Music, Television

CMT Music Awards Recap

Well guys, it’s here. Country season has arrived. It’s finally an OK time to listen to songs about sunshine and trucks and partying outside and feel good about it instead of trudging through snow and hating every single person in the south. Country season is short-lived in the Northeast but it’s pretty glorious. And there’s no better way to kick it off than with me sitting in my bed for 3 hours with my laptop on my chest watching a ratchet livestream of a bunch of cool as shit country performances happening in Nashville, where I am not. But whatevs, TAN LINES. JOHN DEERE. MURICA. LET’S DO THIS.

(It’s rare that you hear me say this, but for the record this was an overall entertaining show. Props to CMT.)

Highs

-Lady A kicks off the night with “Long Stretch of Love”, including a mid-song interlude into the land of EDM as Zedd drops some knowledge from his beat laboratory. It was entertaining at best to see the country stars at a loss for what to do with their hands for this breakdown while all the fans moshed. ALSO Hillary looked like a smokeshow slutty Sandra Dee with leather leggings, jacket and hot pink pumps. Sexy, Can I? Real talk though HOW do country singers stomp (literally stomp their feet) all over a stage in stilettos. Get back to me on that.

-I love a good blurring of fiction and real world, which always comes with an appearance of cast members from Nashville. Deacon and Will Lexington introduce Reba and hawk Season 4…where Will teases “Some of us are coming back…good luck pal.” YEAH RIGHT, GUYS A REALLY SMART BLOGGER ALREADY PREDICTED DEACON’S COMING BACK NEXT SEASON, SO HA.

-I can ALWAYS get down with the camera panning to someone who flubs the lyrics. Last night’s most memorable was Jason Aldean’s girlfriend/mistress/wife(?) getting an audience shot during his performance and singing the wrong words. I relish in these moments. It’s the little things.

-The jockey that rode American Pharoah into history at the Belmont last weekend gets an appearance just cause and introduces Ron White. The three words he’s allowed to say into the mic are pretty incoherent but this was already hilarious because they put a baby jockey next to Erin Andrews and the height difference was glorious. Love wittle cute jockeys.

-The boyz of FGL have been somewhat listening to me. Blazers, man. So classy. I like what I’m seeing (until the whoutfit performance…see below. HAD to ruin it.)

-Kristen Bell gets a few cameos, bits about advice from last year’s host and such and these are funnier than anything she ever did as a host, and I’ve come to the conclusion that hosting forces jokes and over the top bits that make people unfunny. Epiphany. Watch here

-LUKE.BRYAN.IS.BACK. Look, I understand that as an artist, Luke wanted to show his range and put out a few snoozers that were really deep and not just about girls shaking their asses and I was patient. I waited for Luke to release a new banger that would guarantee a gyrating performance. And it paid OFF. He performed new song Kick the Dust Up which allowed for full hip movement. We’re going to momentarily forget that he was wearing a stupid shirt with red leather shoulder pads because there was shaking, there was a baseball cap and every time there’s a baseball cap it gets flipped backward halfway through the performance when cocky Luke comes out to play. I guess you could say my friend Lindsey and I enjoyed it…

-Lady A wins for their Bartender music video which included Kate Upton and Charles immediately announces, “You have to put Kate Upton in a video to win!” in very typical guy fashion. #Tits #Merica Hillary tries to prevent a PR snafu and is like um no that’s not true…but realistically it probably is and this awkward moment was pretty gr8.

-Jake Owen debuts new song “Real Life” and his super hot short hair for the first time in a while and I’m loving it. Anyone who rides up to the stage on a bed gets my support. Drool. The chicks doing high kicks on inflatable pizza slices, however, can see themselves out. That is NOT real life.

-In other awksies moments, Nikki Reed presents award for Male Video and reads a very scripted joke off of the teleprompter “It’s time to finally honor a forgotten minority…men.” Aaaaandd CRICKETS. The joke bombed so hard she was forced to nervously laugh at it herself. Someone got fired.

-The bit that seemed to work the best was a pre-recorded knock off of Uber with “Guuber” where celebrities drive other celebrities around Nashville. The idea’s pretty stupid but it played off of star power with Steven Tyler as a driver and of course, the punk who needs to be included in everything, Biebz. He and James Corden express their love for Luke Bryan and his sapphire eyes, which I can always get on board with plus a sing along to Country Girl Shake It For Me. Luke lapped that shit right up when he accepted the award for male video and declared welllll Bieber loves me soooo…

-Sam Hunt performs banger “House Party” (unfortunately still in that white tunic shirt) and realizes that his star power is his ability to make girls swoon and take selfies with them. Get it, Sam.

