Music award shows such as the Country Music Television cable channel’s CMT Awards at 8 tonight exist chiefly to recognize distinguished works, typically of the recent past — and attract audiences with all the star power they can muster — rather than to provide a forum for the discovery of new music.

But tonight’s ceremony from Nashville highlighting viewers’ favorite country music videos of the past year also is giving a first look and listen to singer-songwriter Jamey Johnson’s ambitious new album “The Guitar Songs,” which doesn’t come out until September.

Johnson, who gained critical accolades and a healthy amount of commercial success for his 2008 album “That Lonesome Song” and its award-laden single “In Color” apparently has been on a writing frenzy. He’s assembled two CDs worth of new material: 25 songs, including “Macon,” the one he’s slated to sing tonight at the CMT event, an atmospheric tale of a Georgia trucker on his way home.

Miranda Lambert scored twice at Sunday night's Academy of Country Music Awards in Las Vegas, winning album of the year for "Revolution" and being named top female vocalist. If she seemed especially flabbergasted by the vocalist win, it wasn't an act.

When I spoke with her last year just before "Revolution" was released, she spoke with great pride about the strides she'd taken in her songwriting. Yet she had trouble mustering much confidence in talking about her singing -- something that left her boyfriend, singer-songwriter Blake Shelton, shaking his head in disbelief and chiding her for not owning up to that facet of her talent when he joined in on the interview.

But she's starting to get the message. After the show, as she, Shelton and a few close friends and family members celebrated both of their wins -- Shelton took the trophy for vocal event for his "Hillbilly Bone" duet with Trace Adkins -- I commented on the choice of the ballad "The House That Built Me" for her ACM spotlight performance rather than one of her signature upbeat numbers bursting with take-no-prisoners attitude.

"This time, I just wanted to stand there and sing," Lambert said. And sing she did, in what was one of the standout performances among the two dozen songs over the course of the three-hour ceremony.

Reporting from Las Vegas -- For most people, the 2 a.m. closing-time phone call to an ex- is an act of desperation, but Lady Antebellum turned it into a source of inspiration in their hit “Need You Now,” which brought the Augusta, Ga., trio top awards, including vocal group, single and song of the year Sunday at the 45th Academy of Country Music Awards ceremony here.

The ACM’s reigning entertainer of the year, Carrie Underwood, made it two in a row in something of an upset over country-pop princess Taylor Swift, who outsold every other act in pop music in 2009 and otherwise dominated country and pop, also launching her first headlining arena tour with a slate of sold out shows across the country. Swift gave Underwood a hug as the “American Idol” winner took the stage to accept the award, which was voted on by fans during the show and over the last several weeks.

Lady Antebellum continues its ascent in country music circles, nabbing a field-leading seven nominations for the 45th Academy of Country Music Awards, among them album, single, song and top vocal group.

The Georgia trio is the hottest act in all of pop music at the moment, having sold more than 1 million copies of its sophomore album “Need You Now” in the four weeks since it was released in January. Lady Antebellum just edged out Carrie Underwood and Miranda Lambert, who scored six nominations each, and Taylor Swift with five nods. It creates a roster of top award contenders heavy on new blood.

Swift, who upset a slate of country veterans at last fall’s Country Music Assn. Awards in being named that organization’s youngest entertainer of the year winner ever, is in the running for the same trophy at this year’s ACMs. The organization expanded the entertainer category to include eight names this year, up from the usual five: the other nominees are Underwood, Kenny Chesney, Toby Keith, Brad Paisley, George Strait, Keith Urban and the Zac Brown Band.

Voting for entertainer of the year will be open once again to fans, and audience input also will be factored into the award for best new artist. Awards will be handed out April 18 at a ceremony from the MGM Grand Arena in Las Vegas, to be telecast on CBS.

--Randy Lewis

Photo of Lady Antebellum (left to right): Charles Kelley, Hillary Scott and Dave Haywood. Credit: Miranda Penn Turin

With a Jan. 31 air date, the Grammy Awards face a challenge when it comes to paying tribute to the fallen King of Pop. Numerous award shows have already honored Michael Jackson, including the Grammys themselves: R&B star Maxwell's tribute to Jackson was one of the highlights of the Grammys' nomination concert in early December.

Grammy producer Ken Ehrlich notes that the Grammys had been close to securing a Jackson performance the last couple years. In fact, a planned tribute to Jackson's "Thriller" was believed to be such a done deal that CBS even aired commercials teasing the event.

But in the wake of Jackson's death, Ehrlich wanted to avoid having other artists sing a medley of Jackson's most iconic songs. Instead, the Jan. 31 telecast will feature a 3-D-enhanced rendition of his environmentally aware orchestral ballad "Earth Song," originally featured on Jackson's 1995 album, "HIStory: Past, Present and Future, Book I." 

"To try and imitate him, to try and represent him, it just didn’t feel to me like it was something we should do with one of those songs that you just don’t ever necessarily want to see anybody but Michael doing," Ehrlich said in a Wednesday conference call with reporters. " ‘Beat It,’ ‘Billie Jean,’ or so many of the others. This felt to us like it was really a way of representing him. It’s like a tip of the hat. This song was so important to him."

The country-pop star wins Entertainer of the Year and three other prizes in a night dominated by up-and-comers.

In 1958, Johnny Cash released the song "Ballad of a Teenage Queen," the story of a pretty small-town girl who won Hollywood fame but gave it all up for the boy next door. In 2009 -- on Wednesday night, actually, in Nashville, at the annual Country Music Assn. Awards ceremony -- Taylor Swift updated and obliterated that story line.

