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ACM Awards 2024: Picks and Predictions From The Dads

The Dads change things up this week and preview the 2024 ACM Awards with our picks and predictions. We cover lots of ground from Jelly Roll to Megan Moroney, weigh in on the Stagecoach livestream, and share some of our hot takes and/or rants on some of the biggest names in mainstream country music.

Mentioned in This Episode: 

Show Notes:

  • 7:06 Dad Life Sound Check – Mick and his daughter enjoyed watching Stagecoach’s live stream together and enjoyed Chris Barnes and Bailey Zimmerman. Dave talks about “Father’s Son” by Stephen Wilson Jr. and the crush his boys have on Megan Moroney.
  • 13:43 The Farm Boy Update – Mick planted his garden and is updating his landscaping in preparation for the high school graduation party.
  • 15:50 The HARDY Report – HARDY was all over the place at the recent Stagecoach music festival and Dave shares the highlights or to Dave’s disappointment the lowlights. 
  • 20:08 – The Dads give their takes on the upcoming ACM Awards by breaking down the nominees for Best Female Artist, Song of the Year, Best Male Artist, and Single of the Year. Dave and Mick provide some commentary on who they think will and SHOULD win.   

Sources:

There is a lot of music mentioned in this episode. You can find a sampling of it on our ⁠Spotify playlist⁠. Previous episodes can be found at ⁠https://countrymusicdads.com/⁠. Our social media accounts are @countrymusicdads on ⁠Instagram⁠ and ⁠Facebook⁠. Send us feedback via ⁠countrymusicdads@gmail.com⁠ and last but not least, thank you for listening and please share with your fellow country music fans and give us a 5 star review on your favorite podcast platform. 

Transcript

I wasn’t hating on Jelly Roll earlier when I said he hasn’t done his time yet.

That’s just a statement of fact.

He did his time just in jail.

Oh, he did his time, exactly.

Yeah, and he’s got the tattoos to prove it.

This is Country Music Dads, the parenting podcast with a twang.

We’re bringing you a highly subjective, sometimes questionable, but always 100% authentic country music analysis, as only two dads in the trenches of modern parenting could do it.

My name is Dave, and I’m a country music dad.

My name is Mick, and I am also a country music dad.

And thank you for joining us.

In this episode, we are going to give our take on some of the artists and songs that have been nominated for the upcoming ACM Awards.

But before we open the envelope and announce who we think the winner should be, I have a little thank you I would like to share with one of our listeners.

Thanks for.

A good friend of Dave and mine, and a friend of the show, a gentleman by the name of Brock Lush, had heard us talking about Chris Stapleton in one of our previous episodes.

And so he sends me a message, saying, hey, I heard you talking about Chris Stapleton, and do you know that he’s got his own branded whiskey that he’s released with Buffalo Trace?

And I was like, yeah, I’ve heard of it.

Then he goes, well, have you found any?

Have you been able to try it?

And I said, no, I haven’t had a chance to try it yet.

Well, then a couple of weeks later, all of a sudden in the mail, I get this little care package of this little sample size bottle of Chris Stapleton’s Traveler Whiskey, you know, with a little note in there saying, hey, I sent one of these to Dave too, and you know, wanted to, you know, you guys both be able to try it and everything since you guys are both pretty big fans of Chris Stapleton.

So Brock, thank you very much.

We do appreciate the care package.

Yeah, I appreciate it, buddy.

It did come in like a very shady little vial.

I’m glad that you labeled it clearly.

And I trust you.

I trust that it is actually Chris Stapleton’s whiskey in there.

And I can’t wait to try it.

So yeah, so thank you, Brock.

And just another note regarding Brock.

He is also a podcaster.

He is one of the co-hosts of the Home Dad Chat podcast, which is the podcast of The National At-Home Dad Network.

So if you have any interest in learning about, Dave and I are both stay-at-home dads, and we’ve mentioned that before.

But if you have any interest in checking out the podcast from the national organization of stay-at-home dads, we will put their information in the show notes.

Yeah, that’s a good one.

That podcast was the first time that I realized that there were other stay-at-home dads out there in the world.

So that was my window into the new world I was joining when I decided to stay on with the kids a few years ago.