-Queen Carrie brings it with the outfit changes for “Little Toy Guns” performance. Flawwwwlezzzz.

Lows

-The hosts Erin Andrews and Brittany Snow are mostly lame, as most hosts are and pretty awkward together. The bits that fell flat were Erin’s lesbian crush on Carrie Underwood and a small Pitch Perfect Nashville Bella’s performance in the beginning.

-It’s gotten to the point where I think every time Reba hits the stage she’s performing a medley of old songs like “Fancy”…turns out she’s actually making and performing new music and it all just sounds the same to me. Snoozes for Reba always. Sorry bout it.

-Apparently Whoutfits are the new cool thing of country music? What. This is not flattering at all. Knock it off.

-Oh hey Billy Rae Cyrus, it’s so nice of you to drop in after getting a blowout to promote your new show and make me want to puke everywhere.

-There’s a bit with Joe Dirt in it…is it 1997?

-Joe Dirt very truthfully pointed out while introducing Keith Urban that he’s so close to a mullet why doesn’t he just do it? And I actually agree with this very trashy fictional character. Seriously Keith, your hair gets woofier every time I see it. Enough with the soccer mom cut. Grow it long for a dirty man bun or keep it boy length but either way this in between, almost mullet, almost “I drive a Dodge Caravan” style is reaaalllyyyy gonna need to go. (PS he performed a new song “John Cougar, John Deere, John 3:16″….COULD THAT TITLE BE LONGER?)

-Arnold Schwarzenegger and Tom Arnold were on the show WAY too much. I don’t get the Arnold thing. His accent sucks and it isn’t funny. Plus did we all just forget that he banged his nanny and had a secret kid with her just because he’s the Terminator? Anyway, him in a cowboy hat spitting out incoherent sounds was downright painful.

-Mike Fisher (Carrie’s other half) is the Taylor Swift of crowd shots and he doesn’t even know it. For whatever reason, every country awards show, the camera is fixated on Mike in the audience half of the time and yet he doesn’t have reactions. Why are we watching him? Because he’s pretty…but also out of a group of drunk country boys I think we should be able to find someone more fascinating to take Tay’s place. Let’s work on that. Petition for Brett Eldredge to be his replacement?

Full Winners List

Collaborative Video of the Year: Miranda Lambert & Carrie Underwood “Somethin Bad”

Breakthrough Video of the Year: Sam Hunt “Leave the Night On”

Duo Video of the Year: Florida Georgia Line “Dirt”

Female Video of the Year: Carrie Underwood “Something in the Water”

CMT Performance of the Year: Bob Seger & Jason Aldean “Turn the Page”

Group Video of the Year: Lady Antebellum “Bartender”

Male Video of the Year: Luke Bryan “Play it Again”

Best Video of the Year: Carrie Underwood “Something in the Water”

JUice

Weekly JUice

Week of 5/18/15

It was a slow week, my apologies, but since I didn’t post one last week because it was the funeral of my 23rd year, I didn’t want to leave ya’ll hanging 2 weeks in a row.

1. Dancing is cool. Sia and her wig head are super weird but whether you are a fan of her music or not this was cool as shit. For someone who walks into the wall pretty much on a daily basis it was baffling to see what skilled coordination looks like.

2. Reese Witherspoon to play Tink in live action Peter Pan. In a world where every Disney movie is reincarnated onstage, animated and live action for extra dough…this is the next in the lineup. Anyway, Reese Witherspoon is already a tiny whimsical blonde so I can’t see anyone more fit for this part.

3. This dress is the stuff. I make a point to never post about Kardashians for obvious reasons but this is a Jenner, so, loophole. There’s a reason she’s the supermodel of the family, her dress in Cannes is my favorite thing I’ve seen this week and Kendall looks like a dime in it.

4. Red Nose Day and all celebs are BFFs who laugh about how rich they are. Apparently there was an actual Red Nose Day special on NBC last night, which I didn’t catch but this was making the rounds this morning and it’s not even that funny but my fave celeb couple is in it and so is Zac Efron sooo….duh.

5. New jams of all genres to take you into MDW. Please bump these whilst nomming on wieners and tossing back bud lattes cause Merica (and Nick Jonas’ muscles…and Luke Bryan’s dance moves…and Jason Derulo’s everything.)

Music

The 50th ACM’s Recap

Ya’ll, first and foremost I’d like to thank Jesus Christ my Lord & Savior for the opportunity to watch every country artist thank Jesus Christ their Lord & Savior last night. Second I’d like to ask what cameras to look at when I thank them. No but actually, obviously a round stage means there are several spots to stand in and I don’t doubt there were no less than 10 cameras surrounding it, but REALLY? you couldn’t give ANYONE a quick memo or flag which camera to look at? If I drank every time a winner announced that they didn’t know where to look followed by a shout out to their boy JC I would’ve been blackout REAL quick. Without further ado, here are the things that were fabulous about last night’s show and the things that were less than fabulous.

