The Country Music Association will hold their annual CMA Awards on November 13, 2019 and recognize the year’s accomplishments by the best of the genre. 2019 will be the 53rd award show in the association’s history and has already garnered the public’s attention well before any awards have been announced. Through a wide variety of media coverage leading up the event, an emphasis on female representation and celebration has emerged as a common theme.
The first cycle of this news came when the association announced the hosts for this year’s event: Carrie Underwood, Dolly Parton and Reba McEntire. While Dolly and Reba are legends of the genre, the decision to have them join Underwood turned heads because Underwood had hosted the event with Brad Paisley for the last 11 years. While some were outraged by the decision given Paisley’s popularity and the success the duo had as hosts, it soon became clear that this was part of a larger agenda.
The 2019 CMAs are purposely being designed to showcase the great women of the genre’s past, present and future. Given the genre’s longstanding reputation of severely lacking female representation, this year’s focus makes perfect sense. As a further example of this, it was recently announced that five former winners of the Female Vocalist of the Year award will be presenting awards this year. However, the largest statement toward gender equality will come with the presentation of the Entertainer of the Year award.
The Entertainer of the Year honor is the last award presented at the show and is the most coveted by many artists in Nashville. This accolade essentially identifies who is the most dominant in the genre at the moment, and has been won by country’s most heroic figures. Therefore, it is no surprise that it has also been plagued by the same gender inequality the genre has seen holistically. The last woman to win the award was Taylor Swift way back in 2011 when she was releasing country music. Worse yet, no women were even nominated for the honor the past two years. Consequently, the announcement that Carrie Underwood has been nominated for the award is great for the genre. The fact that she is believed to be the frontrunner by many is even better news and would certainly be a storybook ending to a show dedicated to the women of country. Yet while I believe Carrie Underwood is very deserving of this award, it would ultimately be a gross injustice if she were to win.
2019 Entertainer of the Year Nominees
There are five nominees this year for EOY: Garth Brooks, Eric Church, Chris Stapleton, Keith Urban and Carrie Underwood. According to Gold Derby, which aims to predict races and awards in Hollywood and beyond, Underwood is the current favorite. Based on experts, top users and total users, she has 11/2 odds to win the award. Garth Brooks and last year’s winner Keith Urban are in second with 13/2 odds, while Chris Stapleton and Eric Church lag behind at 7/1 odds. While these predictions are never surefire, Underwood winning seems to be a very common sentiment among those in the industry – especially with the association’s emphasis on women this year.
One individual who certainly feels that Underwood is deserving of the honor is her contemporary and friend, superstar Miranda Lambert. As seen in her social media post below, she endorsed Underwood back in early October by praising the other nominees but insisting that Underwood should be the one to take it home. Amongst her reasoning for such strong support is Underwood’s incredible singing voice, her music, and the all-female international tour that she headlined. Ironically, as amazing as Underwood’s tour was, it is actually this aspect that is what sets the deserving candidate apart.
In recent years, the Entertainer of the Year has generally gone to the artist with the most successful tour. After all, by definition “entertainment” invokes the act of providing enjoyment or amusement, and this is best exemplified with the performance of live music at concerts. By using this as the main criteria for selection of the Entertainer of the Year, this year becomes a two-horse race.
While Garth Brooks is one of the very best to ever do it, if not the best ever, he represents the past and giving the award to a legend based on nostalgia does not move the genre forward. Furthermore, his current tour has become more of a spectacle in which the entire show is filmed, and multiple takes for a song are often required to procure the proper footage. This takes away from the authenticity of a true live show. Next, while Chris Stapleton may have the best voice and songwriting skills in the genre, his tour schedule is significantly smaller than his peers. Huge tours just aren’t his style, which is partly what makes him so special, however takes him out of contention for Entertainer of the Year. Finally, although Keith Urban is the reigning winner of this award, his latest album and accompanying tour mostly spanned 2018 and only had dates through March 2019. Hence his win last year and decreased likelihood of winning again this year. Therefore, that leaves two deserving artists: Carrie Underwood and Eric Church.
