CMT Blog: “I Told You So”

Congratulations to Randy Travis for collecting his seventh Grammy Award on Sunday night (Jan. 31). He and Carrie Underwood picked up best country collaboration with vocals for "I Told You So." Incidentally, Travis' own rendition appears on his 1987 album, Always and Forever -- which earned Travis his first Grammy in 1988. The soft-spoken traditionalist repeated in the category of country male vocal performance with his 1988 album, Old 8x10, then later won for 1998's all-star recording, "Same Old Train," and three recent gospel albums. I wish I could catch his next concert because it's at one of my all-time favorite venues -- Billy Bob's Texas in Fort Worth. Need another reason? Because "I Told You So."

If you've been waiting to fill up your Rock Band library with even more country music, you only have one more day to wait. Starting tomorrow (Dec. 29), you'll be able to add downloadable country songs for Xbox 360 and Wii that were once temporary exclusives and are now part of the official Going Country Pack 02. Stuff like original master recordings of Jason Aldean's "She's Country," Alan Jackson's "Good Time," Martina McBride's "This One's for the Girls," Shania Twain's "Any Man of Mine" and Keith Urban's "I Told You So" (not to be confused with the Randy Travis and/or Carrie Underwood song of the same name). Songs are about $2 each or you can get the whole package for $10.99. As for you PlayStation 3 gamers, you have to wait a little bit longer. That DLC will be available on Jan. 7.

Let me preface this entry by saying that I love, love, love country concerts. I do wish, however, that an artist would ask me for advice just once on making the perfect set list. I know these artists have to do their big hits -- the ones everybody is paying big bucks to hear. And I know they need to promote their newest album with songs they have on the radio now, or ones they might want on the radio later. And then there are the covers that give everybody a little something unorthodox to remember them by: "Oh my God! You should have heard Keith Urban on 'Material Girl.' He was better than Madonna!"

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There was a great article in last week's Billboard magazine about the 100 top ways to get your music in the public eye and how it's no longer just a matter of building relationships at radio stations. What stood out to me was the actual numbers behind some of these marketing moves. Like performing on Oprah (Celine Dion's sales jumped 80 percent), getting your song on American Idol (126,000 combined downloads of Carrie Underwood's "I Told You So" and her duet of the song with Randy Travis) or being the band in Guitar Hero (Metallica's self-titled album sales increased 41 percent after the release of Guitar Hero Metallica.) Even things like having a very integrated tour sponsorship, like Lady Antebellum did with Brita, can set your music career in motion. Cover stories in magazines like Rolling Stone and Entertainment Weekly are quantifiably good for business, too. I hope newer artists will embrace all these new opportunities while they hang onto some of the traditional ways of getting their music to the masses.

Here are some musical tidbits that came out of the nominations for the 43rd CMA Music Awards:

• The Raconteurs got their first nomination -- for musical event for "Old Enough" and also garnered guest vocalist Ashley Monroe her first nomination. Another guest vocalist, Ricky Skaggs, earned his 24th CMA nomination. His last nomination came 10 years ago in the same category. He has won eight CMA awards.

• Randy Travis, up for song of the year and for musical event with Carrie Underwood for "I Told You So," was last nominated in 2003. He last won in 1988, for male vocalist. The song for which he and Underwood are nominated, his composition "I Told You So," was a No. 1 hit for Travis in 1988. He has a total of five wins and 24 nominations.

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I think I know this guy -- the one Carrie Underwood's singing about in her fresh new single, "Cowboy Casanova," which arrived at country radio stations last night (Sept. 2). You can hear it on her Web site. And she's right, you better run for your life.

I've known a hundred guys like the one she's singing about. I've known them in a love/hate kind of way. So I like that she and her co-writers, Mike Elizondo and Brett James, managed to give this song a very upbeat sound even with its decidedly negative message warning women to stay away.

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I was at a Carrie Underwood concert last night (Aug. 30) and got into a deep conversation with the guy sitting behind me all about which artists are truly country. His point was that today's country is really pop. I completely disagree, because really, when was the last time Britney Spears had a steel guitar on her tour? Or the Fray was rocking a banjo? So as long as the right instruments are in place, as they are here, country is country enough for me.

"The More Boys I Meet," Carrie Underwood
"All I Want," Darius Rucker
"Our Song," Taylor Swift
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No more teasing country fans with five-song download packs. Rock Band, a video game in which you use instrument-shaped controllers to play and sing along, has finally jumped headfirst into country music. Fans wondered whether or not a "Country Band" title was in the works, as MTV Games and Harmonix had offered a few tracks digitally, but we never got anything you could just buy off the shelf until now. The Rock Band Country Track Pack compiles 21 hit songs by top artists past and present that can be added to your game's existing library. Thirteen of those songs have never been available to gamers before, like Alan Jackson's "Good Time," Jason Aldean's "She's Country," Keith Urban's "I Told You So," Kenny Rogers' "The Gambler" and Shania Twain's "Any Man of Mine." The package is available for Xbox 360, PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3 or Wii. Priced at $29.99, the Rock Band Country Track Pack is set to be released July 21, 2009.

When I say "360 feet of silk taffeta," it sounds like the world's most hideous bridesmaid dress, right? But when I say "Carrie Underwood's dress made of 360 feet of silk taffeta," it all starts to sound pretty gorgeous, doesn't it?

That's probably why the folks at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum have devoted a display to that merlot-colored Rafael Cennamo dress Underwood wore during her performance at the Academy of Country Music Awards in Las Vegas in April. Remember? It's the dress nobody was allowed talk about until she revealed it that night, when she belted out her version of Randy Travis' "I Told You So." And the one that had Underwood saying, "I truly felt like a princess." That dress turned out to be a bit of a good luck charm, too, because that was the night the ACM named her its entertainer of the year and top female vocalist.

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Carrie Underwood closed the American Idol broadcast Tuesday night (May 19). At least, I'm pretty sure it was Carrie Underwood.

She had the long blond hair, the sparkling eye shadow, the killer pipes and the big backing band. But this Carrie Underwood was rocking so hard it, was hard to know if it was really her. Probably because her song choice was so not her. It was her take on Mötley Crüe's 1985 glam-rock power ballad, "Home Sweet Home," which Idol has been using as their buh-bye song when each contestant goes home.

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