So yeah, check them out.

Podcast didn’t even exist when I started to make the decision to be stay-at-home dad.

Yeah, I know.

You were a pioneer.

Oh boy, that’s, yeah, going into the way back machine.

So also just want to give a little life update going here.

I know in a lot of our episodes, I’ve kind of talked about how we’ve been, you know, deep in the college decision making process with my oldest.

And I would just like to let everyone know that Luke has finally made a college decision.

He’s going to be going to University of Missouri Science Technology in Rolla, Missouri to study mechanical engineering.

Awesome.

Congrats to him, man.

It’s a, that’s huge.

Yes.

The first in a long line of big life decisions, but that must be a load off a little bit.

Are you talking about for him or for us?

Probably for both.

I was talking about him, but.

He was getting, he was getting tired of people.

Have you made a decision yet?

Have you made a decision yet?

Because he just didn’t, you know, he just didn’t know.

And finally he just, it’s like, okay, here it is.

Yeah, good for him, man.

Yeah.

What’s been going on with you?

Yeah.

Life is full right now.

I try not to say that I’m busy because in the workforce, whenever I’d call somebody on the phone or walk into their office and ask how they were doing, if they said, I’m busy, that usually meant they didn’t really want to talk to me right then.

But life is full.

It’s a good busy.

Kids are in sports.

We just had a pretty packed weekend, soccer, baseball, I’m coaching.

We had a family wedding to go to and the kids were invited, which I think is great in this phase of life.

When Kim and I got married, we definitely had no kids on our invitation because we got married in our twenties.

We wanted to be a big party.

We wanted people to have a good time, get a babysitter.

But now that we’re parents, I like bringing my kids to weddings and they had a great time.

There’s just a different vibe to a wedding with a bunch of kids around from the family.

Cousins hanging out together, messing around in the bushes and stuff.

So it was really good time.

They loved it.

I can’t wait for the next one actually.

It’s fun to show them off.

We had matching outfits for them.

Yeah, you sent me a picture of, I don’t know what we were doing that day you were there.

You sent me a picture of them and I was just like, when I first saw the picture before I knew you were at wedding I was like, they must be having family pictures or they’re doing something because why else would the boys all be dressed the same way?

Yeah, they’re still at the age where that’s cute.

I’ll make a match.

Then wait till you get to the older years whenever you try to do the family portrait and then everyone has to get in the same type of color scheme.

Then you just hear it either from the teenager who doesn’t want to wear a shirt with a collar or the little diva fashionista who, this is not the outfit that I would want to wear today.

Yeah, the only thing we had to worry about was whether any number of the kids would have barfed on their outfit on the way to the wedding because that has happened before a wedding in the past.

I had to change, do a full wardrobe change.

I was wearing my suit, wiping up vomit in my car right before a wedding.

So there were no incidents to report from this one.

Everything was clean.

So yeah, that’s what’s going on with me.

How about yourself beyond the college decision?

That has been college decision and then Luke’s only got like a week left of school.

So just the mad rush of getting all the end of the school activities has kind of been taking up the majority of our time dealing with that change.

But, and I’ll use this to kind of segue into the dad life sound check, did find some time to watch some of the Stagecoach live stream.

Yeah, me too.

And I was glad that they were able to do that for this musical festival because a lot of people just, you know, normally wouldn’t be able to get to go out to California.

I know you’ve been there and everything, and it’s definitely a bucket list for some people.

But there’s just so many people that can’t and to be able to watch it, I think was just a pretty good decision on all their parts.

The reason I’m throwing this into my dad life sound check is because I watched a lot of it with my daughter.

And, you know, the first day we turned it on, she got home from school and I was like, hey, you want to check and see if this works?

I heard they were doing this.

And she’s like, yeah.

So we turn it on.

And one of the opening act on Friday was an Australian guy by the name of Kacey Barnes.

Never heard him before.

But Rory and I are sitting there on the couch and after a couple songs, I just kind of look over and she’s bebopping her head back and forth.

And she just kind of looks back at me and she’s like, I like this guy.

Awesome.

I’ve never heard of him either, actually.

That’s why I love that festival.