The Cry Pretty Tour 360 vs. The Double Down Tour
To determine who is most deserving of Entertainer of the Year, it is necessary to look at each artist’s respective tour, Underwood’s Cry Pretty Tour 360 and Church’s Double Down Tour. Both of these international tours coincidently started in Greensboro, NC at the Greensboro Coliseum but went on to take very different forms. While they each posted incredible numbers and merit the Entertainer of the Year Award, Church’s Double Down Tour blows Underwood’s tour out of the water in every category. His tour was historic in every sense and should make him the unanimous winner of this honor, however in all likelihood Underwood will be giving the acceptance speech at the end of the night. The unfortunate reality is that the genre and the CMAs have forced themselves into a position where awarding anyone except Underwood would cause an uproar throughout the community, even though Eric Church is the most deserving.
Before I detail the astronomical numbers that quantify the body of work Church has performed throughout his tour, let me first say that I am in no way insinuating Carrie Underwood is undeserving of this award. What she has accomplished this year is extremely impressive, especially considering the gap in opportunities for women in the genre. As seen by my previous post, I am very aware of the gap in opportunities for females in country music and am proud to be an advocate toward changing that. However, what Eric Church has done on the Double Down tour is simply historic and may never be matched in this era. In my opinion, he is simply more deserving of being named Entertainer of the Year.
To illustrate the difference in these tours, I created a data set based on all publicly available set lists for each individual stop along the respective tours (setlists found at setlist.fm). I was able to find setlists for 42 stops on Underwood’s Cry Pretty Tour 360, out of the 62 total (some have not occurred yet). Similarly, I was able to find 33 setlists out of the 54 stops on the Double Down tour, some of which have also not occurred yet. By indexing each song played based on date, location, set number and title, I was able to quantify these tours based on volume and substance. Upon conducting my analysis, it quickly became clear that the Double Down Tour outperformed the Cry Pretty Tour in close to every single category.
To begin, Underwood’s output by pure volume does not come even close to comparing to Church’s. The graph below illustrates total number of songs played by concert number, with Church in blue and Underwood in orange. Even though I only have data for 33 Double Down concerts, the number of songs played in those concerts still far exceeds the total number played by Underwood in the 42 shows which I have data for. The second chart illustrates the gap in total songs played and shows this trend would continue as data for upcoming concerts on both these tours becomes available.
While the differences in total tracks played is staggering in itself, it’s hard to appreciate this number given it represents a large number of concerts. An easier number to comprehend is the average set length for these tours, which I found to be incredibly different. Across Underwood’s 42 shows in my dataset, she averaged just under 23 songs per concert. This is no small number, showcasing the range of tracks she has released throughout her long and successful career. Usually consisting of one set with a two-song encore, this no doubt entertained the thousands of fans that came to see every night. However, Eric Church’s Double Down tour was on another level. He averaged over 33 songs per night, playing two full sets with an encore. This number is absolutely ridiculous and shows not only the breadth of his discography, but the sheer stamina and energy he delivers in a live show that runs over 3.5 hours on average (excluding intermission time).
In fact, Church never played less than thirty songs in a night, and even played 37 during his Nashville stop in May (more on that later). Additionally, Church (and Underwood) consistently play medleys in his sets which means his 33 song average should actually be much higher. No one else in the industry is even attempting to play this many shows without an opener, yet alone with such a deep, complex and ever-changing setlist.
As a reminder, Church is not only playing shows without an opener, he is playing them back to back nights in the same city. The display of pure dedication to his fan base is even more remarkable when looking at the variety of music Church plays on this tour. He is not just repeating shows, his discography is so deep that he is able to play a different set list every night, customized to the city he is in and mendable to the requests of his fans. Across the 33 set lists I canvased Church played 106 unique songs, while Underwood performed only 30 unique songs across the 42 shows in my database. Furthermore, these numbers do not reflect the multi-song medleys he performed with songs unique to each city. At the very core of entertainment is the ability to engage an audience, and the variety and unpredictability that Church showcases across his live shows is second to none. Below is the list of unique songs played by Church and Underwood on their respective tours, and if the overwhelming difference in lengths is not enough to convince you Church has done something special, I don’t know what will.
