This Should Have Been Scotty McCreery’s Year For A CMA Awards Nomination — ‘Damn Strait’

Scotty McCreery quickly became a household name after winning Season 10 of American Idol in May of 2011 at the age of 17. Since then, fans have watched the North Carolina native flourish as an artist, songwriter, and entertainer. Yet somehow, McCreery has never been nominated for a CMA Award in his 11+ year career. 

Following his Idol win, McCreery has gone on to release five studio albums, including Clear As Day (2011), Christmas With Scotty McCreery (2012), See You Tonight (2013), Seasons Change (2018), and Same Truck (2021).

The country hitmaker has also sold over 5 million albums, several of which have earned RIAA-certifications, including his Platinum-selling album, Clear As Day, and Gold-selling projects In Between, Seasons Change and Christmas With Scotty McCreery.

On the radio front, the singer/songwriter has earned five consecutive chart-toppers, including “Five More Minutes,” “This Is It,” “In Between,” “You Time,” and his latest multi-week No. 1, “Damn Strait.” 

This past year has, without a doubt, been one of the most successful years of McCreery’s career with “Damn Strait” dominating the charts for a whopping three weeks and is one of only three, three-week No.1s in 2022. To date, “Damn Strait” has raked in 106,428,646 on-demand streams and overall consumption of 849, 262.

The song, which serves as a tribute to the legendary George Strait and his music, was the fastest-rising single of his career and ultimately took his career to new heights as he continually played to sold-out crowds across the country.  

This was supposed to be McCreery’s year at the CMA Awards. He earned not just one, but two, chart-topping singles during the nomination period, which should have easily earned him a nomination for Single of the Year and/or Male Artist of the Year. But somehow, his name fell through the cracks.

Earning nominations is partly a political game as labels, management companies, booking agents, and more block votes to ensure the artists they represent get nominated. Even still, McCreery should have been recognized in some way for his achievements throughout the past year.

McCreery isn’t the only artist who didn’t receive a single nomination for this year’s CMA Awards as Kane Brown, Thomas Rhett, Keith Urban, Gabby Barrett, Jimmie Allen, and more were also snubbed. 

Even without a CMA nomination, McCreery continues his red-hot streak with the release of the fan-favorite tune, “It Matters To Her,” impacting radio on September 12.

The song, which is destined to become his next No. 1 hit, was inspired by his musical heroes’ Brooks & Dunn. 

“The coolest one for me is our next single ‘It Matters To Her,’ which if you listen to it, speaking of Brooks & Dunn, it definitely has that inspiration to it and how could you not when I grew up listening to all their albums,” McCreery told Audacy’s Katie Neal of the tune in a recent interview. ”This is the [song] where you start playing it and you see the crowd start trying to sing along like they already knew it, but then they realize like ‘oh, I don’t know this song.’”

Click above to listen to “It Matters To Her.”

McCreery’s next scheduled tour date is on September 9 at The Lyric Oxford in Oxford, Mississippi. See a full list of his upcoming tour dates by visiting his official website HERE.