Music. According to Kim.

I've been to CMA Fest a few times by now and it's usually hard for me to pick a favorite night because they tend to be pretty evenly matched. Not so this year. In my opinion, the first night was the strongest night by far. Before the show we headed to the BMI stage that was set up outside of LP Field. They had performances there each night of the festival, but we only made it to the first one. And that's where this starts.

Starting off with an FYI for those who may haven't heard: the winners of both this award and Music Video will be announced on Good Morning America tomorrow morning. I'm sure that they'll mention who won at some point during the CMA Awards, but I wanted to bring it up just in case anyone had any interest in seeing them announced live. This is one of the first years where I've actually heard all of the songs nominated in this category. I listen to a ton of music and try to listen to as much new stuff as possible, but there's usually one or two songs nominated that I've never heard. This category is strange that way. Meanwhile, odds are that this will be one of the shortest posts I've done in this series because I just don't have a lot to say about any of these songs.  The nominees: "Dixie Highway", Alan Jackson featuring Zac Brown Band "Feel Like a Rock Star", Kenny Chesney duet with Tim McGraw "Roll Me Up and Smoke M...

The nominees: Kelly Clarkson Miranda Lambert Martina McBride Taylor Swift Carrie Underwood My pick: Carrie Underwood. This was a pretty easy choice for me, for a number of reasons. But before I go into those, let me talk about the other nominees. Kelly Clarkson. She's a great singer, but I don't understand why she got nominated in this category. Yes, her duet with Jason Aldean was a huge song for both of them. Sure, she released a country version of a song that had already been a single on pop radio. And yeah, she's good friends with Reba McEntire. But none of that makes her a country singer. Her inclusion in this category makes absolutely no sense. If she ever does a fully country album and starts releasing country songs to radio - and country remixes don't count - than I would have no problems with her being nominated for country awards. She could do well in country music, but she needs to fully commit to a project instead of just flirting with the ...

Anyone who knows me well is not going to be surprised by my pick for this category. At least they shouldn't be. There's been a couple of categories where I really had to think about who I was going to pick, but in this case there was absolutely no hesitation. I knew what my pick was right away. But before I reveal who that is, let me remind you of the five nominees: Jason Aldean, Kenny Chesney, Brad Paisley, Blake Shelton and Taylor Swift. And my pick for CMA Entertainer of the Year? Georgia's own, Mr. Jason Aldean. Now I'm going to be presenting my case for why I believe he deserves it after the cut, but first I want to say a little something about each of the other nominees. Kenny Chesney. Probably one of the favorites for this award. He's already won it four ties and the only other artist who has won this four times is Garth Brooks. So if Kenny wins, he will set a new record for most wins in this category since the awards began in 1967. Impressive. That fact ...

When I first started this countdown, I had no idea that I had so much to say about all of these videos. There's been a few where the words haven't come easily and others where I couldn't seem to stop myself. It's been an interesting experience for me and hopefully interesting for my readers as well. We're now going to be getting into the top 10 and I'm very excited about reaching this point. In a year of great videos, these were the cream of the crop, in my opinion. So let's begin...

What I like about this next part of the countdown is that each song/video kind of highlights one part or aspect of the genre. You have a song about a girl getting revenge on her no-good boyfriend/husband/whomever. You have a song about the end of a relationship that should probably never have begun in the first place. You have a song that features a life lesson and one looking back on days long gone. And you got a love song. All themes that frequently pop up in country music and for good reason. These are the kinds of things that just about everyone can relate to. And if you haven't found yourself in one of these situations yet, just hang in there because I'm positive that you will at some point. So, get yourself a nice beverage, get good and comfortable and come check out the next five videos in the countdown.

Here we go. The top twenty. There's only four more posts left in this countdown, including this one, and then I'll be done and moving on to something else. I think that this part of this countdown was one of the toughest for me to rank. Mainly because a lot of these videos are so close in quality to me. A lot of the others were easier to place, whether they've been in here already or have yet to come. But this batch and the one that'll come right after were probably the hardest ones when it came to deciding what video would go where. And after all that this, this is what I've come up with. So let's get to it.