File this under water is wet.
All the cool kids, Jason Isbell, Amanda Shires, Sturgill Simpson, Margo Price etc.... are all angry that the CMAs honored the passing of Kenny Rogers, Charlie Daniels, and Mac Davis (and one of the weirdest country songs ever, "In the Ghetto") while ignoring the passing of John Prine, Jerry Jeff Walker, and Billy Joe Shaver.
https://pitchfork.com/news/jason-isbell-and-amanda-shires-exit-country-music-association-after-2020-cmas-didnt-honor-john-prine/Of course, they all didn't care for vapid mainstream country music anyway
Sturgill Simpson joined Isbell in calling out the show for not mentioning Prine. “Don’t get it twisted…wouldn’t be caught dead at this tacky ass glitter and botox cake & cock pony show even if my chair had a morphine drip,” Simpson wrote, in a post viewed by Pitchfork that has since been deleted. “I just wanted to see if they would say his name but nope.”
so it's not exactly shocking and you can't be an "outlaw" without something to rebel against. And, of course, the cool kids are right, the CMAs and mainstream country all suck, and all the aforementioned make far better music because they're more talented and don't follow formulas or boundaries of what should be country music.
That is all.