There’s just so many acts and you can just go check out somebody you’ve never heard of or someone you’ve kind of heard of just barely.

You might know one song and you’re like, I want to go check out their set.

And then suddenly you have an appreciation for somebody you never thought you would.

Exactly.

Great way to kind of experience the new music.

Yeah, the exposure that those newer artists get is amazing.

And then just the exposure we as the fans get is just fantastic, fantastic as well.

So we didn’t really get to watch anymore until Sunday, just because our life was full for the rest of the weekend.

But Sunday comes around and watching that in the bedroom folding laundry because they’re watching something else outside.

And Bailey Zimmerman’s set comes on and I yell out the door and I’m like, hey, Rory, Bailey Zimmerman’s opening his set with Religiously.

And she comes running down the hall, runs in, jumps on the bed in the middle of the laundry, and just camps out there and watches the entire rest of the set with me.

So that is why I am mentioning, again, this in the Dad Life Soundcheck, because she and I got to experience something that we both enjoy, country music, a specific artist, et cetera, et cetera, together, and that’s what’s important.

Find something that you like doing with your kids together and make the most of it.

Because as Darius Rucker said a couple episodes ago, it won’t be like this for long.

There you go.

I watched that Bailey Zimmerman set too, and I don’t get that guy.

I was watching and thinking like, maybe I’m too old for this guy.

This guy is like, maybe he appeals to Gen Z.

He’s like the new heartthrob.

But I guess that explains that you watch it with your daughter.

It’s right in her demographic, not quite in mine.

He took off his clothes at the end of the set.

You guys still watching?

Yeah, he did go shirtless and everything.

Frankly, that guy, because he’s a redhead, I don’t think you could tell when his white t-shirt was on versus when it was off, because he has got no suntan at all.

Didn’t get any sun out in the desert.

But if he did, he would have probably turned into a lobster.

That is a big benefit of live streaming Stagecoach.

When I went last year, I think it was 102.

So you melt out there.

So I was much more comfortable.

I did get to watch some of the sets with my kids too.

My boys are six and four, and I think they’re in love with Megan Moroney.

So, when she came on, they were just-

They have good taste, because how can you not be?

I know.

My dad life soundcheck kind of features a guy who performed at Stagecoach also.

I don’t think he made the live stream though, because I think he played a little bit too early in the afternoon.

So his name is Stephen Wilson Jr.

And he has a song called Father’s Son.

I’m really vibing with him lately.

He’s got this like kind of country rock style that is my kind of thing.

His album is called Son of Dad.

It’s very much focused on his father, his late father, or his father passed away, I think, within the last five years.

And Father’s Son is just one of those songs that the writing is so good that I’m still thinking about it even after I turn it off and I’m out of the car.

That is so totally the mark of a good song is something that you take with you and are thinking about the message.

That’s a lot of that message.

The song starts and he’s kind of talking about some of the tendencies he sees in himself that his dad had mostly the bad things that he kind of resents that he’s kind of inheriting from his dad.

I think he was actually raised by a single dad.

Then by the end of the song, the tone kind of changes where he is appreciating it and he’s proud that he’s his father’s son.

And it just makes me think about the tendencies that maybe I’m passing down to my kids.

I know my oldest is six, and we’re kind of at odds a lot.

And there’s been one of the nastiest things he said to me as a six-year-old.

He was real upset at me, and because I was trying to discipline him or something, trying to teach him a lesson, and I was probably a little bit too angry, kind of lost my cool.

And he yells at me, when I grow up, I’m gonna be mean to my kids too.

And I was like, where do you get that, man?

Every parent has heard that from their kids in one way or another.

That’s just common.

I know, man, but it cut me deep because I’m like, well, I’m not being mean to you, but there’s probably some truth to that.

You probably are going to absorb my parenting style, good and bad, so.

Yeah, I have a favorite line that I have to give to my youngest quite often.

And it’s something to the effect of, just because you’re hearing something you don’t want to hear, does not mean that I am being mean to you or whatever the case may be, but it’s along that line.

Yeah, gotcha.

So, any news on the farm, Nick?

See the green trees in the background?

On the farm.

