These are the "2020 CMT Music Awards" and you can see that they were held in October 2020, which means this was during the corona pandemic and you can also see from the fact that the 2021 CMT Music Awards already took place that this 2020 ceremony probably got postponed as well. Anyway, this is of course all about country music. Well, at least in theory. I will get to that later. For now, it can be said that this show ran for pretty much exactly 1.5 hours, but this does not include commercials yet, so probably around two hours in full for those who watched it live. Then again, the commercials were probably not worse than the show itself. Not a fan as you can see from my rating. Let's stay with the basics for now: If you take a look at the directors, then you could surely be more hopeful for a good show, especially with how much Joe DeMaio has worked on in the past, but also with the awards recognition for co-director Ryan Polito. Several Emmy nominations. But it seems like it's all about quantity instead of quality there because the outcome here was just another messed-up awards show. The key issue is present here as well once again: It did not feel like an awards show. There were simply too many music performances there and the awards felt secondary. If at all. Rather tertiary. It took between eight and nine minutes for the first awards to be presented I think, actually that's even less than with other music awards shows, but still approximately 10% of the show was over when the first award was presented and it kept going like this. There were massively long interruptions of music performers for the rest of the evening. Luckily, the music was not entirely bad at times. The way I've seen it at other shows and this includes the 2021 CMT Music Awards edition as well.
There are three hosts here and the one male host was Kane Brown, who also had his birthday that day. He returned for 2021 not too long ago. The other ones were established singer Ashley McBryde and Modern family actress Sarah Hyland. Can't help it, but I kinda like her and here I felt for the first time that she really looked her age approximately, but I mean it in an entirely positive way with how she always seemed younger than she really was, not only on her trademark show. Kinda fitting here maybe because country fans are usually 30+ as well. Still I wonder why she was chosen here because I have no clue about a potential country or music background when it comes to her. But at least in terms of country, this also applied to many people who were part of the show. Diplo? Katy Perry? Okay, at least she tried to be funny with the Lionel Richie reference. Kelsea Ballerini and Halsey may have similar (first) names, but their performance also had zero connection with country. Then again, I have no clue anyway what Ballerini is doing at these shows in general. She was also a pretty bad host for the 2021 edition. It was not just the performances, but also the nominations. Best exaple would be Justin Bieber getting in. I think there were quite a few popular music artists that collaborated with country musicians and from what I saw the result rarely looked like anything remotely close to country. Take Gwen Stefani or Nelly for that too. Okay him I like, so can#t be too harsh here.
The maybe most disrespectful and weakest moment of the show was when they had Caylee Hammack on stage. I know I said too much music performances, but could there be anything worse really than what they did with her. Show a brief 30-second or so extract from her performance and say you can watch the rest online. She was a nominee that night and they clearly showed us this way how much they cared about her with other nominees being allowed to perform entire songs on stage. If i was her and if she is ever invited again, I would reject the offer to come again. I actually almost only hope because of that that she makes it kinda big in the coming years. Oh well, even if she does, then she will probably come again. Oh and I learned from Blake Shelton that these awards are fan-voted? I guess the Bieber fans really did not care then. Or they have also grown too old now finally. But it was kinda awkward what he had to say about fan-voted events. I mean he clearly tried to express how much it means to him to be liked by the masses, but it felt more like bashing traditional awards shows and I am pretty sure that next time he received a Grammy (if he does), he will respond completely different there.
Okay, what else can I say here? I think it's pretty much almost all out there now. I actually thought about giving this another two stars, but it was moments like the one with Hammack, the exaggerated amount of stage performances (show could have been easily kept at 75 minutes) and a few other aspects that made me really dislike it. Also how they had to get in sponsors during the show (I think we had tic tac?) when awards were name after them. And it was pretty close to the American elections as we saw on one occasion when they encouraged people to vote early. With the (Republican) country background no surprise that they did not publicly support Biden the way other awards shows did, especially BET Awards etc. However, this is still the liberal entertainment industry, so opinions were certainly divided. Or maybe they were also not brave enough to clearly go pro-Trump with the backlash they would receive for that. On a really small side note, I thought it was kinda funny how the second performer (around the six-minute mark) looked so much like Drake. Maybe a country Drake. Okay that's it. Even if I keep going for another four paragraphs, I will have no clue why some people were a part of this show. Idina Menzel? Demi Lovator?? Jessica Chastain??? For the masses I guess those people. I do not mean Rob Thomas with that obviously. He was nice as always. The rest of the show wasn't. Big thumbs-down. Highly not recommended. Not as unwatchable overall as the 2021 version, but still pretty bad. I'm baffled they really managed a step down in quality even in 2021. Stay far away from both broadcasts. At least the location was right (Nashville,, Tennessee).
