CMT Music Awards: Barack Obama, Mitt Romney, Carrie Underwood, more
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The CMT Music Awards, which celebrates the best country music videos of the year, took place Wednesday night in Nashville and, unsurprisingly, superstar singer Carrie Underwood snagged the top awards.
The singer earned the video of the year award for her fashion-heavy music video for ‘Good Girl,’ which presents Underwood in different outfits while she sings a country rock song (more rock than country, really) about the perils and pleasures of being a bad girl. She won a second trophy in the collaborative video of the year category for her work with Brad Paisley on ‘Remind Me.’
The event proved itself a ‘big tent’ under which many different affiliations fit; not only did Underwood’s commercial, relatively twang-less ‘Good Girl’ get attention, but performances from the Pistol Annies, whose ‘Takin’ Pills’ also focuses on perils and pleasures -- of pharmaceuticals -- and Journey, whose non-country song ‘Don’t Stop Believin’ ’ was gentle enough for a twang crossover, offered evidence of the oft-slippery genre-distinctions.
Too, in a highly anticipated across-the-aisle moment, both President Obama and Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney briefly appeared during the ceremony’s opening moments via video, where both treated with faux-seriousness the selection of either Toby Keith or Kristin Bell as the CMT host.
The president, seen staring out the window of (presumably) the White House, called the choice ‘one of the toughest decisions I’ve had to make since I’ve been in office.’ On a ballot, the president circles the two contenders, before saying, ‘I want them both.’ (Both candidates did this spineless gesture and opted for both -- when Keith obviously should have been sent packing.)
A full list of winners is below:
Video of the year: Carrie Underwood -- ‘Good Girl’
Male video of the year: Luke Bryan -- ‘I Don’t Want This Night to End’
Female video of the year: Miranda Lambert -- ‘Over You’
Group video of the year: Lady Antebellum -- ‘We Owned the Night’
Duo video of the year: Thompson Square -- ‘I Got You’
USA Weekend breakthrough video of the year: Scott McCreery -- ‘The Trouble With Girls’
Collaborative video of the year: Brad Paisley with Underwood -- ‘Remind Me’
CMT performance of the year: Jason Aldean -- ‘Tattoos on This Town’
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President Obama, Mitt Romney to cameo on CMT Awards
-- Randall Roberts
Twitter: @liledit