The Country Music Awards festival is one of the most exciting music festivals that exist in our country. It's responsible for bringing in hundreds of thousands of dedicated fans every year!

Once you get an in depth look at the CMA's it's easy to understand why!

This is the week that the nation's most prominent gathering of country fans, CMA Music Festival, descended upon downtown Nashville, drawing somewhere in the neighborhood of 80,000 people a day. Five of the six acts included in the mashup are scheduled to perform, and they surely won't be the only ones with a soused party song or two in their set lists. Still, it won't be all bro country, all the time; even Bryan and FGL detour into reflective or sentimental territory when they want to.

As a general rule, the smaller the stage — CMA Fest has many to choose from, the majority free of charge — the broader the stylistic range of its lineup. An intrepid fan could conceivably catch classic southern rock, blue-collar hick-hop, modern bluegrass and hooky folk-pop, along with bar-hardened Red Dirt bands, storytelling singer-songwriters, singers with sleek, soul-pop leanings and aging stars whose once-novel sounds have come to represent tradition, then cap it off with the hit-makers holding court on the stadium stage each night.

The lineup will be low on, but not entirely lacking in, diversity along the lines of race, gender, nationality and sexuality. Singer Ty Herndon, who came out as a gay man last November, is headlining the Concert for Love and Acceptance. Both Kacey Musgraves and Laura Bell Bundy are staging showcases at a queer dance club. Performers from the U.K., Canada, Australia New Zealand and the Netherlands have an entire night's lineup to themselves. In addition to CMT's Next Women of Country showcase on Thursday, acts prominently featuring female singers and instrumentalists comprise a quarter or more of the festival schedule on most days, a markedly better gender ratio than country radio has at the moment (more on that in a bit). And the artists of color scheduled to make official or unofficial appearances include Country Music Hall of Famer Charley Pride, former Hootie & the Blowfish front man Darius Rucker, country-pop diva-on-the-rise Mickey Guyton, country-soul singer Rissi Palmer and Jessy Wilson, of the stylish blues-rock duo Muddy Magnolias.

Fans make the trek to CMA Fest not only to watch these performances, but to personally interact with the performers — those whose ubiquitous singles have grown their fame and those whose music lands nowhere near country radio playlists — through fan club brunches, meet-and-greets and photo lines. While the sounds and sensibilities at mainstream country's center and margins are continually shifting, the genre's most devoted listeners look for consistent, fan-first accessibility from their favorite artists. The festival is one place superstars can demonstrate they've stayed true to the fans who've actively supported them and their music. Diane Pecknold, author of The Selling Sound: The Rise of the Country Music Industry, observed, “There's still an aspect of mutual obligation between artist and fan that is enacted at CMA Fest that strikes me as pretty unique. … I mean you have devotees in lots of other genres, but you don't have the performed obligation of the industry to the fan in the same way, I don't think, in any other genre.”

Leading up to the event, a Sony Nashville exec made the sweeping declaration, “If you're not on country radio, you don't exist.” The guy no doubt knew how well that hyperbolic soundbite would play with radio movers and shakers en route to CRS, but he wasn't completely exaggerating; terrestrial radio still wields considerable star-making power in the country music business (satellite radio now plays more of a role too). What's more, country is simultaneously the nation's leading format and a perennial pop culture underdog, phenomenally popular but pegged by many an elitist rock critic as unhip, unsophisticated, lowest-common-denominator fare.

Over the past couple of years, the bro country surge has coincided with a surge in Millennial listeners, seeming to nail their omnivorous, Spotify-acclimated tastes, their readiness to embrace country that's absorbed hip-hop, EDM and modern rock production values. CRS devoted an entire panel to the subject, and Andrew Cohen, who handles branding for the reactivated I.R.S. Records imprint, participated as a panelist. A twenty-something himself, he spent much of his speaking time emphasizing what fickle radio listeners he and his peers are. The next day, in his Music Row office, he monitored multiple Twitter feeds on his computer screen while explaining the science of promoting youthful artists like countrypolitan-updating singer Ashley Monroe and vocal-guitar duo Striking Matches to an equally youthful audience.

Fickle or not, the most marketable demographic for country radio, known as the “money demo,” spans the ages of 25 and 54, meaning that the bulk of Baby Boomers have already aged out, or are close to it, and stations need to replace them with their children, or grandchildren. “The only birthday that was really depressing for me was this last year, because I turned 55,” jokes Becky Brenner, a leading country radio consultant. “I'm not in the radio demo anymore.” Artists age out of the format too, but not out of the genre (which is still, on the whole, viewed as grounded, adult music).

Universal Music Group Nashville packed 16 performers into a single showcase at the Ryman Auditorium. Conference attendees scooped up boxed lunches on the way in, eating their sandwiches in the wooden pews while, one by one, baritone crooning loverman Josh Turner, Kacey Musgraves, the leading light of kitschy, clever, western-tinged pop, sensitive stylist David Nail, harmony-rich quartet Little Big Town, down-home country-soul belter Chris Stapleton, arena-packing singer-songwriter Dierks Bentley, the hot-picking Brothers Osborne, heavyweight songwriter Eric Church, in confessional mode, and an array of other acts played one song each with acoustic accompaniment.

No two performers sounded much alike, and precious little of what they sang was party-geared fare. After emceeing the event, Royce Risser, Universal's Senior Vice President of Promotion, said, “I was trying to think of anything on the show today that would be considered a bro country song. I don't think there was a single song out there. … We've been very successful with radio at UMG by being diverse in our releases. We're trying to create something new, and something different, and something that people will gravitate towards. You're not gonna see us go chase one avenue down.”

Although the rush and excitement felt by country music fans at CMA fest has come to a close, All of us will simply have to wait in anticipation until next year. Until then turn up the music and party on!

Article Source: WUTC Chattanooga's NPR Station

Photo Source: TERRY WYATT GETTY IMAGES