Yeah, well, I know I talked about the last few episodes is spending more time outside, and I can pretty much now say that the garden is planted.

I got all those tomatoes and peppers planted earlier this week.

We’ve got some rain coming down today, so that should make them, get them off to a pretty good start.

The other thing just kind of goes, that I’ve been doing lately is going back to the whole getting ready for college thing is, we’ve really decided to try to update some of our landscaping in preparation for Luke’s graduation party.

I don’t know if they do graduation parties in California like they do in the Midwest, but in the Midwest, it’s a pretty big thing.

And it’s funny, as we’re talking about the different plans we have, Luke’s like, I don’t care about this.

I don’t care about that.

And Kelly just looks at him, she’s like, this party is not for you, this party is for us.

That’s right.

It’s a celebration.

You guys made it all the way through the school years.

Exactly.

How many lunches did you pack?

Well for my picky eater, a lot because he never ate school lunch ever.

Gotcha.

Yeah, we do have graduation parties out here, but a little more constrained for space in LA.

We have a lot of space here in our place, but we’d probably have to get a venue for a graduation party, go to a restaurant.

I’m kind of jealous of your ability just to plant some bushes and create the space yourself.

That’s awesome.

Well, I mean, our landscaping was getting a little bit tired in some places.

And because I’ve got so much shade, kind of mentioned this before when I was talking about the moles couple episodes back, sometimes stuff just doesn’t work.

So after two or three years, you’re like, okay, this didn’t work.

Let’s try something else.

And we were definitely in that category in some of the spots as well.

We just needed to update stuff.

So this was the perfect time to do it, to get ready for this.

So the other regular segment that we have is the Hardy Report.

I know for a fact that Hardy’s got some new stuff going on.

I have no idea what you’re going to talk about, but I can only assume that it’s going to be something along the lines of maybe some of the announcements he may be made at Stagecoach, am I right?

All right.

You are correct.

Hardy does have a lot going on.

I don’t know if it’s the big loud marketing machine or if it’s him, but man, he seems to be everywhere.

And he featured prominently in the Stagecoach livestream.

He was showing up.

He popped into Nickelback’s late night set.

He popped into Diplo’s late night set.

I think he popped into Morgan Wallen’s headlining set.

He actually gave an interview right before his set on the livestream, which is cool.

His rise has been really almost shocking.

Like I kind of knew it was coming because I felt like he did have the marketing machine behind him.

He had just a following in place and he seems to be someone who’s really well connected in Nashville with all his collaborations and he’s written songs for tons of artists over the years.

Yeah, that’s one thing I learned at Stagecoach because I don’t oftentimes follow who writes the songs.

I just have enjoyed him on the radio, but I did not know that he was one of the songwriters behind Blake Shelton’s God’s Country song.

Yeah, so he started out, he just made his name as Morgan Wallen songwriter and written some hits for FGL and Blake Shelton.

Now he was at Stagecoach, he had second billing to Morgan Wallen and Amazon Prime wasn’t allowed to stream Wallen’s set.

Essentially on Sunday, Hardy was the headliner if you’re a live streamer.

That could be a whole show topic in and amongst itself.

I wasn’t going to mention it, but you did, so we’ll go there quickly.

I was not happy with that decision by Morgan and his team.

I don’t think that was the best use of a potential marketing bonanza.

Yeah, for sure.

I have a lot more to say about Morgan.

We’ll probably get to him a little bit later today.

Anyway, Hardy was essentially the headliner for the Prime Video stream.

Yeah, exactly.

He mentioned in his interview that he’s putting out new music, he’s getting popular, and so he had to cut one of the songs that he always plays at his concerts because there wasn’t enough room for it in the set.

He was talking about how that’s a bummer because they love the song.

He didn’t say what it was, but I’m pretty sure it was Red Necker, and I’ve talked about that one in the past.

Yeah.

That’s one of his good lines, the My Town Smaller Than Your Town.

He didn’t play it.

He did play his new song, the Hardy version of Gin and Juice.

And you can kind of tell in his eyes too, like when he was doing it, all the other songs, he’s doing the Hardy thing.

He’s spinning around, he’s jumping around the stage, he’s doing the double middle finger to the suck it sign.

