Brad, Carrie, Taylor, Keith, Julianne Rack Up ACMs

Don't let the 10-gallon hats and odd odes to tractors fool you—the 44th Annual Academy of Country Music Awards knew how to keep it real.

From erstwhile reality show winners Carrie Underwood and Julianne Hough triumphing once more—and with hardware that will no doubt put a certain mirrorball trophy to shame—to surprising, diva-like superstar dropouts (sorry, Tim McGraw fans), to an amazingly topical performance of "Shuttin' Down Detroit" from John Rich, the Reba McEntire-hosted awards show did their best to prove that the current crop of twangers are nothing if not relevant.


Doing their part to keep things modern were Taylor Swift, Keith Urban and arm candy Nicole Kidman and—no awards show would be complete without her—Miley Cyrus.

And while Brad Paisley ended up king of the night, taking home a leading three awards, it was double winner Underwood who proved the evening's queen, becoming the first artist in five years to unseat Kenny Chesney as the fan-voted Entertainer of the Year, the highest honor of the night, and the first female performer to take home the prize since the Dixie Chicks did it way back in 2000.

"I've had a lot of good moments over the past four years," she said. "This one takes the cake."

"Things are changing," presenter Jamie Foxx said later, referencing not Underwood's win, but Darius Rucker's recent foray onto the country charts. "An African-American singing country. Things are changing. Got a black man running the country. Things are changing.

"I mean, what's next, white people going to Tyler Perry movies?"

The night, which took place not in Nashville but Las Vegas, started off with a medley of performances from Underwood, Swift, Sugarland, Rascal Flatts and Brooks & Dunn.


"Now that's what I call a stimulus package," McEntire said of the star-studded opening number, going on to joke about country's recent crossover success.

"It seems like everyone wants to do a country album these days—even Michael Phelps and Willie Nelson are teaming up to do a country album. They're covering the Doobie Brothers."

The show wasted no time in doling out the prizes.

One of the night's big winners, as expected, was Underwood, who in addition to her Entertainer of the Year nod took home the prize for Top Female Vocalist.

"I feel like I won American Idol all over again," she said.

Fellow reality cutie and Dancing With the Stars pro Hough also managed to snag two awards, Top New Artist and Top New Female Artist, and got plenty emotional doing it.

"I can't thank you guys enough—the fans," she said. "You guys are amazing. I would not be here without you."

Country faves Sugarland snagged the Top Vocal Duo Award, while Rascal Flatts, as expected, walked away with the Top Vocal Group Award.

"God, what an amazing ride this has been," bassist Jay DeMarcus said in accepting the nod. "Now I know how Brooks & Dunn feel."

Paisley, who at six nominations had more than any other nominee, took home the award for Top Male Vocalist, albeit remotely. The singer was home with wife Kimberly Williams, who is expected to go into labor, well, any minute now.

"I really want to thank you for this," he said via satellite. "I wish I could be there, but I didn't want to take the chance of missing the birth of our next child."


Despite his absence, Paisley tripled his pleasure at the ACM Awards, taking home Video of the Year for "Waitin' On a Woman," and Vocal Event of the Year, which he shared with Urban for their duet "Start a Band."

Meanwhile, providing the show with its requisite amount of drama was a last-minute pull-out by McGraw, who was due to perform alongside wife Faith Hill. McGraw reportedly backed out after a major disagreement over production design for his planned number. The Tennessean went so far as to claim he walked out of rehearsal Saturday night over the dispute.

As for Cyrus, who got tongues wagging in the run-up to tonight's show that the pop star was fixin' to make her career a little more country, a little less rock 'n roll in the coming years, performed "The Climb." She was introduced by papa Billy Ray who, never missing an opportunity to hype his superstar daughter, let loose with a flurry of release dates and Hannah Montana-type hawking in his preamble to the performance.

Fellow young'un Swift also performed at the show, and after being honored with the Top Album of the Year Award for Fearless, she was presented with a surprise piece of hardware by McEntire.

After her performance of "You're Not Sorry," crossover queen Swift was presented with a special ACM Crystal Mileston Award for bringing so many young people to country music.

"Are you serious?" the clearly surprised Swift asked. "To you guys who come to my show, I have absolutely fallen in love with you and will never forget you, ever."