Yay:

-Kicking off the night with a pan to a random person singing the wrong words to the opening song by Keith and Eric promptly followed by a T. Swift crowd shot. The two things I enjoy most about award shows within seconds of each other, people getting caught not knowing the lyrics and Swiftie’s awkward dance moves. (PS: IS SHE THE TALLEST WOMAN IN THE WORLD?)

-FGL performs without a whisper of a disgusting vest or overdone tassel. They’ve grown up before my very eyes and I’m just so darn proud of them for wearing normal people clothes. They best keep it up.

-Miranda Lambert showing women of the world that not all pantssuits have to be for an interview at the White House. Never ever thought i would use sexy and pants suit in the same sentence but here we are. Also performance corset. Damn, girl.

-Sam Hunt performs “Take Your Time” in red hot pants, yes please. (By perform, I obviously mean just the chorus because he’s a n00b and apparently hasn’t earned performing time yet. For shame.)

-Tony Jokes on Jokes Romo throwing a pass to Luke Bryan and then tells a quick LOL about deflategate by saying “We’re the Dallas Cowboys, we have real balls.”

-The most real mushroom cut I’ve ever seen on this guy from Alabama.

-Kelly Clarkson introduces Mommy in Law Reba and goes, “…basically what I’m saying is I have the coolest mother in law and you also can suck it.” A girl after my own heart.

-T.Swizzle gets a full on montage about how perfect she is then her mom presents the 50th Anniversary Milestone award. Andrea gives us a quick peek at Tay’s pre-star years when apparently she was a real loser in school whose only friend was her mom (poor T) and she also wrote Love Story because her parents wouldn’t let her date a guy who clearly was a turd. Then Mama Swift gets choked up so obviously I get choked up and Tay accepts and thanks the country community for being graceful and the bomb.com with her transition to pop.

-Blake Shelton sings a song about sangria mouth and all I can think about is this and have a giggle fit.

-Dan & Shay team up with Nick Jonas and sing Jealous AND Chains. Nick Jonas struts that shit and owns the damn performance, my panties melt away and I barely even notice the two country goobers with stupid identical hairstyles onstage with him in his shadow.

-Lady A performs a new banger song and wins for one of the VERY few upbeat performances of the night.

Nay:

-Lee Brice gives a quick shoutout to Randy Travis in the audience and I’m very concerned that it’s a little too soon for him to be making public appearances after his stroke/millions of health troubles because he LEGIT doesn’t move a muscle and I had to question if he was still alive.

-Most performances were medleys of the singers greatest hits and I was all in on that. Nothin but the hits, nothin but the hits, nothin but the motherf’ing hits.

-Martina McBride sings a song from 11 years ago. Way to keep it current, guys. She looks like a dime piece though.

-Luke performs “I See You” and wears a golf polo and I’d like to submit a formal petition that Luke only wears v necks with a backwards hat and shake it at least 10 times per performance. Don’t stray from what works, Luke. I don’t handle change well.

VS. (jus sayin)

-Rascal Flatts and Xtina perform together and I have not the slightest clue what song they’re singing because it’s just a bunch of sounds and vocal runs aka it’s so Xtina it hurts. I don’t remember hearing one coherent lyric in this performance. But she wore a jean jacket. Cause that’s SO country.

-Because this show is in TEXAS. Did you hear it’s in TEXAS? Well they use the Dallas cheerleaders as stage ho’s. No seriously, all they do is stand onstage when someone wins an award. Good work.

-Kenny recalls his first ACM’s when he actually had a record deal and they still sat him in the nosebleeds. Could it possibly be because he refuses to wear anything other than a cut off tee? Clean it up, Kenny.

-The amount of times that a country star introducing another star not so discreetly points out that they’re buddies or friends is exhausting. Hey, you’re all country stars who love to drink and sing about the same things. I’m going to go ahead and assume you’re all friends. No need to give AIM profile shoutouts at every introduction.

-Dr. Phil was given a mic and I wish that he wasn’t cause he shouts into it because his natural vocal decibel is always set to megaphone.

-Brooks & Dunn are performing togets for the first time in 100 years or something…Brooks (or Dunn?) is scarin me with his face though.

-My dreamboat of all dreamboats, Luke Bryan wins Entertainer of the Year again (rightfully so) and the minute he starts his acceptance speech, someone who I’m sure was immediately fired starts playing him out with Miranda’s song “Over You.” Yiiiiikes bet that made his moment real special.

