A New Generation of Country Stars Took Over the CMAs—And Their Classic Sound Brought the Entire Arena to Its Feet.LC
TikTok, YouTube, streaming, Instagram, even vinyl: At a time of seemingly massive disruption in how fans connect with songs and artists, the real winner at Wednesday’s CMA Awards was country music. While pop- and hip-hop-inflected-country dominated the nominations, it was classic country—often with a honky-tonk bent—that won the night at the Country Music Association’s annual awards celebration, broadcast from Nashville’s Bridgestone Arena.
From the moment host Lainey Wilson appeared in a white flared peplum pantsuit covered in gold braid that evoked Loretta Lynn’s wedding-dress chic, it was clearly a down-home—but not cornpone—affair. Thirty-four years since Reba McEntire hosted solo, Wilson, a six-time nominee, brought unabashed joy, can-do grit and a love for the country music she grew up on.
With the first award, presented by Billy Ray Cyrus and Elizabeth Hurley, the tone was set as Ella Langley and Riley Green picked up Single of the Year for 2024’s Vocal Event winner, “you look like you love me.” The beer-joint country duet had already won Video pre-telecast and would go on to win Song of the Year, making three awards for the night and sweeping the four key creative awards over the last two years’ CMAs.
Zach Top, a traditionalist with a beer-joint bent, topped a wildly competitive and diverse group of nominees for Best New Artist, besting Langley, Shaboozey, Tucker Wetmore and Stephen Wilson Jr. The category demonstrated the genre’s diversity, while the winner spoke to the night’s true theme.
So did legendary steel player Paul Franklin’s win for Musician of the Year after 32 nominations, along with Country Music Hall of Fame inductees Brooks & Dunn winning its second consecutive and 16th total Duo of the Year award. The industrial-strength roadhouse duo is now, like Merle Haggard, Johnny Cash or Waylon Jennings, in its third wave of genre dominance.
And then there was Lainey Wilson, who won three major awards, picking up Entertainer of the Year for the second time and taking home her fourth consecutive Female Vocalist win in a competitive field that included Langely, Kelsea Ballerini, Megan Moroney and seven-time CMA Female Vocalist Miranda Lambert. Wilson’s femme-forward progressive traditionalism has given her an edge with voters across the genre.
Even more impressive, Wilson’s Whirlwind scored her second Album of the Year award over Morgan Wallen’s behemoth I’m The Problem, Post Malone’s chart-topping F-1 Trillion, Top’s traditional Cold Beer & Country Music and Moroney’s Taylor Swift-esque Am I Okay?
In either the most surprising or telling win of the night, Red Clay Strays, the Hank Williams Jr./Southern-rock-stained band, ended Old Dominion’s seven-straight Group of the Year run. Having delivered an intense performance, the band spoke to an era of country music that swerved from the Kentucky Headhunters to Lynyrd Skynyrd.
Beyond the wins, which represented a mandate on the brand of country that most resonated with the Nashville-based voters, this year’s performances embraced a major shift into country’s future. While powerhouses including Chris Stapleton, Luke Combs and Lambert delivered the origin country that defined the night’s winners, it was the new guard who created a fresh take on the genre’s future.
The Strays drums’n’guitars jam on “People Hatin’,” Wilson Jr.’s stark, minor-keyed solo “Stand by Me,” Top’s picking-focused “Guitar” and Green’s electric guitar-solo-focused “Worst Way” all leaned into the human element of playing. The drama came from the candy-colored hilarity of Moroney’s “Six Months Later,” Langley’s big number “Choosin’ Texas,” Shaboozey and Wilson Jr.’s strong “Took a Walk” and host Wilson’s dancing, strutting “Ring Finger,” with its cheater-impaling, (Dixie) Chicks-invoking swagger that announced, “So this here song’s for all the girls, who had the balls to walk from Earl, Bigger nuts than a redneck squirrel, Let me hear it if you know what I mean…”
Gilding the lily, 2025 Country Music Hall of Fame inductee Kenny Chesney’s medley of “American Kids” and “When the Sun Goes Down,” two watershed shifts for country over the last 25 years, put his stadium-sized positive energy forward. The entire arena was on its feet, dancing, clapping and singing.
Willie Nelson Lifetime Achievement Award recipient Vince Gill, who’s won every CMA Award except Female Vocalist and hosted a dozen times, was honored by the equally legendary George Strait, who spoke from the heart about Gill’s impact on the genre, his humanity and enduring songwriting. With Brandi Carlile and Country Music Hall of Fame member Patty Loveless, who’d sung the harmony part on Gill’s seminal “When I Call Your Name,” delivering the 1991 CMA Song and Single Award winner, the Gill/Tim DuBois standard demonstrated the rich traditionalism the 2025 winners had tapped into without saying a word.
In the end, it wasn’t about the old guard, the coastals, the hip new thing or a viral moment at the 2025 CMA Awards. Beyond the incredible breadth of the show, the night was a monument to the humanity and staying power of what country music was, is and at its core will always be.