He’s really high energy.

And then he got to Gin and Juice and kind of like sat down, and he’s looking around like, do people like this?

So I don’t know.

I don’t know about Gin and Juice.

Maybe they were vibing to it at the show, but unless he brings out Snoop and Dr.

Dre.

For a true collaboration of Gin and Juice, I look for he brings back Rednecker and puts that one in the deep cut catalog.

I was fully expecting to see Snoop Dogg walk out on stage at Stagecoach.

I really was.

I know.

Missed opportunity.

You were joking about last time about having Hardy and Beyonce collaborate.

And then it would get Dre and Snoop.

Maybe in the future.

I’ll be all for that.

Moving along, we’re changing things up, doing something a little bit different this time.

Just like Hardy, we’re doing things different.

We’re doing it our way.

That’s right.

That’s right, man.

You can’t put us in a box.

So we’re going to preview some of the categories for the upcoming ACM Awards.

Now, the award shows, a lot of it is driven by country radio.

I know, Mick, you listen to a lot of country radio.

I actually really like award shows.

I like seeing the artists perform and getting a check-in to where the industry is going and who the big names are and the trends in country radio.

So I think it’ll be fun.

We’re going to talk about four of the major categories that are coming up and give our picks for our personal favorites within each of the category.

Absolutely.

So we will start with the female artist of the year.

So one thing that I thought was interesting, like Mickey did a little bit of research here on the criteria for some of these awards.

And so for female artist of the year, the factors to be considered include but are not limited to success at radio consumption, success in digital media, live concert ticket sales and vocal performances.

So all those things kind of are the factors that the Academy members use to decide.

So I thought that was just interesting because sometimes the nominees go up and you think like, where did this come from?

Like, what about this person?

And the criteria, it matters quite a bit for who you’re going to see at the shows.

So the nominees for female artist of the year.

And the nominees are exactly.

That’s right.

Lainey Wilson, Kacey Musgraves, Megan Moroney, Kelsey Ballerini, and Ashley McBryde.

So Mick, what do you think?

I think this is probably the one award in the entire award show where there will be no dispute about who the winner will be.

It should be Lainey Wilson.

It will be Lainey Wilson.

And as much as I like some of these other artists like Kacey Musgraves and Megan Moroney, I just don’t think that you can argue that it won’t be Lainey Wilson.

You kind of surprised me, I thought you were gonna go with Megan Moroney, your girl.

Well, here’s, I think, okay, we’re not gonna do this category, but it kind of slipped right in.

Megan Moroney, I think, will and probably should win the New Female Artist of the Year.

The fact that she even made this list, I think was a surprise, but that’s also a testament to just how successful in the past year she’s been on country radio.

But, I mean, for the last year plus, two years plus, everything Lainey Wilson has touched has turned to gold.

There is nobody in country music, I think, that is a hotter ticket than she is right now.

Yeah, man, I think you’re right.

I think there’s no beating Lainey.

I think she won this last year, same award.

The only question I have is whether they would actually give it to the same person two years in a row.

But she is like, yeah, she’s just dominating.

She’s everywhere.

She’s a great performer.

Yeah, she’s going to be tough to beat.

I know my four-year-old is going to hope that Megan Moroney wins it because he’s crushing on her so bad.

They love I’m Not Pretty.

They keep on requesting that song in the car.

And I wish that, I really like Ashley McBryde.

And I think she kind of deserves more recognition than she gets.

I thought her album last year, that she released last year, was really good.

Thanks for watching!

Just good writing, she’s got a great voice.

But I don’t think she can take Lainey though.

Yeah.

She’s a juggernaut.

No, I agree.

I think Megan’s time will come if she continues on the trajectory.

The person that I don’t think gets enough love within the industry is probably Kacey Musgraves.

She would be my sleeper dark horse if you, I’m glad she was listed on here because she is just, she’s the collaboration queen.

She just works so well with others.

Her stuff by herself is excellent as well.

I was glad to see her included.

Yeah, she’s definitely really talented.

Her last album though, it was putting me to sleep, I’ll be honest.

Maybe just not my style.

The next category that we’re going to talk about is Song of the Year.

Again, we’re going to give you the criteria.