Bottom Line-Real MVP’s of the night were the man candy underdogs of country (&Nick Jonas):

GIVE IT TO ME.

Full Winners List:

Song of the Year: “Automatic”- Miranda Lambert

Vocal Duo of the Year: Florida Georgia Line

50^th Anniversary Milestone: Miranda Lambert, Most Awarded Female in Country

Vocal Group of the Year: Little Big Town

50^th Anniversary Milestone Award: Reba

50^th Anniversary Milestone: Taylor Swift

Album of the Year: Platinum-Miranda Lambert

50^th Anniversary Milestone: Garth Brooks

New Artist of the Year: Cole Swindell

Female Vocalist: Miranda Lambert

50^th Anniversary Milestone: Kenny Chesney

Single Record of the Year: “I Don’t Dance”-Lee Brice

Male Vocalist: Jason Aldean

50^th Anniversary Milestone: Brooks & Dunn

Entertainer of the Year: Luke Bryan, duhz

Country, Television

American Country Countdown Awards Recap

Hey didn’t you guys know that if you’re a country fan you get 100 awards show per year? Well gr8 news, they just added this one into the mix. In it’s first year, broadcast on Fox, it’s an awards show based off of the country countdown that airs weekly via Kix Brooks. (I’m guessing this is a southern thing because I’ve honestly never heard this countdown once in my life). Anyway there’s no better time to air a trial-run awards show than when all the network shows are on break. The format of these awards is that they’re all fan-voted and have been solicited via the artists on twitter for weeks now asking for votes. Each award is announced with 5 “nominees” ranked by how many votes they got and the number one or the winner then performs and accepts the award post-performance. I tuned in (full disclosure: all to see Brett Eldredge perform and win) and decided to recap it because there were some great outfits and great performances…and of course some real bombs. As per usual, let’s take a peek at the highs and lows…but first, a few words about our hosts.

There’s no quicker way to make an awards show a train wreck than to have two country bros who strictly sing about getting high and drunk, host it all. Admittedly, I have been against FGL showing up at awards shows for as long as they’ve been disgracing fashion, country and men all over the world with their bedazzled vests that they consistently don’t wear shirts under. Don’t get me wrong, I love their music and it’s catchy AF but it’s a real struggle to watch these two live in action without cringing a whole lot. Exhibit A, BK and Ty enter the show and immediately strip off layers so that they’re just wearing wife beaters, setting the tone for a real fashionable hosting gig. Then they each proceed to use the word “brother” after every thing that they read from the prompter. (Sort of like the Hulk but a little less rapey.) Don’t worry though, they mention the open bar twice in their intro comments and with that they’ve welcomed you to what will henceforth be known as the White Trash Bash, official name change pending.

Highlights:

-Carrie Underwood starts the show off performing a medley of her greatest hits in a big blue ball gown. She’s wearing a power ring and belting out the high notes as the true hit-maker of country. Also they make sure to pan a camera to her hubby for any lyric that could be emotionally related to their baby.

-Maddie & Tae present for the FGL win/performance and they crush the sparkly mini look and make the creepster Scotty McCreery wish he could get with them. Put that tongue away, Scotty, nice try.

-Reba McEntire wins the very first Nash Icon award, Miranda Lambert & Kelly Clarkson perform a tribute for her but since she ain’t dead, Reba hops right in on the action and the three of them perform “Fancy”. Although I’m not a Reba fan at all, the entire crowd was real into this performance, it was well done and fun to watch the joint bumpin. Miranda looked like a smoke for this performance (she had to make up for her earlier outfit…see “nightmares” list below)

-Brett “Sex” Eldredge wins Song of the Year with “Beat of the Music” and performs it wearing an eggplant colored polka dot button down, top buttons undone much like myself when he took the stage. He is literally perfect. So it’s whatevs.

-Speaking of hot men…Chase Rice–where have you been all my life?

-Although Kip Moore won the Breakthrough Artist of the Year despite the fact that he’s broken through and has been an established country singer for about 3 years now…I let it slide because he played “Hey Pretty Girl” (also an old song..but I digress) and they showed Carrie’s other half singing along real passionately and it was pretty adorbs. Even Carrie looked at him and was like aw that’s cute. (I’m assuming.)

-Lady A performs “Freestyle” plus a little bit of “Bartender” in front of the OPEN BAR, BROTHER. I digged it. These three always deliver the goods.

Nightmares:

-Luke Bryan wins Male Vocalist and performs “Roller Coaster.” I’ve had ENOUGH. The next time Luke performs a slow song at an awards show without a backwards hat and suggestive gyrating dance moves I’m going to be forced to turn the TV off. I will not support this for one more second. Get it together, Luke. On a more serious side, (and this belongs on the highlights list) after he accepted the award he gave a heartfelt thank you to the fans and all of his fellow country music stars for supporting him through another family loss a week or so ago and it got teary in here for a moment.

