Let's start the campaign right here and now for "Unstoppable" to earn Rascal Flatts the overdue awards recognition it deserves! Already music buyers adore the disc. "Unstoppable" actually topped Miley Cyrus' soundtrack to "Hannah Montana: The Movie" on the Billboard 200 to emerge as the biggest-selling CD in America last week. But Rascal Flatts' music has always done poorly with music awards — and that outrage must, yes, stop!

I admit I'm an unabashed country music fan. One of my guilty pleasures every week is watching the top 20 video countdown hosted by Lance Smith on CMT cable channel. According to my expert opinion, Rascal Flatts is the greatest group in Dixie music today. Period. (Take that, Brooks & Dunn! As for you, Sugarland — you don't count because you haven't really been a group since Kristen Hall scooted, taking the group's sweetest, greatest music — and its soul — with her. Memo to Jennifer Nettles: Call Kristen and patch things up, please!)

It's scandalous, but Rascal Flatts has never won a Grammy Award. Yeah, it did win some other prestigious industry prizes: 11 trophies from the Academy of Country Music and seven from the Country Music Assn., but those were almost all performance prizes. You now — best vocal group of the year. That kind of thing. Rascal Flatts has never been nominated for best album or song of the year by the CMA. It's never been nominated for best album by the ACM either, although once it did reap the trophy for best song of the year ("I'm Movin' On"). The rascals deserve more!

Photo: Lyric Street

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