There are three hosts here and the one male host was Kane Brown, who also had his birthday that day. He returned for 2021 not too long ago. The other ones were established singer Ashley McBryde and Modern family actress Sarah Hyland. Can't help it, but I kinda like her and here I felt for the first time that she really looked her age approximately, but I mean it in an entirely positive way with how she always seemed younger than she really was, not only on her trademark show. Kinda fitting here maybe because country fans are usually 30+ as well. Still I wonder why she was chosen here because I have no clue about a potential country or music background when it comes to her. But at least in terms of country, this also applied to many people who were part of the show. Diplo? Katy Perry? Okay, at least she tried to be funny with the Lionel Richie reference. Kelsea Ballerini and Halsey may have similar (first) names, but their performance also had zero connection with country. Then again, I have no clue anyway what Ballerini is doing at these shows in general. She was also a pretty bad host for the 2021 edition. It was not just the performances, but also the nominations. Best exaple would be Justin Bieber getting in. I think there were quite a few popular music artists that collaborated with country musicians and from what I saw the result rarely looked like anything remotely close to country. Take Gwen Stefani or Nelly for that too. Okay him I like, so can#t be too harsh here.
The maybe most disrespectful and weakest moment of the show was when they had Caylee Hammack on stage. I know I said too much music performances, but could there be anything worse really than what they did with her. Show a brief 30-second or so extract from her performance and say you can watch the rest online. She was a nominee that night and they clearly showed us this way how much they cared about her with other nominees being allowed to perform entire songs on stage. If i was her and if she is ever invited again, I would reject the offer to come again. I actually almost only hope because of that that she makes it kinda big in the coming years. Oh well, even if she does, then she will probably come again. Oh and I learned from Blake Shelton that these awards are fan-voted? I guess the Bieber fans really did not care then. Or they have also grown too old now finally. But it was kinda awkward what he had to say about fan-voted events. I mean he clearly tried to express how much it means to him to be liked by the masses, but it felt more like bashing traditional awards shows and I am pretty sure that next time he received a Grammy (if he does), he will respond completely different there.
Okay, what else can I say here? I think it's pretty much almost all out there now. I actually thought about giving this another two stars, but it was moments like the one with Hammack, the exaggerated amount of stage performances (show could have been easily kept at 75 minutes) and a few other aspects that made me really dislike it. Also how they had to get in sponsors during the show (I think we had tic tac?) when awards were name after them. And it was pretty close to the American elections as we saw on one occasion when they encouraged people to vote early. With the (Republican) country background no surprise that they did not publicly support Biden the way other awards shows did, especially BET Awards etc. However, this is still the liberal entertainment industry, so opinions were certainly divided. Or maybe they were also not brave enough to clearly go pro-Trump with the backlash they would receive for that. On a really small side note, I thought it was kinda funny how the second performer (around the six-minute mark) looked so much like Drake. Maybe a country Drake. Okay that's it. Even if I keep going for another four paragraphs, I will have no clue why some people were a part of this show. Idina Menzel? Demi Lovator?? Jessica Chastain??? For the masses I guess those people. I do not mean Rob Thomas with that obviously. He was nice as always. The rest of the show wasn't. Big thumbs-down. Highly not recommended. Not as unwatchable overall as the 2021 version, but still pretty bad. I'm baffled they really managed a step down in quality even in 2021. Stay far away from both broadcasts. At least the location was right (Nashville,, Tennessee).
