Photo Courtesy of The Huffington Post
For the third year in a row the CMT (Country Music Television) Awards will be hosted by movie star Kristin Bell. The star of hit films Forgetting Sarah Marshall and Frozen as well as the cult television show Veronica Mars is as excited as ever to host tonight. This time she will be rocking the gig solo, whereas in the past two years she was paired up with Jason Aldean and Toby Keith. The host isn’t too nervous about flying solo tonight she didn’t seem nervous at all. “Honestly it doesn’t feel like work for me.” Bell announced at a Nashville press conference Tuesday. “It feels like a lot of fun. And I have a front-row seat to an amazing concert.” Bell is right about that, as tonight is shaping up to be a great showcase of Country Music’s finest talent.
When asked about country’s leading lady Carrie Underwood Bell told CMT that “if there’s a dominator, it’s Carrie Underwood. And talk about being self-made as far as a woman who has dominated.” Bell has a point. Underwood has won Video of the Year award four times and will enter tonight on the verge of a three-peat. Still, when it comes to Female Video of the Year Underwood’s friend and peer Miranda Lambert enters the awards having won the last Four.
The two leading ladies of country will be duking it out in both major categories with Lambert’s “Automatic” trying to get more votes than Underwood’s “See You Again”. Both women will be performing their respective songs along with the powerhouse lineup of Keith Urban, Lee Ann Womack, Blake Shelton, Tyler Farr, and many more.
This will be the 13th CMT Awards under its current format, but it can be historically traced all the way back to the 1967 Music City News Awards. After decades of mergers and renaming the show was changed in 2002 to act more like the MTV Music Awards. This meant a higher emphasis on performances and presentations rather than awards. It appears to have worked with viewership steadily increasing throughout the years, though that may be indicative of Country music’s growth in the north.
Fans can still vote for Video of the Year up until the live telecast tonight at 8/7 central on the CMT network. Live feed of the red carpet footage can be found at the main website.