-FGL takes the stage to perform “Sun Daze” and Mullet is wearing a full camo outfit (cutoff obviously & cargo shorts), a camoutfit if you will, paired with red kicks. BK is wearing SWEATPANTS and a wife beater. SWEAT. PANTS. Thanks for dressing up for the occasion, boys.

-And along the same lines as super yucky outfits, Miranda performs a new song “Platinum” wearing a tacky sparkle slouch neck and knee length, acid washed, jean skirt. The song doesn’t do it for me but also I sincerely hope that no one expected me to focus on anything other than that abomination of a skirt. (She got the memo and pulled that shit together real quick for Reba’s performance.)

-Miss America or as we all know her, the girl that won a pageant by stealing the “Cups” scene from a movie that’s two years old, presented an award. Also FGL couldn’t pronounce her name. Shocking turn of events.

-Hunter Hayes is out past his curfew to present Album of the Year (Eric Church wins). Side Note: I’ve officially never seen Erich Church’s eyes because they’re always secured behind a pair of aviators because the sun never sets on cool?

-FGL swiftly ruins Christmas, or turns it into a holiday that Eddie from Christmas Vacation would attend, when they each turn Santa’s suit into cutoffs and make creepy sexual innuendos about his “sack”(camo of course). I wanted to set myself on fire.

-Vince Vaughn fulfills the quota of person who absolutely doesn’t belong at this awards show. He’s apparently bros with Kenny Chesney & presents the Groundbreaker award to Ken-dawgs.

-There is no music to cut off the “thank you” speeches and it is sorely missed. Ramble city, population: everyone.

And there you have it. I would call it an all around successful awards show with equal parts highlights and nightmares. Until next time…I leave you with this.

Music, Pop Culture, Television

AMA’s Recap

WHY in the history of music awards shows the top picks for hosts are LL Cool J and Pitbull is easily the greatest mystery of the world. It’s no secret that my hate for Pitbull/Mr. Worldwide/ Mr. 305 is to the moon and back so I’m going to try my best to ignore his antics and focus on the other parts of the show. (Key word here is try…I make no promises).

The opening performance of the night is our very own Ms. Taylor Swift performing Blank Space for the first time live. You all probably think I’m going to bow down to whatever she does but I’m mature enough to admit that this performance was all sorts of wrong. It was essentially a live action version of the music video and it was way too much. The sound sucked and Taylor felt the need to out-crazy the video version of herself and it was just plain scary. There were special fx flames left and right and guys being poisoned by apples and I didn’t know where to look. Her over-acted expressive crazy eyes were all over the place and it was pretty terrifying. She ended the performance with a smirk and a new man coming through a prop door with roses. Way to stick the landing but certainly not her best performance.

Remember how I said that I wasn’t going to focus on Mr. 305? I lied. Sue me. Dale. Pitbull took his hosting time to remind us all that he is in fact Cuban/Latino and essentially turned the awards into a bilingual broadcast. He declared that when he speaks Spanish the ratings go up, which is interesting because nothing made me want to turn off my TV more. After every commercial break we were promptly reminded that he speak Spanish, he also educated us all on what an Instagram filter is. It’s a good thing he was around because the Awards clearly could not have functioned without him. We were also blessed with a performance from him and this included his latest song Fireball which has singlehandedly ruined my favorite drink. Thanks for nothing, Pitbull.

Best Moments:

-One Direction won a bunch of awards and group hugged every time and we all got to hear them say “massive, massive thank you” in their cutesicle accents. Their performance took place in a grassy field and there was lots of tingly eye contact with the camera.

-Ariana Grande performed a stripped down medley like a classy cabaret singer in a black lace dress.

-Selena Gomez performs “The Heart Wants What It Wants” for the first time and gives us all the feels. She looked amazing in a long champagne colored gown with her hair down in waves, the backdrop was super moody and got a little distracting at times (chunky crying mascara eyes). Her pre-song blabbering was part of the performance unfortunately, but there was a part where some realistic wings came into play and I actually thought she might fly off the stage. Was really banking on a buildup to a sob sesh at the end but her grand finale was just some wet eyes. BOOOOOO. Don’t worry though because Taylor supplied them in full. Girl was a one woman broadway act last night. I usually cherish her audience cam moments for some awkward dancing but tonight was over the top.

