The 60th annual Academy of Country Music Awards streamed on Amazon Prime Thursday night, but those watching from home didn’t get to experience the exuberance of 12,000 people bursting into a Janis Joplin jam. The audience in the Star’s state-of-the-art venue reveled in an evening of nostalgia and new blood, with a few stars who would have once looked hopelessly out-of-place at a country music event.
Nicole Kidman sat beside her man, Keith Urban. Lionel Richie reminded us he wrote Kenny Rogers’ “Lady.” And there was Jelly Roll with his face tattoos and class-clown goofiness, autographing an actual jar of jelly at the request of on-air host Bobby Bones.
Jelly Roll, currently touring with Post Malone, also served as a reminder that the Grapevine native and five-time nominee didn’t show. Post Malone is playing AT&T Stadium Friday night, but like Luke Combs and Kacey Musgraves, two other big names missing in action, he seemed to have skipped the ceremony. Just as well, since he didn’t win. Other crossover stars made an appearance.
“Shaboozey!” screamed the women around me, waving frantically as the rapper-gone-country passed by during one of the show’s commercial breaks, and the “Tipsy” singer, dressed in all white, waved back.
I seemed to be sitting in the wine mom section, lots of turquoise concho necklaces and loud whooping for Alan Jackson and Brooks & Dunn.
Lainey Wilson was one of the night’s big winners, taking home four awards, including Entertainer of the Year. “You deserve it, Lainey!” someone yelled behind me during a pause in her acceptance speech.
I’ve never been to the Oscars, but I imagine the scene in the theater to be stuffier, less prone to outbursts. This crowd, in cowboy hats and more spangle than prom, had come to party, though we also had to sit through the commercials. This keeps with the Dallas Cowboys tradition of selling everything not nailed down. Jerry Jones, the visionary behind the Star, is also the kind of hustler who would invite 12,000 people to Frisco in rush-hour traffic for a live spectacle, then force them to watch Amazon ads.
Hosted for the 18th time by Reba McEntire, the show ran a tight two-and-a-half hours, with around 30 performers, some of whom I’ve already forgotten, but five stand out.
5. Miranda Lambert, Ella Langley sing ‘Kerosene’
The young Ella Langley was the most-nominated artist of the night, with eight nods and five wins (three came before the show). With her 2024 album Hungover, the Alabama singer proved that even little girls who sing in the Baptist church can grow up to be feisty sirens who write lyrics about getting good and drunk. Langley’s solo performance was fine, though it was her duet with Miranda Lambert that set the joint on fire.
I mean that literally, since flames shot out behind the duo as they performed “Kerosene,” Lambert’s 2005 breakout hit. Dressed in snug jeans and a tight white tank that read “Mama Tried,” Langley looked like a server at Twin Peaks who had unexpectedly burst into song. Lambert was more demure, in a magenta fringed jacket, maybe because she’s 41 or maybe because she’s sung “Kerosene” a million times, but Langley was flicking around her raven locks, mouthing the lyrics even when it wasn’t her turn. The duo will be touring together with Morgan Wallen. Old country, meet new country.
4. Reba leads a Kris Kristofferson sing-along
“Busted flat in Baton Rouge, waitin’ for a train,” sang awards show host McEntire as she stood onstage, with no accompaniment. The lyrics to “Me and Bobby McGee” are so branded on the American consciousness that it wasn’t long before the crowd had joined her. “Feelin’ good was easy, Lord, when he sang the blues.”
Was this a country song? Did it matter? A photo of the songwriter behind that Janis Joplin classic, Kris Kristofferson, stayed on the screen, part of a brief “in memoriam” tribute. The Texas-born singer-actor-songwriter died at 88 last September, and Kristofferson was an early lesson for a genre that trends traditional. The category of music doesn’t matter; the song does.
3. Chris Stapleton does not want a makeover
The gloss of new country is such that I sometimes felt like I was watching the contestants for an upcoming season of The Bachelor. That’s not a dig. I wouldn’t decline an offer to step into the glam machine of hair extensions, smoky-eye makeup and whatever you do to make your lips that full?
But Chris Stapleton, the Kentucky growler named Artist-Songwriter of the Decade by the ACMs in 2019, was a reminder that country can also be come-as-you-are. He first took the stage to accept the award for Male Artist of the Year, looking like a swampland creature who’d spent the last months with zero personal-hygiene products. Grizzly Adams beard, scraggly hair past his shoulders.
When he performed later in the show, first the slow and smoldering “It Takes a Woman” and later as part of a medley to honor Keith Urban, he made it clear all that razzle dazzle is fine, but what matters is the voice. His is undeniable.
2. Backstreet Boys and Rascal Flatts!!
The WTF duet of the night was saved for the finale. Whoever thought of pairing the ultimate millennial boy band with the platinum-selling Nashville trio deserves a raise. It was weird at first, less like peanut butter and chocolate and more like peanut butter and … cotton candy? By the time the Backstreet Boys — looking exceptionally well-preserved — launched into “Larger Than Life,” the stadium was on its feet. Cue the fireworks, cue the iPhones in video mode. When Rascal Flatts joined them for “Life Is a Highway,” it felt like Mother Nature’s most obvious collab.
Confetti fluttered from the rafters as the crowd began to filter out. I heard a woman dictating a text onto her phone. “Rascal Flatts and Backstreet Boys exclamation point exclamation point,” she said. That about covers it.
1. Leann Rimes devastates with ‘Blue’
All those Amazon ads gave me downtime to think about country music. Is it cool? Was it always cool, and the culture is just catching on? In an era of streaming playlists, genre doesn’t matter like it did in my younger years, when listening to country branded you a certain kind of person, who probably voted a certain way.
Politics were blessedly absent at the 2025 ACMs, though God got several shout-outs. These days country isn’t such a rigid identity; some of our most beloved artists made their name in Nashville first. Taylor Swift, Kacey Musgraves, Dolly Parton. When Blake Shelton gave the evening’s final award, he told the audience that back when the Entertainer of the Year award started at the ACMs, one of the nominees was Elvis Presley.
So country may be a niche genre, but it’s also a powerhouse that’s shaped the musical landscape. Patsy, Wynonna, Willie, Garth.
No reminder was more potent than LeAnn Rimes, taking the stage early in the evening for a medley of tunes that had won “Song of the Year.” Looking like Venus on the half-shell, in a gauzy white dress open to her naval but somehow not that revealing, she gave the pitch-perfect yodel that blasted her to fame at the tender age of 13. “Blue” hit in 1996, so eerily beautiful it sounded like the cover of a lost Patsy Cline record, but it was an instant classic instead. Now 42, Rimes held the arena of 12,000 onlookers in the palm of her hand.
It was a rock-star moment. It was also very country.
