Seems to be no love lost here. Almost two weeks ago now, Morgan Wallen won the coveted CMA award for Entertainer of the Year at the 58th annual year of the Nashville-based show. He didn't attend the ceremony, and we haven't heard from him since in terms of his thoughts on winning the award... not even a simple Instagram story, let alone post. The last thing Morgan posted on Instagram was from three weeks ago, about his upcoming Sand in My Boots festival: https://www.instagram.com/p/DCDVAS5v4RR/ Now, let's just say, the CMA's and Morgan have a pretty complicated history... in 2021, the country music superstar was banned from the attending the show after he was caught on video earlier that year dropping a racial slur. And the past two years, fans have sounded off after believing Morgan was snubbed from the night’s top prize, losing to Luke Combs in 2022 and Lainey Wilson in 2023. He has been nominated for 14 CMA awards overall (seven of them were from this years show and he was the most-nominated artist), the first one being for New Artist of the Year in 2019. He was nominated for that same award in 2020, and he won it the second year, bringing his total up to two CMA awards in total as of a couple weeks ago. It's pretty shocking that the biggest thing in country music, and arguably music overall, has only won two awards from what has historically been viewed as the "most prestigious" academy in country music. My position is that awards really don't even matter, so I use those words lightly, though many in the industry live and die based on certain accolades, so it's a matter of opinion, I guess. But the fact that the CMA has continued to block Morgan from winning awards, until the pretty much couldn't anymore, does them a much bigger disservice than it does Morgan in terms of credibility (or lack thereof). I mean, Morgan recently wrapped up his One Night At A Time Tour, which ended as the highest-selling country tour of all time. And over the past year, he’s scored five #1 songs, including his monster hit “I Had Some Help” with Post Malone that sat at the top of the all-genre Billboard Hot 100 chart for six weeks. So yeah, it's not like he needs the EOTY to validate anything he's doing... And I'm not exactly his biggest fan, either. I mean, I like some of his music, in college I listened to him a lot when he was first getting started, and while I don't condone a lot of his offstage antics, either, but it gets to a point where you just have to call it like it is. He's the biggest thing in music. This isn't any argument for Morgan winning more awards, like I said, I don't care if anyone does, really... it's more about the fact the he doesn't seem to care that much. The mainstream country industry, and all of its institutions, labels, PR agencies, etc... actually care a hell of a lot about these bullsh*t awards and shows, so at the very least, to appease the powers that be, I expected a press release with a quote from Morgan, or even a post on Instagram about what an honor it is to win, which is what everyone always says, especially if you're trying to play the Nashville game, so to speak, so that you can continue winning big awards. It's clear from how loud his silence is that Morgan isn't worried about that, because he doesn't need to be, and I can't say that I blame him, either. It marks a shift in how the awards have been viewed in the past by some of the genres biggest stars, who always make a big to-do about winning anything. When people like Willie Nelson and Loretta Lynn were winning Entertainer of the Year, sure, that feels more appropriate (though Waylon Jennings never did, so that tells you a lot too, but I digress...). And this isn't meant to take anything away from the hard work of artists who have won EOTY, and many other CMA awards, because many deserving people have win and will win the EOTY again... But it's a pretty bad look when show ratings continue to fall (the CMA awards hit an all-time low in terms of ratings this year), and the biggest star in the genre not only skips the show, but wins the biggest award and doesn't even mention it. It seems like we're experiencing a changing of the guard in country music, and power seems to be slipping from country radio and the mainstream labels. We've seen artists like Tyler Childers and Zach Bryan jump to the forefront of the genre without being a part of the machine. Red Clay Strays and Wyatt Flores are becoming superstars, Turnpike is playing huge venues, Cody Jinks and Sturgill Simpson are playing huge venues... it's a great time to be a country music fan. It might help their case to make sure presenters know how to say his name right, too... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZgQXThpbnbE