2020 CMT Music Awards: 7 Best, Worst and WTF Moments

There’s a reason Luke Combs’s performance of “1, 2 Many” was chosen to open the CMT Awards broadcast — and with no disrespect to his Country Music Hall of Fame guests, it wasn’t because of Brooks and Dunn. The North Carolina songwriter has evolved into country music’s most reliable star. Every single is a winner, his album and EP releases are events, and his gregarious stage presence suggests a good time is on the way. For “1, 2 Many,” he did exactly what CMT needed him to do: create a party atmosphere for a show whose goal was to relieve viewers’ pandemic fatigue. That Combs shot-gunned a beer onstage didn’t hurt either.

Maybe because it’s Halloween, or maybe because she’s Shania got-dang Twain, but the Canadian superstar-princess chose to imagine a world of deeply unsettling whimsy for her performance of “Whose Bed Have Your Boots Been Under?” Filmed at Chaplin’s World — a Charlie Chaplin Museum in Switzerland, a country where Twain keeps a home — the performance of the 1995 hit was great fun and simultaneously pushed the creepy button as Twain twirled among lifelike figurines of the silent-film actor. The question of whose bed may finally have been answered — and it’ll haunt your dreams forever.

For obvious reasons, this year’s CMT Music Awards couldn’t be held in its usual home of Nashville’s Bridgestone Arena. And to CMT’s credit, the network didn’t try to fake it. Sure, there was canned applause and cheers, but CMT admitted up-front that the performances were by and large pretaped. There was one live element, however: a carefully curated fan viewing party in a downtown park with co-host Ashley McBryde. Fans in attendance were Covid tested and screened, social distancing was enacted, and masks — branded with the Awards logo — were worn. We may not be out of the pandemic woods anytime soon, but the CMT Music Awards illustrated how we can safely adapt and still have fun.

Dan and Shay staged the most audacious performance of the 2020 CMTs with “I Should Probably Go to Bed” and its dreamlike backdrop of up-lit trees at Reba McEntire’s former estate, Cherokee Dock. In step with their over-the-top, ornate single, the duo’s pre-recorded production was like Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz getting her bed flung right into the middle of The Craft, but without all the witchy teenage drama. The most amazing part? They absolutely pulled it off.

True superstars can go big or small, depending on what the moment asks of them. Maren Morris demonstrated that with an intimate, acoustic rendition of “To Hell and Back” in a rustic A-frame. Her career’s been launched right into orbit over the course of two albums, but Morris still retains that warm, almost conversational songwriter’s delivery that made her breakout debut, “My Church,” such a sensation — no fireworks necessary to dazzle us.

There’s only so much time in the broadcast, but year after year we’re left wondering what exactly the point is of the CMT music Awards’ side stage. In theory, the up-and-coming artists chosen for those all-too-brief performances represent the future of the genre. As such, shouldn’t they get more time? (Especially during a year when CMT handed out an “Equal Play” award.) This year’s lineup included Caylee Hammack, Hardy, Ingrid Andress, Riley Green, Travis Denning, and the superb Mickey Guyton, who had a breakout year by speaking truth to power with songs like “What Are You Gonna Tell Her?” and “Black Like Me.” Guyton’s performance of “Heaven Down Here” showed how much one can do with a brief slot, but each of the side-stage cameos still had us wanting more, more, more.

Ashley McBryde pulled double duty at this year’s CMT Music Awards, serving as one of three co-hosts and performing her sinister murder ballad “Martha Divine.” She did a fine job as emcee, but was most at home in front of her band, electric guitar over her shoulder. As its foreboding drumbeat announced what was to come, McBryde emerged from a spotlight to indict a cheating father’s mistress. “You put your hands on the wrong damn man this time,” McBryde coolly sang, bringing to vivid life exactly what led to good ol’ Martha’s demise. Arguably the most head-turning performance of the night.