The 2018 ACM Awards were given out on Sunday, April 15 in Las Vegas. Here is a complete list of winners.
Entertainer of the Year
Jason Aldean
Male Vocalist of the Year
Chris Stapleton
Female Vocalist of the Year
Miranda Lambert
Vocal Duo of the Year
Brothers Osborne
Vocal Group of the Year
Old Dominion
Single of the Year
“Body Like a Back Road,” Sam Hunt
Song of the Year
“Tin Man”
Written by Jack Ingram, Miranda Lambert, and Jon Randall
Performed by Miranda Lambert
Album of the Year
Chris Stapleton, From a Room: Volume 1
New Male Vocalist of the Year
Brett Young
New Female Vocalist of the Year
Lauren Alaina
New Vocal Duo or Group of the Year
Midland
Video of the Year
Brothers Osborne, “It Ain’t My Fault”
Vocal Event of the Year
Keith Urban and Carrie Underwood, “The Fighter”
Songwriter of the Year
Rhett Akins
Very happy to see Lauren Alaina win for New Female. Really thought Maren Morris was going to win for Female and Vocal Event, and I’m annoyed that Miranda Lambert has still won this award.
Shocked Old Dominion got group but good for them. Their latest album actually isn’t that bad imo. It’s not great, but not bad.
Not a bad award show. I thought Lady Antebellum, Lauren Alaina and Carrie Underwood were standouts performance wise. Alan Jackson and Jon Pardi were good as well. The only performance I thought were terrible were Bebe Rexha/FGL, Maren Morris, and I didn’t really care for Chris Young or Brett Young as the former wastes his talent while the latter has very little imo.
Wow! “Body Like A Backroad” and Jason Aldean winning Entertainer pretty much negates the good wings for me! I’m glad to see Lambert win Female Vocalist and Song for “Tin Man”, Chris Stapleton with Male Vocalist and his album win and Brothers Osborne with duo!
Isn’t Single based on impact for the year? If so then it makes total sense why “Body Like A Backroad” won. The song is utter garbage, but there’s no denying the impact it had last year.
I see the argument about “impact” pretty often on message boards, but I have never found it persuasive. I think that should be one factor that could be up for consideration, but I don’t think radio support or sales should be the deciding factors into what is awarded as the “best” of any year. The runaway popularity of something like “Body Like A Back Road” is its own reward; I wouldn’t give Taco Bell an award for making the year’s best tacos just because they sold more tacos than anyone else. Quality should matter. Yes, there are plenty of people who like Hunt’s single and likely voted accordingly; I don’t know what I would actually say to one of those voters were we face to face, but I’m sure they exist. But I don’t think the single’s radio success alone means it should win; I mean, at that point, why bother making nominations or voting at all?
As for Lambert: Yes, she’s been wildly over-rewarded and has won for some of her worst work (“Over You,” “Automatic”), but I have no problem with her winning Female Vocalist for this ACM cycle. She’s still in the promotional cycle for what I’d rate as her second-or-third-best album and had “Tin Man” as her single during the eligibility period; personally, she would have earned my vote among the five nominees. Assuming Tami Neilson, Ashley McBryde, and Kacey Musgraves won’t be nominated, I imagine I’ll be more inclined to support Carrie Underwood come CMA time, but I think Lambert was deserving of her win this time.
Loved this from Jonathan: “I wouldn’t give Taco Bell an award for making the year’s best tacos just because they sold more tacos than anyone else. Quality should matter. … But I don’t think the single’s radio success alone means it should win; I mean, at that point, why bother making nominations or voting at all?”
I didn’t bother to watch the show. I watched Bartolo “Big Sexy” Colon, at a month shy of 45, take a perfect game into the 8th inning vs the Houston Astros.
Listening to Patsy Cline as I comment.
I wasn’t saying so much that the success of Sam Hunt should make it win. Just that may have been the thing that tipped the award in Sam Hunt’s corner. I think the song is horrendous and really shouldn’t have been awarded and I will never see the appeal and how someone can like it.
@ Raymond
I’m with you! Since you touched on that particular argument, I figured it was worth elaborating on a bit, as it’s something I’ve seen cropping up more and more.
Ditto to Jonathan, including the Underwood support for the CMAs.
The only woman other than Miranda Lambert that I could make a case for was Reba McEntire, but either way, you’re adding another win to a long line of them. I’m relieved it wasn’t Kelsea Ballerini.
The ACMs tend to go for the huge hit, regardless of quality, so I’m not surprised that Sam Hunt finally won an award for “Body Like a Back Road” at the ACMs. If we ever did a ranking of all the ACM Single winners, there’d be a lot more jockeying for the bottom. “Don’t You Wanna Stay,” “H.O.L.Y.,” and even “To All the Girls I’ve Loved Before!”
So few performances worth watching. I thought the new Underwood song was great in the same way that I find most of her work great. Little else worth watching. Reba brought the red dress back at the wrong awards show. Bunch of people I didn’t recognize and couldn’t tell if they were the country acts or the pop guest stars.
Ok yeah thank goodness Kelsea Ballerini didn’t win Female. I am shocked radio has bought in with her so much. She’s like diet Taylor Swift. Worst writing, production, and vocals. I’ll never get the appeal.
Unpopular opinion but I felt like Reba shouldn’t have been nominated for Female Vocalist. I felt like Lauren Alaina should’ve gotten in instead. Maybe it’s my fandom of Lauren Alaina speaking but the fact that she was the only solo female artist in 2017 to score 2 #1s on Billboard, I know one was a collaboration, but she was really visible in 2017 compared to Reba it seemed like to me at least.
Jason Aldean wins entertainer because he was the artist who was on the stage during the Vegas shooting! That’s the consensus of what most DJs that posted their predictions stated. What made him an entertainer after such a horrific event? Maybe it was the WME agency that got it for him again! He’s so horrible imo.
You know, the sad part of it was…I didn’t think the sound system was all that bad, in comparison with past award shows. Most of the performances were “technically okay”, sans Aldean (you know, the reigning three time ACM entertainer of the year who sounded off key), and a couple others who might have been lip synching. Standouts to me were Underwood, Miranda, Blake solo, Midland, and Alan Jackson/Jon Pardi. But, I agree with Kevin…there wasn’t much that really stood out.
I was happy to see Miranda win song for “Tin Man”, but the winners, outside of possibly Old Dominion winning Group (which…meh)…were pretty much what I would’ve guessed. In some cases (Miranda/Stapleton) the ACM’s get it right…in others (Aldean/Hunt), you question it. But all in all…all that people are going to remember in a week is that an awards show happened.
I have to mention, though…the two most bizarre moments of the night were whatever the hell Chris Janson was doing to close the show (I question if he might have been hitting up the after parties prior to that performance…although, I’ll give him this…it was insane enough that it kept my attention after EOTY), and Toby Keith, who also seemed a bit out of it, giving Junior Brown an odd shout-out during “Should’ve Been a Cowboy” with Blake.
Reba had a #1 album last year that also earned her first Grammy in 25 years. If I was an ACM voter, she’d have been my pick.
There were at least two complaints I have seen registered about the ACMs: not much mentioning of the victims of the Las Vegas massacre, and no mention of those that the industry lost in the previous year. It’s as if they wanted to have their usual big arena-rock-with-twang party on the MGM Grand stage (:grumble: :grumble:)