At last night's CMA Awards show, host Brad Paisley likened the country community to one big family--"George Strait plus eight," he joked.
And, truth be told, he's not too far off the mark. Nashville is an insular and protective community--sure, it's full of gossip and pettiness and all the other things you find in any tight-knit group. But, as Paisley humorously noted, most of the time everyone gets along pretty well.
Most of the time.
What's up now, you ask? Well, country legend Wynonna Judd (a presenter at last night's show) has declared that Taylor Swift--who won the CMA's top honor, Entertainer of the Year--is nowhere near ready for so much success.
The country legend, one-half of famed mother-daughter duo the Judds, spoke to USA Today before the awards show, commenting in regards to Swift's extraordinary sweep of 2009: "You want my honest comment? It's too much too soon."
"Mom [Naomi Judd] and I rode in a car for the first year of our career to visit radio stations," Judd continued. "There was a making of the star, there was a rising up, and the fans went with us.
"Now it's over coffee breaks, the success, almost. It's like the girl who wins an Oscar and she's under 20. What do you do from here?"
Well, well. Truth be told, many music fans out there--rightly or wrongly--are saying basically the same thing. However, this sort of commentary tends to not go over very well in the country world.
Remember back in 2006, when Faith Hill gasped a theatrical "WHAT?" on camera in response to Carrie Underwood's CMA Female Vocalist of the Year win? Hill claimed to be just joking around, but the validity of her humor came under scrutiny and the incident made out-of-proportion national waves. (It blew through the roof on Yahoo!'s Buzz Index, which tracks hotly searched stories on the web--and even national broadcaster Don Imus talked about it on his show.)
Carrie Underwood, now Taylor Swift.
For what it's worth, Hill presented Swift with her Entertainer of the Year award, and did so most graciously. (Swift, who has cited Hill as her childhood idol, was incandescent at the moment.)
Also, just as an aside--what is it with the Judds and rising young talent? Naomi Judd recently put twin-sister duo Kate & Kacey (who, incidentally, are on Swift's record label) through the wringer during their stint on CMT's reality series Can You Duet. According to the twins, Judd, a judge on the program, was so hard on the pair that they ended up writing a song about the incident titled "You're Not My Judge."
Kacey Coppola termed the experience with Naomi to be "disappointing."
"Kate and I have looked up to the Judds for as long as I can remember," she told Yahoo! Music.
No need for the sour grapes, Judds. If anyone's proven their mettle in the entertainment industry, and can afford to be benevolent to the newcomers--it's you guys.
And, take a lesson from Faith Hill (and, hey, George Jones--who got skewered last week for his comments about "new country"). Watch it.
There's no problem with stating an honest opinion, but like I said, this sort of thing just tends not to float too smoothly with the country fans at large.
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