat, “Paint the Town Red”

Best Lyrics
Look, guys, not only am I not the dude that remembers the words to anything, but with all of these songs but two I think all of the words I do know are stupid. I like Noah Kahan and Taylor Swift as lyricists generally, and I like Noah Kahan more, specifically, so I’m giving it to him and living my life.

THE RIGHTFUL WINNER: Noah Kahan, “Dial Drunk”

Songwriter of the Year
I genuinely like that this is a category for songwriters who are not necessarily performing their songs. I think that’s cool. It’s an important part of pop music, and radio music more generally, and, while I don’t generally listen to much music where a professional songwriter is a necessary feature, I do think that it’s good that they have even this tiny award as part of a stupid awards ceremony nobody gives a fuck about. Anyway, more awards shows should talk about songwriters. Unfortunately, this pack of songwriters is responsible for, largely, some of the worst music available to human ears. So, you know, one step forward, two steps back.

THE RIGHTFUL WINNER: Aldae, I guess? 

Producer of the Year
I’m not as cranky about Jack Antonoff the producer as that one TikTok guy was last year, but I don’t think the one thing he does is particularly interesting, and that is basically the end of my feelings on the matter. Metro Boomin made himself a pretty good record and was in Across the Spider-Verse, so he basically has this one sewn up. 

THE RIGHTFUL WINNER: Metro Boomin

Best New Artist (K-Pop)
It really seems like exactly the wrong thing to do to celebrate more people entering the dystopian nightmare that is K-Pop. Like, really. 

THE RIGHTFUL WINNER: NewJeans, such as it is.

K-Pop Song of the Year
I’ll tell you this: “Bouncy (K-Hot Chilli Peppers)” has the best title.

THE RIGHTFUL WINNER: ATEEZ, “Bouncy (K-Hot Chilli Peppers)” 

K-Pop Artist of the Year
Which one is the closest to getting out of the business? Because it’s that one.

THE RIGHTFUL WINNER: Jung Kook? Or is he just in it forever now? 

Best New Artist (Regional Mexican)
The iHeart Music awards break out their best new artists by genre, which is, again, a very funny thing of a company associated largely with having a famously tight control over who is allowed onto the playlists and suchlike of their primary business. It’s very funny.

THE RIGHTFUL WINNER: Grupo Frontera

Regional Mexican Artist of the Year
Genuinely, the most vulnerable I am all year is when I continue to like Calibre 50, while also continuing to not know what it is that I’m liking. You guys would let me know if Calibre 50 were some like, deeply-problematic shit, right? I have no evidence that it would be I just don’t know. 

THE RIGHTFUL WINNER: Calibre 50

Regional Mexican Song of the Year
I feel much more confident here: single songs are much easier for me to figure out whether I like or not. 

THE RIGHTFUL WINNER: Carin León and Grupo Frontera, “Qué Vuelvas”

Best New Artist (Latin Pop/Urban)
I want Bad Gyal and GALE to be the Janus-like twin sides of the same cosmic being. Like a dark one and a light one. 

THE RIGHTFUL WINNER: Young Miko, if we can’t get the combined GALE/Bad Gyal thing. 

Latin Pop/Urban Artist of the Year
Boy, my initial impulse was to stake out an anti-Shakira position, but literally all of these people except Bad Bunny have worked with Shakira very recently, and Bad Bunny is rumoured to be interested in collabo-ing, so it’s good that he’s here to be given this award before all that happens. 

THE RIGHTFUL WINNER: Bad Bunny

Latin Pop/Urban Song of the Year
Oh also, if I seem a little sensitive about my Latin pop choices and their ethical consequences, my beloved Peso Pluma is a shithead. Dammit.

THE RIGHTFUL WINNER: Myke Towers, “Lala”

Dance Artist of the Year
The inclusion of Kylie Minogue here really muddies some waters. I mean, I’m sure it has to do with what radio formats add her³, but it’s still weird that she’s here. Anyway, I don’t have any opinions beyond that.

THE RIGHTFUL WINNER: Illenium. I want him to win awards in the Willenium which is, of course, where we are currently living. 

