Let’s take a brief look back at the week before Thanksgiving, just ten months ago. The 59th annual CMA Awards had come to a close and left most country fans with a generally good impression. Exciting newcomers like Ella Langley, Zach Top, and the Red Clay Strays received their well-earned flowers, and overall, the program assembled a fun ensemble of performers who reflected the tastes of most country music listeners.
You would hope that these positive trends would continue into 2026, and yesterday’s nominations would bring continued optimism for Music City’s improving reputation as a bastion of top-tier talent.
With interesting, distinctly country songs and artists occupying most of the A list, it’s fair to expect a stacked, competitive field in country music’s biggest award show, right? Right???
Well… sort of.
Across five incisive takeaways, we’re tackling the good, the bad, and the bewildering that lies ahead of us at the 60th Annual CMA Awards in November.
All About Ella
More than likely, the only memorable narratives at this award show will begin and end with those three words. Last year, I speculated that after “you look like you love me” claimed both the Song and Single of the Year trophies, we could be seeing the rise of a new critical darling as well as a commercial powerhouse.
In that respect, yesterday’s nominations more than delivered on expectations; Ella Langley snagged nine nods, which ties her for the second-most ever for any single year (second only to Alan Jackson in 2002). The Country Music Association rightly views her as a superstar, and she should most certainly be in the driver’s seat to unseat Lainey Wilson as the Female Vocalist of the Year.
As the only hit song of any real consequence this year, “Choosin’ Texas” will sweep both the Song and Single of the Year categories, making her the first artist ever to do so consecutively (Chris Stapleton has won both awards in the same year three times, but never back to back).
The only real question is Ella’s viability for Entertainer of the Year. With Luke Combs (2021) and Lainey Wilson (2025), the CMA Awards have proven a propensity to give out this award just a tick earlier than expected. Ella isn’t as established as either Luke or Lainey was, but is unquestionably a bigger star than either at the time. It’s also worth considering how her status as the overwhelming favorite in at least four other categories will come into play.
A Curious New Artist of the Year Field
As we cited last year with Zach Top’s New Artist of the Year win, this award has been a fairly accurate predictor of future CMA success over the last two decades. Of the list, 11 went on to win another CMA award, with the most recent three winners (Jelly Roll, Megan Moroney, and Zach Top) well positioned to be in the mix in the coming years.
The five artists in this year’s class make such prognostications a bit tricky, since none of them have really had a breakout moment to date. Avery Anna, Carter Faith, and Emily Ann Roberts are all ascending talents, but none have so much as a top 20 hit yet (excluding Avery’s feature on “Indigo”).
Tucker Wetmore is a trendy name, and may be the de facto selection based on commercial success alone, but it’s hard to project him out as a perennial A-lister. And Stephen Wilson Jr… well, more on him later.
Guys, Let’s Relax With the Stapleton Glazing
With two innocuous soundtrack contributions and a feature on a middling Miranda Lambert song, the CMA voters seem to believe Chris Stapleton has met his usual quota to be showered with every available accolade. It almost feels like an obligatory legacy honor, though no one is regarding Stapleton like Brooks & Dunn quite yet.
Obviously, he’s a once-in-a-generation talent with one of the most stacked catalogs of any working artist. That said, this year’s nominations reflect a decade-long sentiment that Chris Stapleton’s ticket is pretty much punched, provided he releases *literally anything at all.*
Fun fact: in years he did not release an album or even a solo radio single, Chris Stapleton has racked up 23 CMA nominations. His legend may be undeniable, but his reserved seat as the award show golden child has grown a bit tedious.
What Is Stephen Wilson Jr. Doing Here?
This is far and away the most befuddling shock. One of Big Loud’s most dubious mainstream prospects accrued an unbelievable four nominations, two of which for the song “Gary.” In recent history, an artist whose biggest song peaked at #33 on the Country Airplay Songs chart and received four CMA nods is downright unprecedented.
This is exactly the type of thing that has exasperated country fans about award shows for years; we’re used to asking “who?” at least once during the Grammys. By contrast, the CMA Awards should feel localized and relevant to the everyday listener; it’s one thing for a critical darling to sneak in a nomination or two, but to claim the same number of trophies as household names like Cody Johnson and Chris Stapleton is a baffling outcome indeed. It is worth noting that Wilson was Big Loud’s only nominee outside of the single “McArthur” for Musical Event of the Year, with Wallen missing a lot of his usual spotlight.
Lots of Big-Name Snubs
It probably speaks to the sort of year we’ve had in country music that even though a host of A-level artists were excluded entirely from this year’s nominations, none of them are really a top story.
Megan Moroney’s omission from Album of the Year, as well as the song categories, was somewhat noteworthy, but given the lack of commercial juice that Cloud 9 has shown, you kind of get it.
Morgan Wallen has been aloof at best from the award show circuit, even when he’s showered with their most prestigious honors, and besides, he’s only released one solo single this year.
Riley Green should have almost certainly supplanted Stephen Wilson Jr. in every category he was nominated in; as an established Nashville vet with true star power, it’s a bit curious that his only career nominations have come from duets with Ella Langley and Carly Pearce. If his upcoming LP, That’s Just Me, earns a solid showing on the charts and a few more moderate hits, it will be very interesting to see how he projects for next year.
Overall, we’re looking at a rather lackluster field, ripe for Ella Langley and “Choosin’ Texas” to wreak havoc, leaving very few comparably deserving artists and records in their wake.