As impressive as the statistics showing the length and variety of Church’s concerts are, the box office numbers are even more telling of his success. There is no better indication of entertainment value than the number of individuals willing to spend their time and money to see a concert. In this category, Church stands alone.
Seen in the chart above, Church topped all country acts in 2019 touring revenue with over $65 Million to date, almost $15M more than the juggernaut duo of Florida Georgia Line in second place. Carrie Underwood’s accomplishments are also extremely impressive as she grossed close to $34 Million to date this year and stands out as the only female on this list. However, Church brought in almost twice as much revenue as Underwood by entertaining close to twice as many fans. In 48 reported shows, Church sold over 718,000 tickets compared to Underwood's 443,000 in 39. This meant on average, Church was performing for almost 3,600 more fans on a nightly basis. He averaged almost 15,000 attendees per night, on a tour which featured back to back shows in the same city. This is an unbelievable feat and has even allowed him to compete with the top male solo acts across all genres.
The above tables show the top tour attendance by solo male and female artists to date this year. Both Church and Underwood are the fifth ranked artists for their gender, but by calculating the percentage each represents of the top five, Church is closer to his peers in the pop industry.
If these data points have not convinced you who should be crowned this year’s Entertainer of the Year, this last comparison will leave no doubt in your mind. On almost every tour by major country artists, there is a stop in Nashville where the heart of the industry resides. Both Underwood’s Cry Pretty and Church’s Double Down tour did just that – but in dramatically different fashion. Underwood played 22 songs for a large crowd of 16,340 at the Bridgestone Arena, well above average attendance for her tour.
As impressive as that was, Eric Church absolutely dwarfed these numbers as he sold out Nissan Stadium and played 37 songs for a record crowd of 56,521. Church was not only the first act to sell out the stadium without an opener, but he broke Taylor Swift’s record for highest attendance at the venue. His 3.5-hour show rocked the industry’s hometown and cemented him as this year’s most captivating entertainer in country music.
Considerations and Final Thoughts
In my opinion, the figures I have presented make it very clear that Eric Church should be named the 2019 Entertainer of the Year. His Double Down Tour is historic based on the narrative alone and is backed by the record breaking numbers to prove it. Regardless, it is likely that he will fall short in voting to Carrie Underwood and her Cry Pretty Tour 360. While I think it will be the wrong choice, I understand why this will likely be the outcome.
To reiterate, Underwood is very deserving of this honor. Her tour has spanned the globe and impacted hundreds of thousands. She is an incredible vocalist, storyteller, role-model and entertainer. If this were any other year, I would be adamantly pushing for her selection. The women of country music in the last decade have been at a severe strategic disadvantage, given their lack of radio play, promotion, and touring opportunities. This makes Underwood’s accomplishments even more impressive, and likely to some so impactful that it outweighs Church's accomplishments this year. Either way, the outcome will be the same because the CMAs cannot afford to crown anyone but Underwood their Entertainer of the Year. They have orchestrated a night celebrating country music's women in an attempt to reconcile their history of egregious gender inequality, so handing Underwood the last trophy of the night has almost become a necessity.
Let me be very clear, Underwood will not award Entertainer of the Year because she is a woman; she will receive it because she is an extremely qualified candidate and Eric Church’s masculinity has rendered him essentially ineligible. If you believe that Underwood overcoming the constraints of being a woman in a male-dominated genre are enough to overshadow Church’s record-breaking tour, I respect your opinion but disagree. He has publicly stated that he will not pursue another tour that features concerts in the same city back to back nights, so this is his best shot at the award. Church and his grassroots fanbase emerged from years of touring, not success on the radio. The Double Down Tour is the culmination of these efforts and will likely never be topped in scale during this era. This year is his best opportunity to win the CMA’s highest honor, but he likely won’t. He will fall victim to the mistakes of the genre which were completely out of his control.
So let me offer an early congratulations to Carrie Underwood, who will soon become just the sixth woman ever to be crowned Country Music Association's Entertainer of the Year. Your talent and perseverance have paved the way for the future generation of female country artists, which is desperately needed in this time.
And to Eric Church, thank you for staying true to your roots and putting on the greatest tour of the decade. No matter what happens next week, you are my Entertainer of the Year.
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