-Speaking of Taylor stealing the show, she was awarded the first ever Dick Clark Award of Excellence, presented by Diana Ross who needed to be reminded that women don’t cover their face in blush anymore. We get to see a highlight reel of Tay’s general awesomeness and then she gets up to accept the award and kisses everyone in her posse (noticeably absent: Lena Dunham). Tay slobbers all over Diana Ross and how great she is and then talks directly to me when she thanks her fans for buying CD’s still. You’re welcome, T.

-The “Bang Bang” performance was pretty great and it’s a summer song that I can still get down with. Jessie J started out the song in the audience bopping around from celeb to celeb. She started with Khloe Kardashian who booty bumped her right on over to Tay’s crew, because of course. Jessie J learned quickly not to get down with Taylor Swift unless you want the spotlight ripped from your hands. Lorde tries to get in on it as well but we all shield our eyes. Then Ariana Grande takes it away onstage with a chair dance and a typical inapprops outfit & of course Nicki Minaj comes back out to play and is in her normal skanky uniform again. Joke’s over. They move back out to the audience to writhe around and it becomes clear that Nicki is above mingling with others.

Worst Moments:

-Charli XCX’s performance of “Boom Clap” which was straight out of every 90’s prom scene in the movies and quickly turned into her stripping into a latex outfit with a studded choker dancing around with some goth freaks and touching her boobs.

-Magic performs Rude, except it’s no longer summer and the song has lost it’s catchy appeal. Wyclef Jean joins them onstage and it is pretty much a stoner jam sesh. They take it to the audience and serenade a random girl who clearly doesn’t know what to do.

-Nicki Minaj performs a slower song wearing a floor length, long sleeve white gown trying to trick us all into thinking she’s an angel and not the disgusting hoe that showed us all her butthole during her Anaconda performance a mere few months ago at the VMA’s.

-Josh Duhamel introduces Fergie to perform “LA Love” and I’m reminded again how a perfect specimen like Josh married Fergalicious…and then made a kid with her. This song is offensively bad. I expected Harajuku girls to appear in the performance. It was so loud with so many colors and made my eyes hurt. At the end, Fergie strips a layer off and it gets stuck to her butt.

-JLo & Iggy’s “Booty” being the final performance of the night. Enough with the butts. So over it.

Things that made me question everything:

-Boy band Five Seconds of Summer performs a cover of What I Like About You. Is this even legal? Can a band perform a cover at an awards show like it’s karaoke night?

-During Iggy Azalea’s performance she was wearing a leotard, reenacting an 80’s exercise video and patted her vag far too many times for comfort.

-Lorde gives us a typical weirdo freak performance of her staring at the camera with dead witchy eyes and having an exorcism onstage and I was afraid. Taylor gets a lot of screen time dancing to her scary goth friend’s performance. She ends the song by smearing her black lipstick all over her face and Tay does her surprised face. I also had a surprised face at the fact that these two are friends.

-Lil Wayne has a quick performance with Christina Millian in red lingerie. Remember when she was irrelevant and the social media girl for The Voice? Christina provides some backup vocals and grinds all over Lil Wayne. Thanks for coming.

-Luke Bryan is there to present and not gyrate onstage. WHO SANCTIONED THIS? He also won an award and had lipstick on because he made out with his hot wife and stuck a dagger in my heart.

-Katy Perry wins an award and a Katy Perry robot, much like a hologram, accepts on her behalf via recording. If the robot ran out of battery and died mid-thank you I think it would’ve been less awkward than what actually happened.

-McDreamy being the first person to present an award. Was he lost? I’m confused.

-Iggy Azalea accepts an award wearing a frumpy business suit that I would expect a middle aged woman to wear with a pair of white sensible walking sneaks on the way to her cubicle for the day. She also had a huge crimped ponytail to sweeten the outfit.

-Garth Brooks with a satellite performance? Could this be more out of place?

-Every commercial break, Kohl’s had an extensive ad featuring children scream-singing Let It Go and I wished harmful things upon everyone involved in the making of this commercial and also Frozen.

-It is mind bottling that everyone is OBSESSED over scrutinizing the Harry Styles/Taylor Swift relationship or hatefest and yet there wasn’t ONE camera glance of either of their reactions to the other winning or performing. Do the producers of the AMA’s know what makes good TV? The answer is a hard no…because they chose Pitbull to host 2 years in a row.

Final thoughts- If you follow me on twitter (and you should) you know that for the past year or so I’ve been live tweeting every awards show regardless of how awesomely bad it is…exhibit A. This started about a year ago when my friend and I decided that our opinions were hilarious and important and vital to every awards show. Apparently our tradition has gotten a little out of hand because here is last night’s commentary from each of us without us being remotely anywhere near each other. We’ve morphed into one twitter awards show monster and you all should be frightened.