³ or, more accurately, what radio markets her label is servicing. 

Dance Song of the Year
I see we’re just fully back to club songs that are built around truly ghastly samples/interpolations. That’s a good time for me to continue to not check in on radio dance music.

THE RIGHTFUL WINNER: Tiesto f. Tate McRae, “10:35”, the video for which might actually be branded content for a resort⁴, and which is, still, that notwithstanding, the best song here, which is another sign that it’s a good time for me to continue to not check in on radio dance music.

⁴ I mean, I can’t find any evidence that it is, but it sure looks like branded content

Rock Artist of the Year
Wait, is there an actual rule that I can’t say “hahaha fuck you” again? Like, is it written in the rulebook near the part where dogs aren’t allowed to write these things?⁵ Anyway, two of these bands have been great in the past. That’s kind of where this category always leaves me.

THE RIGHTFUL WINNER: Foo Fighters

⁵ although I keep trying to get my cat to write about the Oscars. 

Rock Song of the Year
Look, I get it. We all like Jelly Roll. yay positivity, etc. But also: I don’t think that is a musical quality. Give him awards for seeming like a swell guy. 

THE RIGHTFUL WINNER: Foo Fighters, “Rescued”

Best New Artist (Alt & Rock)
Be with me for a minute here. In the nineties, two things were true: a lot of mainstream pop criticism/journalism/discussion was largely built around the idea that rock music was “real“ music and that other things were not⁶. One of the things this led to was various and sundry country musicians – mostly the ones that non-country people liked⁷ – being declared to be rock musicians by dint of their existence. I pointed it out in the footnote, but really, if you think of a thing someone said about Johnny Cash in the nineties, you’ve got a better than even shot that you’re thinking of exactly the thing I’m talking about. It makes me laugh, then, that here in the year of our lord 2024 we’re sort of reversing the flow, and including ostensibly country acts (Jelly Roll, Noah Kahan and, god help us all, HARDY⁸)⁹ over here, in the rock acts, because the market for country music is makes it so that it’s the only thing that consistently works on the radio. I’m not sure if this is going to go any further, but it’s genuinely interesting. Also, Noah Kahan is great.

THE RIGHTFUL WINNER: Noah Kahan

⁶ this is an extremely reductive, very brief look at all this. You can search “Rockism” in the search bar for a thing I wrote declaring rockism dead, or you can just google “Rockism” and get, well, all sorts of blather about the subject. It happened for a long time, some of the broad strokes ideas were correct, and it all got stupid in a hurry
⁷ Johnny, Willie, Kris Kristofferson, Waylon Jennings, you get it. 
⁸ I don’t have an entire ounce of appreciation for the notions of what is or is not “real” country (or any other genre), as I’m entirely content to abide by the results of people and/or their marketing teams declaring their own genre, but even I shuddered at typing HARDY as an example. 
⁹ it also happens to Kacey Musgraves and Zach Bryan, but they aren’t in this category, and they’re actually less country than any of the other three, except HARDY, whose music barely qualifies as music.

Alternative Artist of the Year
I feel less urgently, also,  about the alternative categories being an absolutely moribund nostalgiafest: it was always a stupid marketing term, and anyone who still markets themselves using it deserves whatever languishing comes with that.

THE RIGHTFUL WINNER: I do admire that Green Day remains out there, same lineup, same approach, after all this time, and that it appears to work for their fans. I can get behind that no matter what the actual result is. 

Alternative Song of the Year
Oh, the regular nostalgia routine only this time they added a zombie. Super great job, everybody.

THE RIGHTFUL WINNER: Foo Fighters, “Rescued”

Best New Artist (R&B)
I just want them to write down, so I can see it, what it means when they say “new artist”. I’m currently nearing the end of trying to nail down what the Grammys were doing with their one category devoted to this, and ClearChannel goes and does it with every genre. Madness. Utter madness. 

THE RIGHTFUL WINNER: Victoria Monét. It’s true that Jaguar is her first label-supported full length album. It’s also even true-er that it’s her sixth goddamn record. It’s very good, though. 

