The nominees for this year’s CMA Album of the Year include Eric Church for Desperate Man and Carrie Underwood’s Cry Pretty.
Eric’s sixth studio album, Desperate Man, marked the end of the longest break in his career between putting out new music. In the three years since the sudden, surprise release of Mr. Misunderstood (named 2016 CMA Album of the Year), though, he has experienced some of the highest peaks and some of the biggest challenges in his work and in his life. He got a sense of where the album was headed after writing “The Snake” and “Hippie Radio.” Eric also earned nods for both Entertainer and Music Video of the Year (for “Some of It”).
Carrie tallied her fifth nomination for CMA Album of the Year with Cry Pretty, which is her first studio album on Capitol Records Nashville and marks the first time she has co-produced her own album. The lead single and title track, “Cry Pretty” debuted as the #1 song in the U.S. all-genres. Carrie co-produced Cry Pretty with fellow writer/producer David Garcia. Carrie is also nominated for Entertainer of the Year and picked up her 14th consecutive nod for Female Vocalist, a title she’s won five times, including last year.
Thomas Rhett’s Center Point Road, Dan + Shay’s self-titled album and Maren Morris’s Girl round out the category.
The 53rd Annual CMA Awards, hosted by Carrie, Reba McEntire and Dolly Parton, will be broadcast live from Nashville’s Bridgestone Arena on Wednesday (November 13th) at 8pm ET on ABC.
Audio / Eric Church says Desperate Man was the hardest record he’s ever made.
DownloadEric Church (hardest record to make) OC: …we ended up. 1:20
“Well I think, really from the last tour, the Holding My Own Tour, I realized that I am very grateful and humble that we get to do what we do. To go on every night, no openers and play for three hours, and see the way music has affected people lives, and they have affected mine. But it has turned into this thing, its own, living breathing organism that happened. And coming off of that, the biggest fear that I had was I didn’t just want to go back into the studio and make a record just because it was time to make a record. And I had some stuff going on. I mean, I had a personal thing with my health, and then I had, then Vegas happened and that will be with me forever. So, I think there was stuff that I had to process on the early part of making this record. And frankly, it made it difficult early. I mean it was tough. It was the toughest record that I’ve made out of all of them. It’s funny, it’s just like anything you do creatively, when you think this is what it’s going to be, this where we are headed, I promise you, were headed here. This is where you are going. Creativity will take over and you will end up on another path and that’s what happened here. And to credit, I think, the way we make records, or try to make records, is we will pay attention to that. We will change course, and we are not afraid to change course. So, I think for me, my favorite thing about this album, is I know where we started and where we ended up.”
Audio / Carrie Underwood says there was a lot of growth between her previous album, Storyteller, and her new collection, Cry Pretty.
DownloadCarrie Underwood (growth between albums) OC: …writing about. 1:07
“I feel like between Storyteller and Cry Pretty, there was definitely a lot of growth for me as a person – emotional growth and spiritual growth and my family. And I feel like just kind of taking more ownership in my thoughts and my feelings and my wants and my creative abilities and just taking more ownership over all of those things and wanting that to translate into this album. I like to take time between projects. It’s like when do you have time to live the life you’re writing about? It’s so important to me. I like to go on tour and when I’m out, I’m out. I’m on the road. We are working hard. We’re killing it. We’re doing what we do. When I write, I want to write. I want to immerse myself in that. Whatever I’m doing, I want to completely immerse myself in and that includes living a life, and I just feel like that’s so important. And for me as a mom and as a wife and as a friend and daughter and all of those things, it’s just important to take a minute to live a life worth writing about.”