The factors to be considered include, but are not limited to success at radio consumption, success in digital media, and impact of the song on consumers in the country music industry, with emphasis on the creative integrity of the song.

It goes into a lot more other almost legalese type stuff.

The nominees for Song of the Year are Fast Car, Tennessee Orange, The Painter, Heart Like a Truck, and Next Thing You Know.

So Dave, I’ll let you go first on this one.

Yeah.

Then the award for Song of the Year, so it goes to the songwriter, right?

Publishers slash artists.

So it’s more about the songwriting.

I think the key is when you go back to when it talks about emphasis on the creative integrity of the song.

That to me is the key part.

For me, I think that this one is a done deal.

I think it’s going to be Fast Car.

Fast Car is having its moment.

I think it’s an outstanding song.

It’s old.

Tracy Chapman wrote it in the 80s.

I was in college when the song came out.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Kind of bizarre that Luke Combs resurrected it, and now it’s up for a songwriting award 30 years later.

But I love how it just tells a story.

It’s a show don’t tell is just on display in the song, or it’s painting this picture of just a struggling couple, and their hopes and dreams, and their struggles, and their disappointment.

I just think it’s a masterpiece.

So compared to the other ones, the other songs are good, but for one, I really like Fast Car, I think it’s great.

I think it’s a fast car year.

I think you’re right, but I don’t want that to be the case.

I mean, full props for what Luke did with the song and the origin of it.

But this was a hard one for me because between The Painter and Next Thing You Know, those are probably two songs that just always make me stop.

Fast Car doesn’t make me stop and contemplate things, but The Painter and Next Thing You Know do from two different points of view.

The Painter, I mean, allows a lot of us to know this was a love letter to his wife.

I resonate with the song because I can look back over the 25 years of my life that I’ve known Kelly, and there’s just so many similarities there that I can relate to.

Then moving forward to Next Thing You Know, which is why I resonate with that song so much, is because I’ve got kids that are growing up and growing fast, man.

You know, getting ready to go to college.

And that song, just when I hear it, I’m like, every time he mentions the new Next Thing You Know, I’m like, that triggers a memory for me.

It’s why I don’t relate to that song as much as I can relate to the other two.

And that’s why I am more drawn to them.

My choice would be the painter over over next thing, you know, just because if it wasn’t for meeting my wife, I would not be where I am today, pure and simple.

Yeah, likewise, man.

I think the painter would be my number two pick, if not for Fast Car’s presence here.

And kind of be a bummer for Cody Johnson if he can’t now.

He gets beat out by 30 year old song.

Luke Combs kind of came in and just declared it a country song by recording it and dominating the airplay charts.

The only last thing I will say, I like Luke Combs, but it doesn’t sound like a country song.

Even with his voice, it doesn’t quite sound like a country song to me.

Oh yeah, for sure.

But I do think, as you said, I think it’s going to be a Fast Car year.

Next category, male artist of the year.

So again, to reiterate, factors to be considered include, but are not limited to success at radio, consumption, success in digital media, live concert ticket sales, and vocal performances.

So the nominees are Morgan Wallen, Cody Johnson, Luke Combs, Jelly Roll, and Chris Stapleton.

So what do you think?

I think there are some big names on this list.

In many ways, yes.

Yeah, exactly.

Big dudes.

Big dudes.

I could get behind pretty much everybody on this list with the exception of one.

It’s not going to surprise anybody just by that lead in.

I don’t think Jelly Roll has put in enough time yet to make it to the top of this list.

He’s been very successful.

I love his story.

But I just don’t think he has got enough of a track record yet compared to the other guys.

He might be up for best new artist also.

I can’t remember.

Let me look here real quick, but I don’t think so.

He is not.

He’s not.

I think I agree with you.

He’s still kind of an up and comer, and we’ll see where he goes creatively and everything.

So who are you picking?

Morgan Wallen won this category last year.

I think people were always clamoring for him to win awards because he wasn’t doing so hot at the award shows, the CMAs and the ACMs and everything, despite his very wide popularity.

But I always thought that that was pretty accurate because Morgan’s stuff is just, I think his music has gotten worse.

