So… does this mean that we’re going to be getting a full-length Justin Timberlake country album soon because after his performance with Chris Stapleton at the 2015 CMA Awards, we NEED it.
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While Little Big Town may go home with more top awards, they’re not up for the biggest honor: entertainer of the year.
Even before this year, you were familiar with Stapleton’s talent.
It’s become a famous line: Former Sony Music chairman Gary Overton caused an uproar in Nashville this year when he declared “If you’re not on country radio, you don’t exist”. The band also performed the song at the awards show. Following these victories, Smith’s song “Stay” experienced an increase in download sales, with the song being downloaded 81,000 times that week, an increase of 38,000 from the week before.
Lambert and Shelton announced they were divorced in July, and hours before the CMAs aired, Shelton and Gwen Stefani confirmed they were a couple.
The 37-year-old Nashville-native finally broke into the mainstream country spotlight by winning Album of the Year, New Artist of the Year and Male Vocalist of the Year. She’s named Female Vocalist of the Year for the sixth time. Stapleton, 37, won new artist of the year over the astonishingly fast-rising Sam Hunt. The album for which Lambert won was her fifth, while Shelton’s was his eighth and Church’s was his third.
“This is an unbelievable thing, and I’m not going to take it lightly”, he said during a humble acceptance speech.
Timberlake is a fan of Stapleton’s, so it’s no surprise that when the country star asked Timberlake to perform a duet with him at the CMAs, he said yes. The writers of “Girl Crush” won song of the year.
The group, which includes Kimberly Schlapman, Jimi Westbrook and Phillip Sweet, is also nominated for music video of the year for “Girl Crush”, musical event of the year for “Smokin’ and Drinkin'” with Miranda Lambert and vocal group of the year, which it has won for the last three years.
Safe to say Stapleton has already had an illustrious career and is clearly well-liked by big players in the country community, but it looks like his superstar ship may have just come in. He wrote – and did backup vocals for – Adele’s “If It Hadn’t Been for Love”, Luke Bryan’s “Drink a Beer”, Kenny Chesney’s “Never Wanted Nothing More”, Blake Shelton’s “100 Miles”, and “Too Fast” for Jason Aldean.
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Brad and Carrie’s opening monologue: No night that starts off with Shatner singing “Girl Crush” and Paisley in his underwear can go wrong.