The 19-year-old songwriter and universe-shifting star won in four categories, beating out mainstays such as Kenny Chesney and Keith Urban to claim country music for youth, femininity and pop. She also performed two numbers and was the subject of much running humor throughout the program, which found its spark whenever one of country's current batch of New Non-Traditionalists took the stage.

Swift started things out with a version of "Forever and Always" that was glitzy and high-concept -- and off-tune, a consistent characteristic of Swift's live outings that gave the lie to her one undeserved triumph, for best female vocalist. The prize should have gone to Carrie Underwood, country's most powerful young singer and the evening's co-host with Brad Paisley.

Struggling for her notes but not showing any concern about it, Swift made a flurry of arena-rock moves, shaking her long, gold tresses as if she were Robert Plant and sliding down a shiny pole in what seemed like a defiant nod toward her friend Miley Cyrus, who took guff for similar gyrations on this year's Teen Choice Awards. By the end of this production number, she owned the night. And she kept on owning it, right down to her tearful acceptance of the Entertainer of the Year prize, which she shared with her touring band and her fans, "and the shirts you made yourselves."

Pop & Hiss brings you instant reviews, typos and all, of all the performances at the Country Music Assn. Awards. It was a big night for Taylor Swift, who won entertainer of the year. She ended a three-year run from Kenny Chesney,

Related: CMA Awards 2009 Scorecard: Complete nominees and winners

Taylor Swift, "Forever & Always." Nashville is going straight to its A-list star, opening the show with pop music's most popular living singer at the moment. She'll have two songs tonight, and first up is "Forever & Always." To sum it up: The 2009 CMA Awards are off and running with a train wreck. The energy and excitement of Swift's MTV Video Music Awards performance, in which she was running through a subway, is completely lost. Beginning with a fake interview with Nancy O'Dell was cute, especially when Swift noted that "If guys don't want me to write bad songs about them, they shouldn't do bad things." But turning her "Forever & Always" into a chair-throwing angsty performance, complete with a stripper --  or fireman’s pole  (depending on your level of innocence) -- was ill-advised. She looked strained in trying to capture the anger of the song, awkwardly rolling on the floor and yanking at her hair. This is a D. But she has another performance in which to redeem herself.

Wednesday night's Country Music Assn. Awards are a model of consistency. A look at the nominees for male and female vocalist of the year reveals that eight of the 10 in the running are holdovers from last year. As for the show's top prize in the entertainer of the year field, four of the last five years the trophy has gone to Kenny Chesney.

Change to the Nashville music community does not happen overnight. But sales certainly do, and the CMAs pack a mighty wallop. 

The CMAs had a massive effect on last year's pop chart, according to figures released earlier this year by Nielsen SoundScan. In the week following the awards show, genre sales were up more than 80% in three of the last seven years.

Last year, country sales were up 89%, thanks, of course, to the sensation known as Taylor Swift. Her "Fearless" was released during the week of the CMA Awards, and it went on to sell 592,000 copies in its opening frame. With a little boost from Swift, overall album sales -- country and non-country -- were up 27%.

If there's a slam-dunk aspect to Carrie Underwood's third album, it's that she's handed her "American Idol" benefactors a theme song for the next episode of "Idol Gives Back." That song is "Change," an exercise in social responsibility that challenges the listener to stay open to the possibility that a small gesture can make a big difference.

Underwood puts that idea across convincingly -- it's one that also would do wonders for her music. Unfortunately, there are no small gestures here. As on 2007's "Carnival Ride," Underwood and producer Mark Bright lunge for one climactic crescendo after another at the expense of vocal nuance, lyric subtlety and even aural clarity, thanks to the excessive sonic compression again applied to most tracks. 

Of course, the same formula has helped her sell more albums than any other "Idol" alum, but "Play On" exhibits a distressing lack of dimension for a singer with Underwood's obvious abilities.

There's another "Before He Cheats"-style tale of vengeance ("Songs Like This") and a red-flag warning about lowlifes in the album's first single ("Cowboy Casanova"). And can someone please institute a two-year moratorium on songs built on greeting-card philosophizing ("Temporary Home")?

That's one of seven songs Underwood gets lead co-writing credit on here, and while it's encouraging to see her more fully contributing to what she sings, it would be more rewarding if she'd explore less thoroughly trod ground, a problem that also hampers "Play On," which closes the album. 

It's an earnest, albeit cliché-heavy, stab at keep-your-chin-up encouragement: "You're gonna make mistakes / It's always worth the sacrifice."

Come to think of it, sounds like an ideal choice for the weekly exit music on the next season of "American Idol." 

-- Randy Lewis 

Carrie Underwood
Play On
19 Recordings/Arista Nashville
Two stars (Out of four)

[This version has been updated with more news on nominations.]

Brad Paisley leads the pack with six nominations for the 43rd Country Music Assn. Awards announced this morning, including entertainer of the year, male vocalist, album, single and song. Teenage country music sensation Taylor Swift joins Paisley and veterans Kenny Chesney, George Strait and Keith Urban vying for entertainer of the year, the CMA’s top trophy.

Swift, Strait and relative newcomers Jamey Johnson and Zac Brown are tied at four nominations apiece, reflecting an influx of new blood into the CMA honors. Strait’s nominations for entertainer, male vocalist, music video and music event give him a career total of 79, tying him with Alan Jackson for the most nominations in CMA history. Strait has won 22, more than any other artist.

Swift, 19, is the only woman in the entertainer competition and the first nominated since Faith Hill in 2000. Shania Twain is the last woman to win the category, in 1999. Swift recently surpassed total album sales of 10 million copies since the release of her debut album, “Taylor Swift,” in 2006. Her sophomore effort, “Fearless,” has sold more than 4 million copies.