Country Music Television (CMT) just released their Artists of the Year honoree list, featuring Luke Combs, Chris Stapleton, Gabby Barrett, Kane Brown, and Kelsea Ballerini.
The five country artists will be honored in a special live event out of Nashville, Tennessee, on Oct. 13. Per CMT’s announcement tweet, “These artists dominated the last 12 months in country music & we can’t wait to celebrate them October 13 at 8c on CMT.”
These artists more than deserve it. Luke Combs’s deluxe album “What You See Ain’t Always What You Get” debuted at No. 1 on the all-genre Billboard 200 chart as well as Billboard’s Top Country Albums chart, per his website. Kane Brown’s single “Famous Friends” peaked at No. 2 on Billboard‘s Hot Country Songs chart in 2021.
And Chris Stapleton landed at No. 1 on the Billboard Global 200 chart and Hot Country Songs chart with his single “Starting Over” this year.
Meanwhile, Kelsea Ballerini’s self-titled third album peaked at No. 2 on Billboard’s Top Country Albums. She also received three CMT nominations in 2020. Gabby Barrett, on the other hand, had two No. 1 Hot Country Songs in 2020 and 2021.
Kane Brown thanked CMT for the honoring on Twitter earlier, quote tweeting their message with a heartfelt “Thank you!” Chris Stapleton and Luke Combs both retweeted the announcement.
While several fans celebrated the announcement, especially Luke Combs, others saw a few country artists getting snubbed.
“Where’s @lukebryan he’s worked harder than these artists including two number 1s and a number 1 album. And where is @carrieunderwood?” Twitter user Britni Goad asked.
“Confused…where’s @carrieunderwood & @carlypearce?” questioned Abbey Jones on Twitter.
A Scotty McCreery fan named Kristin also said, “Scotty’s got an album coming out tomorrow that is gonna dominate the country charts and CMT is gonna be sorry they left him out.”
Luke Combs Dominates Country Industry, Headlines C2C Next Year
In addition to being honored by CMT for Artist of the Year, Luke Combs will also headline the Country to Country (C2C) Festival in 2022 with Miranda Lambert.
The three-day international festival hops from country to country (with the country stars in tow). The stars plan to stop in London, England, Dublin, Ireland, and Glasgow, Scotland. On this Friday, Sept. 17, tickets go on sale at 10 a.m.
C2C takes place from Friday, March 11 to Sunday, March 13. Aside from Luke Combs and Miranda Lambert, Russell Dickerson, Runaway June, Flatland Cavalry, Scotty McCreery Ashley McBryde, Kip Moore, Hailey Whitters, and Brett Young also plan on attending.
Good news for all 2020 ticketholders: you can use those same tickets for Country to Country 2022. When announcing the early lineups, the festival confirmed those tickets will be valid for the upcoming event.
Check out the full announcement for the international festival in their earlier Instagram post.
