Megan Moroney, Nate Smith, Tigerlily Gold Named Early Winners in ACM Awards’ New Artist Categories

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic When Billy Joel’s camp decided to commemorate his 100th show of a mega-residency at Madison Square Garden with a television special, the question arose of whether to go with a major streamer or a major broadcast network. But there was little doubt in the end that they would go with the most populist possible pick, as the producers of “Billy Joel: The 100th Live at Madison Square Garden” explained in a panel discussion for the Variety FYC Streaming Room. “No one has ever sold out a hundred shows at Madison Square Garden, and I don’t think anybody ever will,” said Steve Cohen, a cohort of Joel’s for about 50 years who is one of the show’s executive producers.

Mariska Hargitay will receive the Anniversary Tribute for “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit,” Peter Morgan will receive the Creator Tribute for “The Crown” and Lulu Wang will receive the Spotlight Tribute for “Expats.” The tributes will be presented during the inaugural ceremony on June 4 at Cipriani 25 in New York City. “In launching the 2024 Gotham TV Awards, we’re proud to carry on a longstanding Gotham Awards tradition in honoring iconic artists and creators who have enriched the landscape and pushed the boundaries of TV, making an indelible impact on the medium,” said Jeffrey Sharp, executive director of The Gotham Institute.

PNC Bank Arts Center is putting on 40 (!) huge shows from early June all the way up until late September.Best of all, there will be a little something for everyone.Love classic rock? Then you might want to check out icons like The Beach Boys (June 1), John Fogerty (June 15), Bob Dylan with Robert Plant and Willie Nelson (June 30), The Doobie Brothers (Aug. 6) and Deep Purple (Aug.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Zach Bryan is delivering “Pink Skies” now, but a red-letter day for fans is coming, with his “The Great American Bar Scene” album being described as imminent. Bryan has released albums with little or no advance warning before, like the live album he put out on Christmas Day, a year and a half ago. He’s making it sound as if this one might have a spontaneous release date as well, even as he revealed the album’s title on Friday morning while he was unveiling “Pink Skies,” the album’s bittersweet first single.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Feeling angry about Apple’s ranking of the 100 best albums of all time, are you? Good. (From their point of view.) That’s exactly how you’re supposed to feel, given a list that aspires less toward any semblance of an informed or authoritative voice than a seeming sense of randomness that can only be explained away as rage bait.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic When people think of country superstar Miranda Lambert, one of the things that first comes to mind is pyro — not because she has that huge a penchant for setting things off on stage (though it happens), but because of lyrical connotations going back to her first platinum single, “Kerosene.” When it comes to her own career, though, things have consistently gone too well to ever need to go into burn-it-all-down mode. As she’s subtle changed approach from album to album and single to single, Lambert has been all about controlled burns.

Post Malone, born Austin Richard Post, is a rapper, singer and songwriter from Syracuse, New York, who has explored various genres throughout his music career. Most recently, the singer emerged surprisingly in the country music scene with his song "I Had Some Help," featuring Morgan Wallen.

Post Malone debuted an unreleased song during his performance at the 2024 Academy of Country Music Awards.Hosted by country icon Reba McEntire, this year’s ACM Awards were held at the Ford Center at The Star in Frisco, Texas on Thursday (May 16).Posty performed two songs – debuting a currently unreleased song that will presumably appear on his forthcoming country album. The song seems to be about a fleeting relationship as he sings in the refrain: “It’s a long lost highway / And this road ain’t my friend / I will love you ’til tomorrow / And I’ll never love you again.” At the end, Posty said, “No one had ever heard the song before”.He then launched into a rendition of ‘I Had Some Help’.

recent arrest for throwing a chair off of a bar rooftop. “Last night after some alcohol, [the] chair right over there really started to piss me off,” Reid sang to the tune “Last Night,” which is Wallen’s nominated song. “They told me that I threw it as somebody that I never met, and my publicist keeps telling me this ain’t over it.”McBryde then chimed in and sang, “Yeah.

Dua Lipa surprised the audience at the 2024 Academy of Country Music Awards held at Ford Center at The Star on Thursday (May 16) in Frisco, Texas.

The 2024 Academy of Country Music Awards have come to an end and all of the winners have now been revealed!

Avril Lavigne wears a semi-casual all black look while hitting the carpet at the 2024 Academy of Country Music Awards held at Ford Center at The Star on Thursday (May 16) in Frisco, Texas.

Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music Lainey Wilson and Chris Stapleton won the top honors at the 59th annual ACM Awards held in Frisco, Texas and hosted by Reba McEntire. Wilson won Entertainer of the Year, Female Artist of the Year and Event of the Year, the latter for “Save Me,” her duet with Jelly Roll; Stapleton took home both Album of the Year and Male Entertainer of the Year, and both artists delivered powerful performances during the show..@laineywilson blessing the #ACMawards with her performance of "God Blessed Texas" ✨We're just getting started! Catch the rest of the show on @PrimeVideo! https://t.co/H8DgKcESzm pic.twitter.com/T3hGTj0ZSi What was striking about this year’s awards was the number of non-traditional country artists who performed: Dua Lipa joined Stapleton and his wife Morgane on “Think I’m in Love With You,” Avril Lavigne showed off her powerful pipes singing with Nate Smith (while wearing a System of a Down hoodie, no less), Noah Kahan sang with Kelsea Ballerini, and Gwen Stefani channeled a literal purple iris with the dress she wore to sing “Purple Irises” with husband Blake Shelton.

It was a big night for Lainey Wilson at the ACM Awards. She opened the show with a bang and then capped her evening by winning the coveted “Entertainer of the Year” award.

The 2024 Academy of Country Music Awards are TONIGHT!

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Thursday’s nights Academy of Country Music Awards program will provide further evidence that we are entering a Post country music period. But not as in “post-country,” let’s be clear… we’re talking about a Post Malone country era.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Is Reba McEntire running a little behind Bob Hope, as an awards-show-hosting perennial… or actually a little bit ahead? It depends how you count. Because this year marks her 17th year hosting the Academy of Country Music Awards, aka the ACMs, and Hope did the Oscars 19 times, so she’s still two years from matching his record, if we compare these gigs. However, McEntire has also hosted a rival program, the CMA Awards, five times over the years.

The 59th Academy of Country Music Awards, one of country music’s biggest nights, will be live from the Ford Center at The Star in Frisco, Texas. Many incredible country artists are up for nomination this year. Kane Brown, Luke Combs, Jelly Roll, Cody Johnson, Chris Stapleton, Morgan Wallen and Lainey Wilson are all nominated for entertainer of the year.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Ringo’s rotogravure is back, as it were, with a new EP, “Crooked Boy,” that will delight fans who’ve wanted a real rock record that was as steady as his backbeat. Linda Perry wrote and produced all four songs for this, the latest in a series of EPs that Ringo Starr began recording during the pandemic and is keeping on with well into the 2020s. He’s not married to the short-form format, though.

Thania Garcia Grupo Frontera may be known for breathing new life into the danceable, decades-old genre of Mexican cumbia and Tejano music with their debut “El Comienzo,” but the six-man band is showing just how expansive their range is with their latest, “Jugando A Que No Pasa Nada.” “We’ve had a lot of success as a cumbia group, but we are more than that,” vocalist Adelaido “Payo” Solís tells Variety. “We’re a band that can play different styles, and all of us have different music tastes.