(click to enlarge)

Follow @LindseyReilly for all of your award show needs and all other things hilarious, cause she’s awesome. We will be tag teaming all awards season this year so please mentally prepare yourselves for those judgements to come.

Performances (that I could find):

Country, Music, Television

CMA’s Recap

Awards season dry spell is over, betches. If you’re a country fan and you fully committed to the 3 hour show (I’m going to assume not many of you) you can relive the highs and lows of last night right meow. If you missed the awards, you can skim through this and have something to discuss over your cubicle wall today. (Or if you’re me, cubicle window. Yeah guys, I get a cube window. BE JELLY.)

The opening performances went from blah to better. Kenny Chesney was first with a performance straight out of 1968. I’m shocked a hologram of Jimi Hendrix didn’t appear next to him to further the gimmick. It would’ve been nice if I had gotten the memo to drop acid before he took the stage, kinda rude don’t you think, ABC? I couldn’t even tell you what song Kenny played because I was just too distracted. The country hats and cowboy boots amidst the tie dye and school bus were a liiiiiitttle out of place. No worries though, quick rebound by transferring to Miranda Lambert and Megan Trainor doing a country version of All About That Bass. Great duet but the main takeaway here was that Miranda came in HOT trying to give Carrie a run for her money in the leg game. She challenged Carrie to defend the title. AND OF COURSE Carrie did. The great Leg-off of 2014 (see below). Okay I promise you that even though I sat through every single minute of this mostly snoozefest of a show, I will not give you a minute by minute recap. Here’s the breakdown–

Best Moments:

-Carrie’s outfit changes. Edge of my seat waiting to see what was next.

-The elephant in the room. Carrie & Brad address T. Swift in their opening monologue stating that Nashville is suffering from “Postpartum Taylor Swift Disorder”. Laughs are had at the expense of Nashville being thirsty Swifties. Our girl T may not have been country for a few years but it warmed my icy heart to see that no matter what country music has her back.

-Steven Tyler is the first presenter & has a jam sesh with Carrie and Brad to “Crying”. It was staged but still pretty great. Also Steven was wearing shoes and I think we can all appreciate that. (If you want nightmares google image search Steven Tyler’s feet)

-Brett Eldredge wins New Artist of the Year and I listened to his acceptance speech with my eyes glued to the TV and a creepy grin on my face. He 100% deserves it and I’m proud of my future husband for snagging that award.

-Brad spends a few minutes of his hosting duty eating cheeseballs out of a baby carrier. Brought me back to the days of housing a full tub of cheezeballz guilt free. Ahh, college.

-Keith Urban performs “Somewhere in My Car”. He’s the stuff and so is that song.

-Little Big Town performs Day Drinking and then Ariana “Bang Bang” Grande sashays onto the stage and they all sing her song with light up dresses. Judging this against the other performances it was great, because I stayed awake for it, but I would’ve preferred them trying to mix country and pop rather than sing a country song and then a pop song. It was odd.

-Miranda debuts a sassy new bob that kills it and her and Blake proceed to snatch up all the awards with an effortless “it’s almost as if we don’t do this every year” vibe.

-The Doobie Brothers take the stage with Hillary Scott, Jennifer Nettles & Hunter Hayes and play some good ole classic rock. Jennifer Nettles spends the entire performance with her mouth open and literally can’t find her chill. Hunter Hayes was on guitar and was just grateful to be able to play with the big kids.

-Luke Bryan wins Entertainer of the Year and we get to look at his pretty face more. Note: no hip movement whatsoever (see worst moments list)

Worst Moments:

-Is there anything worse than networks throwing two random people together to present an award and then writing compliments for them to read from the teleprompter to each other? It’s awkward and gives everyone the uncomfies. Stop doing it.

-Taylor gets a best and worst spot because she was actually nominated for female vocalist of the year and SHE WASN’T EVEN THERE. Girl, they just declared their support for you and you big-timed them? If we’re being honest I’m probably more bitter about her not showing up because her awkward crowd dancing & dramatic reactions were SORELY missed. NO ONE owns an awards show crowd like Tay.

-Florida Georgia Line wins Vocal Duo of the Year and mullet sneaks that G-D DISGUSTING VEST back in. Hey bro, it is NEVER sexy to wear a vest with no shirt underneath. If you also browsed my fashion recap you’ll see that I put FGL on the best dressed list JUST because they both put actual shirts on. Well GUESS WHAT, you two clowns are officially revoked from my best dressed list. Boom. Roasted.

-Kacey Musgraves and her goofy outfits/hair and her honky tonk barn music.

-Little Big Town winning Vocal Group of the Year and all shouting random things at once as an acceptance speech. Mic etiquette, guys, ever heard of it? Designate ONE speaker.

