It's for the Hip-Cool Country Crowd....

By Jimmy Carter

I'm still processing the CMT Music Awards ... I loved the opening with Taylor Swift/T-Pain and loved the B-52's & Sugarland. With that said, what rules of operation is Country Music under these days?

Is Country radio now focusing on my 12-year-old or my wife?

Sales for the labels have to be the top of any decision. Demographics for a cable network like MTV are everything. Country radio used to target women in the middle someplace. Is Country radio now focusing on my 12-year-old or my wife? I don't have that answer -- and it looks like most people don't, either.

If the CMA survey is right about the lack of broadband Internet usage (50% have it at home), these are even more confusing times. What a huge tent "Country" music operates under! From T-Pain and Thug Story to Def Leppard to way over to the right and Jamey Johnson/Josh Turner/Alan Jackson. Kid Rock is everywhere you look, from BamaJam to CMT. Are we really THAT diverse? Has the iPod generation come to Country or is it just what TV wants to show? I don't know!

The CMA/Music Fest looked younger than in the old days of Fan Fair, but the CMT show was 25 median. They were a hot bunch going into that Sommet Center. Try to get a snapshot of Country today ... you can't ... you would have to shoot the Earth from the Hubble!

You saw people camping out this week for Tim McGraw tickets in Pennsylvania, but you had to wonder: Were they unable to go online since they don't have broadband, or were they camping out for social reasons? The high-tech Twitter/Facebook crowd vs. the drugstore magazine and Sunday newspaper feature. This is very confusing.

Are we really THAT diverse?

You watch a show like CMTs and it looks like George Strait never happened ... Chesney and even Underwood declined ... M & G or B & D were not around ... Blake and Miranda were out ... No classic people like Jones or even a Garth Brooks and Trisha Yearwood. I was told on Facebook, CMT's award show was for the "hip-cool Country crowd". OH ... that's it.

I'm not hip or cool, BUT I liked the look of the CMT show ... No one can say their awards show LOOKS better. Lighting/set ... first team/first class. The sizzle is always first with CMT. Is the SOUND mixing not a part of that HIP thing? Or, was there some unseen problem that happened? The audience could give a crap if something happened. The sound was awful on the first-hour entertainers, including a total sound drop-out during Taylor Swift's 2nd-hour feature. Mistakes happen, but this show sounded terrible and it wasn't just at my house.

Hip and cool ... The CMA/ACM shows verses the CMT; it is amazing how different the three shows can be. Different missions, but all three have really nothing to be ashamed of. The standard award show is dead or dying. This CMT one didn't reinvent anything; they just kept it youthful (Nick/MTV for Country fans). I'm glad Keith and Brad are still hip & cool. Trace made the cut, as did Toby, so the A-list tour folks still have some CMT cool factor.

Now to the CMT master control: The commercials were so loud you had to mute. Not sure whom to blame that one on. It was call the FCC bad!

Back to the confusion the front offices must have. If half of ALL Country revenue is female 25-39, married, white and living in small towns, the CMT focus seems mis-targeted. Wal-Mart is one of the biggest sellers of Country music. Is CMT a Wal-Mart kind of network? Maybe it is ... again, who knows these things or anything anymore!

You would like to think that everyone is right. The hip-cool CMT crowd, the semi-hip GAC crowd and then everyone else. It's just like I hope the Feds know what they are doing with the carmakers and banks. Otherwise we are so screwed!

Holly Williams on Conan is sort of the first Country act. Country pedigree maybe, but the first adventure in Country for Conan in the first two weeks? Hank Jr.'s new CD is out and he's shooting the Monday Night Football opening Monday June 22nd and 23rd in Nashville.

Brad twittered again (Remember, he was the big winner at the CMTs, so he must be "hip and cool"). Brad thanked the fans for sitting in 95-plus degree heat in St Louis. It is hot in those amphitheaters ... very hot ... the folks at the Urban/Sugarland shows were so much more comfortable at the arena in Charlotte.

Alan Jackson and the late Roy Orbison getting stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame is very cool!

The Jonas Brothers are playing Cowboy Stadium Saturday, June 20th. Larry King with the trio was very revealing. The boys seem very smart and have Country music on their radar a little bit. A fiddler has been added and the young one recently hung out with Paisley. Kevin says Country is his music of choice.

See the story about two groups of men fighting after a Dallas Rascal Flatts show. "Jake" Fleming knocked out cold during a fight with a bunch of 20-somethings; the UCLA tennis player in a coma and other folks who did it on the loose; groups of men fighting after a Rascal Flatts show, very odd.

Miley was making folks happy at a Tybee Island, GA where she's making a film. Ms. Cyrus sang a bit at a restaurant for the fans; she's shooting dawn to dusk. The restaurant is called Sting Ray's in case you are there this summer.

Zac Brown shooting a live DVD in Atlanta in October (12.7 million plays for them on MySpace.) ... Keith shooting a video at a Midwest stop. Sugarland is selling a live DVD only at Wal-Mart.

As the BIG TENT concept continues, expect a warm welcome for Smash Mouth lead Steve Harwell. He's been working on a debut Country CD. Timing is everything and this should be the time. Remember we have a big tent of Kid Rock to Little Jimmie Dickens and everything in between. I think.

Note: New iPhone is thin and cool from a short rest. The Sirius app on iPhone does NOT include Howard Stern and NASCAR!