Here's the complete list of winners for the 44th Annual ACM Awards:

•Entertainer of the Year: Carrie Underwood
•Top Male Vocalist: Brad Paisley
•Top Female Vocalist: Carrie Underwood
•Top Vocal Group: Rascal Flatts
•Top Vocal Duo: Sugarland
•Top New Artist: Julianne Hough
•Top New Male Artist: Jake Owen
•Top New Female Artist: Julianne Hough
•Top New Vocal Duo or Group: Zac Brown Band
•Single Record of the Year: Trace Adkins, "You're Gonna Miss This"
•Top Album of the Year: Taylor Swift, Fearless
•Song of the Year: Jamey Johnson, "In Color"
•Video of the Year: Brad Paisley, "Waitin' On a Woman"
•Vocal Event of the Year: Brad Paisley and Keith Urban, "Start a Band"
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Chris Brown Smacked Down in New Diss Track

Chris Brown is due to face the music in court on Monday—or he can just turn on his radio today.

Smoke Jumpers, a little-known hip-hop act, is attempting to raise its profile with some Brown bashing, taking the disgraced R&B singer to task in a new track that includes the lyric: "Chris Brown should get his ass kicked."

Called "My Flow So Tight," the electronic-flavored ditty is touted on the group's website as "the official Chris Brown dis record" and claims the entertainer has no future in the music biz because of the Rihanna incident:

"Boy hits girl/Boy should be taken down/No matter who's around...All the money in the world but that's no excuse/Career suicide, yo, here's the noose."

The track has been in heavy rotation on urban radio stations in markets like New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, Pittsburgh and Tampa.

Smoke Jumpers promise that a portion of the proceeds from the single will go to various organizations for battered women.

A rep for Brown was unavailable for comment. The 19-year-old singer is due in an L.A. courtroom Monday afternoon to be arraigned on two felony counts stemming from the pre-Grammys altercation.

Journey Ends for Megan Joy on American Idol

Los Angeles – Someone had to stop believing tonight.

Following a rousing group performance of the Journey classic—was that Danny Gokey or Steve Perry out there?—another American Idol hopeful had to go, bringing the number of aspiring hitmakers down to eight.
In a tiny bit of twist, no contestant knew—for sure, that is—if he or she was safe until the second half hour of the show.
And in a bigger twist, Simon Cowell let tonight's castoff know in no uncertain terms that her swansong was going to be her final solo performance on the Idol stage.
Sure enough, after doing her best bird impression by flapping her wings and squawking to the side when informed she was in the bottom three, Megan Joy's encore of "Turn Your Lights Down Low" was it for her.
"Megan, with the greatest respect, when you said that you don't care—nor do we," Simon told her before she sang. "So I'm not going to pretend that we're even going to contemplate saving you."
Her dismissal wasn't a shock, though.
The 22-year-old single mom had started out so strong—one of his favorite auditions, Simon said way back when—but in recent weeks had taken a lot of heat for bad song choices and then, when the vocals weren't cutting it, for losing her edgy, individualistic style.
"Contestants, you are the best!" Megan said, addressing her fellow finalists onstage. "Judges, I love you. America, I love you," and, to her son, Ryder, "Baby—I'm coing home, baby. I'm coming home!"
Meanwhile, somehow our dear little Allison Iraheta had to sweat it out in the bottom three again—maybe America just isn't feeling her gritty 16-year-old rocker vibe. And rounding out the unlucky trio for the first time was Anoop Desai, who returned to "Beat It" form with last night's Usher impersonation.
We're thinking he was scared straight enough tonight to steer clear of the dance-happy R&B tunes from now on.

Before Ryan Seacrest got down to business, reigning champ David Cook, who canceled two concerts in New Hampshire and Rhode Island this week to deal with family matters, turned in a rather Idolicious pretaped performance of his new single, "Come Back to Me."
Then Kris Allen, whose stock has been skyrocketing the last couple of weeks, got the first chair on the safe side. He was followed by Matt Giraud, who was in the bottom three last week after a great performance and then followed it up with a so-so take on the Fray last night.
But apparently the voters—who numbered more than 36 million—knew how to save a life.
Also safe were Adam Lambert (duh), Danny Gokey (duh) and Scott MacIntyre, who rebounded with a people-pleasing Billy Joel tune yesterday.
Allison found out that America was at least slightly behind her after Lady Gaga showed up to sing "Poker Face."
The Top Eight will perform song from the year they were born next Tuesday.