Maybe it’s because Hardy’s not writing as many of his songs anymore, but I can’t do it.

So for me, I think it should be Luke Combs for male artist.

I really thought the album he released last year, Getting Old, I thought was really.

There’s a lot of great songs and I thought it was just really well done.

And man, the guy is selling out stadiums everywhere.

He brings on a lot of other artists to open forum, kind of the more independent artists like I think Flatland Cavalry was opening forum last year.

Cody Jenks is opening forum for some of the stadium shows this year.

He is a big star and he had a good year.

I’d be happy to see him win this one this year.

And Stapleton also, I mean, I thought his album also was awesome.

It’s more of like a soul blues album, a lot different than his previous ones.

Yeah.

I really enjoyed it, and he’s kind of similar.

He’s selling out stadiums everywhere, and he seems to be everywhere.

He was on SNL, again, big star.

I hope it’s not Morgan Wallen again.

Let’s take a break from Morgan.

You know, Morgan Wallen is just, people love him or they hate him.

He creates publicity sometimes in not good ways as well, but in terms of radio airplay, there is no artist that has played as much as him.

So they may not like him within the industry, but they play the hell out of his music.

And we have one local station here in Kansas City.

They’ve got, it’s Morgan Wallen Monday.

I mean, they, yeah, they’ve renamed the day after him.

So, I mean, it is not uncommon to hear one of Morgan’s songs when you are in the car for 30 minutes.

You’ll hear one of his songs on one of the major radio stations.

All that being said, he won last year.

You can make a very strong case for him to win again, but I’m gonna agree with you.

I think it should be Luke Combs.

And it’s gonna, we’re gonna kind of ride that fast car there a little bit.

Also for the same things that you mentioned, you know, about, you know, where the wild things are and other stuff.

I think he’s had a phenomenal year.

You’re in simple.

That one was pretty easy.

Yeah, I guess so.

And we, yeah, we agreed on that one.

We agreed on that one.

There we go.

We’re not going to talk about entertainer of the year, but that one always seems like it’s the big, it’s almost like the best picture prize of the ACM Awards.

That’s the one I’m worried Morgan’s going to win this year because of just his popularity.

I don’t quite understand.

Oh, his songs are really catchy.

You know, like, well, I was, I was preparing for our talk here.

You know, I listened to his album again.

A lot of songs sound the same.

I don’t know, but they stick in your head.

You listen to Last Night and all of a sudden I just, it was stuck in my head all week and I was so annoyed.

But it just, it sticks with you a little bit.

It’s catchy.

It’s well produced and everything.

Well, you mentioned Entertainer of the Year and I specifically did not want to do that one for the very simple reason that I have not seen, I don’t do a lot of concerts.

I have not seen any of these guys in concert and I did not feel qualified to comment on that category.

That’s for our listeners wondering why we’re going to leave the equivalent of the best picture off.

That’s the reason why.

But what we are qualified to discuss is the single of the year.

And the single of the year criteria is any single released in achieving a top 20 charted position on billboards, hot country songs or media based country charts during the eligibility period is eligible.

If the single was released prior to the eligibility period, but achieved its highest top 20 charted position during the eligibility period, it is eligible unless it’s appeared on a final ballot before.

The nominees for single of the year are, Next Thing You Know, Fast Car, Last Night, Burn It Down and Need A Favor.

Good songs there.

I’ll be honest with you, I’m not a big fan of any of these.

I mentioned that I like Fast Car as a song, but as a single, you mentioned it before that Luke Combs performing it, it’s fine with him performing it.

When Luke and Tracy Chapman performed it together at the Grammys, that was a performance.

It carries more emotional impact, I think, coming straight from her.

For me, it didn’t really carry over with Luke’s performance of it.

Still a great song, but I think there’s better singles out there.

Honestly, I like the Jelly Roll song, Need a Favor, because it had that line, I only talk to God when I need a favor, I only pray when I ain’t got a prayer.

That’s a good line.

Who the hell am I to expect a savior?

I’ll talk about Morgan again.

I’m worried that last night is going to win, and then it’s going to be stuck in my head again after awards week.

I know people love that song, but it’s just-

The pumpkin spice latte of country songs.

