After noting that the just-announced CMT Music Award nominees include rockers (or “rockers”) Robert Plant, Bon Jovi, Huey Lewis, and the Eagles, the CMT blog says this is nothing to get worked up about. Really, Huey Lewis is just nominated for songwriting because Garth Brooks covered him (!). And Plant, of course, is there because of his duet with Alison Krauss. As for the other two? Well…

Substantial promotional effort was involved in marketing the Eagles and Bon Jovi to the country audience, but that’s simply part of the music industry machinery. I can’t imagine that either group sat down and said, “Let’s see what we can do to pander to the country audience.”

I don’t follow country nearly as closely as I would like to, and I’ll admit that it does seem to be the genre of choice for just the kind of aging white dudes who make up Bon Jovi and the Eagles, so their intentions were probably at least a little sincere. It just seems to me that the opportunistic incursion of dinosaur rock acts into a still-evolving genre can’t be good for that genre’s evolution.

CMT Music Awards Nominate Rock Acts [CMT Blog]
CMT Music Awards: Nominees [cmt.com]