-Luke Bryan performs a slow song and DOES NOT shake it for me. This should be illegal. Every girl in America was disappointed Luke, just so you know.

Just For Ratings:

-Ebola.

-Renee Zellweger

-Carrie Underwood whispering the gender of her baby to Brad Paisley, setting him up to “let it slip”, and then mentioning it every five minutes. THE PAGEANTRY. THE RATINGS. It’s a BOOYYYY.

-The amount of almost vag slips. Ariana Grande wearing her typical bra and mini skirt, Kacey Musgraves cutting it too close for comfort and Ashley Monroe performing with Blake in a sequin tee, no pants. We don’t need to see it to know it’s there, girlz.

-ABC doing their best to confuse you about which CMA’s are real. The ones you’re literally watching, or the ones they’re teasing every commercial break in the Nashville promo for next week. DOES THIS MEAN RUKE/LAYNA AREN’T REALLY NOMINATED? Please advise.

If you noticed that I didn’t include many performances in my recap it’s because most of them were suuuuuper snoozeworthy. Let’s step it up next time, gang, look alive…give me a reason to stay up past my bedtime. Aaaand that’s all–go forth and spread the country music word, my friends.

Country, Music, Red Carpet, Television

CMA’s Fashion, Ya’ll!

Here’s the CMA’s post where we judge people based on what they chose to wear. If you want to judge people based on what they chose to sing, please see my second installment-the recap. Here’s the deal. I got a fevah and the only prescription is more awards shows. Once I get a taste I need it to be awards season STAT. Since this is the first of 100 country music awards shows this year (all of them having strikingly similar names), country singers will have plenty of chances for redemption if they made my worst dressed list. They’ll obviously be reading this and taking my opinions into account when picking their next show outfit.

Here are the Worst Dressed:

Hillary from Lady A. What’s the deal with the V neck suspender sitch? No other words to describe that.

Gretchen Wilson staying true to her 2004 (TWO THOUSAND FOUR, DAMN) song “Redneck Woman”.

All that’s missing is a red solo cup of Fleischmann’s. Keep it classy, gurl.

Real Talk: has Hunter EVER not looked like a 15 year old sneaking into prom?

Kacey Musgraves with Elvira hair. Nuff said. Also on the right: flashback to her craft fair boots & dress combo from Grammy’s.

People don’t forget.

Sam Hunt is the newcomer hottie to the country scene. I wish he wouldn’t have ruined that with this mariachi/pirate shirt.

Scarlett from Nashville aka Clare Bowen probably let her new homeless friend with the voice of an angel dress her.

Zoey from Nashville aka Chaley Rose trying to steal the spotlight as always. Less is more.

Ugh.

The gr8 news is there are more best dressed than worst dressed, so I’m actually T-ing down the judgements. Here’s all the singers who got it right.

Best dressed:

This is a worst/best combo if we’re being honest. Brantley is probably wearing a jewel encrusted affliction tee under that blazer. Brett OBVIOUSLY steals the show wearing a classy suit and accessorizing with his pure sexiness. It’s no caveman toga, but whatevs.

Carrie never disappoints. This one actually isn’t my favorite but she’ll have probably 100 outfit changes as host and I assume most of them will be top notch. Also, legs.

Cassadee Pope looking elegant and classy

RAYNA JAMES. TAMI TAYLOR. CONNIE BRITTON.

I mean seriously. With her hair she could wear a trash bag and win all the awards. Bow down, bitches.

They only made the best dressed because long hair (still don’t know his name) isn’t wearing a leather vest with no shirt underneath. He’s done that far too many times and I’ve had to choke back vomit.

Jana Kramer always looks gorgeous. Now if only she would stop ending every social media post with #love to shamelessly promote her latest single. That’s all I want for Christmas.

Josh Turner proving you don’t need a cowboy hat or sparkly vest/belt at the CMA’s. Yum.

Kimberly from The Band Perry. Simple and not being overshadowed by her brothers’ afros.

What I imagine Taylor Swift would’ve worn if she was still country (sigh)

You know, cause she’s got that red lip classic thing that Harry likes. JK-Lucy looks fab though.

Hey Nicole Kidman. THIS is how you wear lace. Maddie & Tae lookin’ like a couple of dimes.

Miranda going classic. If we’re being honest I preferred her performance dress, but the red carpet hair/makeup looks fresh.

Queen and King of country.

SWOOOONNN. Okay now please put on your black v neck and backwards hat and shake it.

That’s it for the red carpet roundup. Which one was your favorite look? Are you too busy drooling over those Southern men? Are you a guy and puking from that last statement? STAY TUNED FOR FULL SHOW RECAP. CAUSE WHY NOT?!

The Salty Ju

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