People are into it, and I know it’s tasty, but branch out.

Listen to something interesting.

Last night, it sounds like You Proof, like that was his other hit that gets stuck in my head whenever I hear it on the radio and get really annoyed.

They almost sound the same to me, and here it is, Single of the Year.

That’s actually my prediction.

I think it’s going to win.

Last night, it’s going to win.

I’m going to be so mad.

Yeah.

I get you’re saying I’m going to disagree with you a little bit.

The way I look at this song is very simplistic for Single of the Year.

Which song do you end up singing the loudest to as you are driving down the road in your car?

Which one do you start pounding the dash or the steering wheel or tapping your toes with or sideways bebopping your head and sing along with?

For me, as much as I wasn’t hating on Jelly Roll earlier when I said he hasn’t done his time yet, that’s just a statement of fact.

He did his time just in jail.

Oh, he did his time.

Exactly.

He’s got the tattoos to prove it.

But Need a Favor is my choice here because to me, of these five songs, this is the one that is the closest to being a banger.

I sing this song.

It gets me every time.

I can relate to the words very easily.

And I just find myself singing along, pure and simple.

I think we’re in agreement.

As mentioned, I don’t love any of these songs, but that probably is the one that I’d pick.

Although I still think last night’s gonna take it because a lot of people think that that’s a banger.

Well, I don’t think it will take it just for the simple reason that there’s just too much of a love him or hate him thing.

And then especially with what happened after the CMT awards, I just don’t think they’re gonna be rewarding that behavior.

Maybe the votes had already been tallied before the chair incident.

Who knows?

We will see.

We’ll have to tune in and see who’s right.

Yeah.

So this is Dave chiming in from the world of post-production.

We forgot to tell you when the ACM Awards are airing.

They are airing May 16th live on Amazon Prime Video, just like Stagecoach did at 5 p.m.

Pacific, 7 Central.

I’m gonna do my best to catch it live.

So hopefully I can share my real-time reaction when Morgan Wallen and last night just cleans up.

We’ll find out.

So the question I have for you is, how many of these songs are you gonna put on the Country Music Dads playlist?

There’ll be a good sampling of the stuff that we touched on, our favorites, even some of the ones that aren’t our favorites.

You can find the Country Music Dads playlist on Spotify, and there’s a link to it on our webpage, which is countrymusictads.com.

You can find our previous episodes there as well.

If you want to follow us on the socials, that is Country Music Dads.

And I must say, the socials are rather interesting because I do not understand the algorithm and how it works.

We had a reel that Dave created.

Oh, is that a couple of weeks back by now?

Or is it just a week ago?

I don’t know.

He created a reel of a, I’m not sure if he’s a state trooper or a sheriff, somewhere in Missouri here, lifting a hay bale off of the side of the road.

Come to find out this guy’s a power lifter.

That’s his hobby.

And Dave remixed this reel and added some dad tropes in there.

And this thing has been viewed like 34,000 times on Instagram.

That is nuts.

That’s so funny that that was my first experience with something like just taking off.

And I don’t think that qualifies as like a viral reel.

I think it’s at like 40,000 views or something.

But this is Dave from Post Production again.

It’s actually at 52,000 views right now.

So not that I’m checking out every five minutes or anything.

It’s a lot more views than I’ve ever gotten on social media before.

I don’t know.

I don’t either.

Catching lightning in a bottle.

Yes, exactly.

But go to Instagram.

Yeah, check it out.

Check it out and let us know what you think.

It’s very popular.

It’s the Morgan Wallen of Instagram Reels.

Exactly.

All right, well, I kind of shared the housekeeping.

Dave, have you got anything else to add?

Yep, rate and review on whatever podcast platform you use to listen and thanks for tuning in and let us know what you thought.

Absolutely.

Appreciate y’all.

So the upcoming award show is the ACM Awards, actually.

You said the CMA Awards, but that’s another one.

I didn’t.

It’s the same letters.

I know.

It’s not fair.

And I switched it, the other stuff, because of my mistake earlier, but I missed this one.

Words are stuck in brain, but not coming out well, you know?

Which is why I’m not a songwriter.

Being married 20 years will do too.

Oh, I guess.

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