Best African Music Artist
Happy for the category to exist, happy generally for Burna Boy, who seems great, and also deeply ill-informed about the genre outside its biggest names.

THE RIGHTFUL WINNER: Burna Boy

R&B Artist of the Year
SZA had a better year than Beyonce, which hasn’t happened every time these two women have been brought up against each other in one of these categories. Truly a battle for the ages, I guess.

THE RIGHTFUL WINNER: SZA

R&B Song of the Year
You know, every year I end up with a position that makes it seem like I’m way more into a song/artist than I am. Thus I must say: 2023 was not, in fact, the year of “Creepin’”, it’s just that the rest of this field is very bad.

THE RIGHTFUL WINNER: Metro Boomin with The Weeknd and 21 Savage, “Creepin’”

Best New Artist (Hip-Hop)
Far be it from me to declare anyone a novelty rapper, but certainly if one wanted to be a novelty rapper, you could probably go pretty far in the current radio environment.

THE RIGHTFUL WINNER: Doechii

Hip-Hop Artist of the Year
In 2024 it was fun to be reminded that there is, in fact, a great rapper in Future somewhere even still.

THE RIGHTFUL WINNER: Future

Hip-Hop Song of the Year
Once more I must say: one of these songs clearly has a cuss word in it. My goodness.

THE RIGHTFUL WINNER: Gunna, “fukumean”

Best New Artist (Country)
Gosh, I hope this is the worst the country categories get. I don’t know how I could keep a straight face if they were any worse. 

THE RIGHTFUL WINNER: Uh…Jelly Roll, who will at least appreciate it.

Country Artist of the Year
AAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Fuck you.

THE RIGHTFUL WINNER: Jelly Roll, who will still at least appreciate it. 

Country Song of the Year
I think I’m only allowed to cuss at a category instead of answering questions once. Still and all, I bet I can stall for time and avoid thinking about any of this.

THE RIGHTFUL WINNER: Luke Combs, “Fast Car”

Best New Artist (Pop)
So, every time I read David Kushner’s name, I think of David Koechner. That’s not fair to either of those men, and there’s no reason for it – they’re thirty years apart in age and don’t do remotely similar things publicly. I have no idea why this is happening to me¹⁰, and it has no bearing on this, but I wanted to get it off my chest.

THE RIGHTFUL WINNER: Doechii again

¹⁰ it’s because I’m old

Best Collaboration
This category really hammers home just how few people are actually shuffled around in any given radio playlist. There are just so few people in pop music that it is genuinely kind of astounding.

THE RIGHTFUL WINNER: Metro Boomin with The Weeknd and 21 Savage, “Creepin’”

Duo/Group of the Year
I don’t care who wins this but I kind of want there to be a Paramore/Parmalee rivalry over not quite having the same band name. Or, like, anything more interesting at all. Like, at all.

THE RIGHTFUL WINNER: A nap? A brisk walk? 

Artist of the Year
Of all of the artists in all of the year that made all of the music that played on all of the radios, I believe SZA to have been the most artist. Or, failing that, the artist of the most year. Whichever.

THE RIGHTFUL WINNER: SZA

Pop Artist of the Year
Um. I feel like these should be printed in the opposite order on the website, because now I’ve already declared the most artist of the most year, and now I have to declare the pop most artist of the pop most year, which is a smaller category, but also goes to the same person.

THE RIGHTFUL WINNER: SZA

Pop Song of the Year
Oh, right, also I forgot to log my formal complaint that even the normally not-disappointing members of the (as previously established) teeny tiny pool of people who are allowed on the radio were, in fact, pretty disappointing last year in general. Shame, that.

THE RIGHTFUL WINNER: SZA, “Kill Bill”

Song of the Year
Well, whatever adding categories does to the idea of this as entertainment, it certainly makes them more difficult for more purposes here, because dang do I not have anything to say here. 

THE RIGHTFUL WINNER: Metro Boomin with The Weeknd and 21 Savage, “Creepin’”