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A Letter From The Editor
illboard loves to celebrate success. For 70-plus years we’ve been doing that with our music charts, which today span more than 200 weekly tabulations viewed not only by the music industry, but by tens of millions of music fans around the globe, through our international partnerships, fan site Billboard.com and the Billboard Music Awards. But while charts might be our thing, we love to see music supported in all the myriad and historical ways that it happens. That’s why we’re pleased to deliver to you this Billboard voter’s guide for the CMA Awards— the fruits of a first-year partnership with the storied Country Music Assn. It’s been an amazing year for country music, with superstar releases, established acts reaching new heights and the rise of new stars. Looking at our charts, newcomer Florida Georgia Line’s “Cruise” set the record for the longest reign on Hot Country Songs at 24 weeks. It also became a huge pop crossover hit, reaching No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100. Meanwhile, iconic veteran George Strait notched his incredible 86th top 10 on Hot Country Songs and Tim McGraw scored his milestone 50th top 10 on Country Airplay. Speaking of the latter star, seven years after Taylor Swift arrived with the song “Tim McGraw,” she and the real thing topped Country Airplay with their duet “Highway Don’t Care.” The song became McGraw’s 26th No. 1 and Swift’s seventh, and it surely helped her win the “first-half MVP” accolade in Billboard.com’s midyear poll. Exhibiting the blurred lines, so to speak, between country and rock, Darius Rucker rolled “Wagon Wheel” to No. 1 on Hot Country Songs, granting Bob Dylan his latest chart leader. Dylan is credited as a co-writer of the song, as Old Crow Medicine Show reworked it in 2004 from a Dylan bootleg, commonly referred to as “Rock Me Mama.” And country music recently has dominated the Billboard 200, occupying half of the slots in the top 10 for the first time in nearly three years, with albums from Justin Moore, Chris Young, Luke Bryan, Keith Urban and Billy Currington. While we don’t envy the voters, we do want to help them. So, please, enjoy the colorful stories about the nominees and their music that you’ll find in these pages. There’s also an interview with the hosts of the CMA Awards, Brad Paisley and Carrie Underwood, and some early details on what you can expect during the awards show, which will air live on ABC on Nov. 6. You can view this entire guide online at billboard.biz/cmavoterguide. We’ll also be sending it as a tablet-friendly PDF direct to voters. So you don’t have any excuses to pick anything but the best for this year’s awards. We’ll be there and watching, right along with the best that country music has to offer.
E ditorial D irector , B illboard
voter guide
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C m a Awa r d s 2013
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9/27/13 7:01 PM