This Monday, March 30th, the second round of performers for this years Academy of Country Music Awards was announced. This year will mark the 50th ACM celebration so they are going all out with the performers. The academy is bringing back veterans, having new artists perform, and creating crossover duets with pop artists. The ACM’s will take place on April 19th at the AT&T stadium in Arlington, Texas.
However, the interesting part of who will be performing is whom they chose for the duet performances. As of right now it is Nick Jonas with Dan and Shay. And then Christina Aguilera is said to be performing with a surprise artist for a surprise duet. Aguilera will also be appearing as a guest star in Nashville, on April 15th. This is especially interesting because the ACM’s are only four days after her country music debut. Granted on the show Aguilera’s character will be an already established pop artist that wants to record a country album.
Last years best duet performance was with Shakira and Blake Shelton. It turned out to be more of a rock tune than country but still people went wild for it.
They also performed this song on The Voice. I think that this performance was awesome. Personally, I just like how their two voices blend together because they are so different. With Shakira’s Spanish accent shining through and then Shelton’s country accent, together I think that they create a very unique sound.
For the 2013 Academy of Country Music Awards there were two crossover duet performances, the first by Hunter Hayes and Stevie Wonder and the second by Brad Paisley and John Mayer. Hunter Hayes and Stevie Wonder performed “Sir Duke”. Hunter Hayes also did a solo performance of “I Want Crazy”, however, the duet with Stevie Wonder completely overshadowed his solo.
Brad Paisley and John Mayer performed “Beat This Summer”. This performance was primarily sung by Paisley. Both Mayer and Paisley contributed to the guitar solo and Mayer took over one verse of the song.
Maybe it is because this is not one of my favorite Brad Paisley songs but I did not enjoy this performance as much. However, I think that the Hayes and Wonder duet was much better, got the audience more into the performance, and had a much better sound to it.
I think that duet performances are unique because of how they bring two different voices together. Especially the duets performed at the ACM’s because they usually take artists from two different genres. This is great because the performances combined two opposite sounding vocals and creates an amazing crossover sound. I am very excited to see how the duet performances for this year turn out.
I always plan to watch the ACM’s but never actually get around to watching them. However if I did watch them, I would think that the interesting song pairings would be my favorite part of the show. I’m really interested in the Dan and Shay and Nick Jonas song will sound. As for the Shelton and Shakira duet, I think they could have picked a better song but their sound as a duet is unique. Overall, I’m not a huge fan of Hunter Hayes. He’s alright, but not my favorite. However I like this duet between him and Stevie Wonder even if at times their voices don’t mesh quite correctly. I think the Brad/John duet was doomed from the start. The song isn’t one that’s meant to be played live. They took a relatively slow song (for the topic of the song anyway) and had to slow it down even more whenever it was Mayer’s turn to sing. I feel that if a different song was chosen, this duet could have been the duet that stole the night rather than the Hayes/Wonder duet. That could just be, because I’m not a huge Mayer fan either though.
I absolutely love award shows and cannot wait to watch the ACM’s. It was interesting how you focused on the duets featured previously. To be honest, these are not always my favorite thing. I think it is more of a publicity stunt when a pop artist is featured on a country track. Sometimes it is ends up being a hit. Others, it can be torturous to sit through. It does its job, bringing in fans who normally don’t listen to country music. This is good at getting those who “hate” country music to realize that it does not matter what genre a song belongs to. It can be connected to anyone just through the art of music. Anyways, I am personally looking forward to Nick Jonas performing with Dan and Shay. It should be interesting, plus I was a major Jonas Brothers fan when I was twelve. (Old habits die hard.)