You're Kidding, Right?

This year, American Idol contestants will be sent home to none other than a cover of Motley Crue's "Home Sweet Home" by Carrie Underwood. Now available on iTunes. I'm speechless.

I guess the lyrics are appropriate enough, but I'm just having a hard time fathoming this song being sung by a country pop artist. Well, since I won't allow myself to pay to download this, I'm just going to have to wait till tonight's show. Here's hoping it doesn't become a saccharine, overplayed hit like Daughtry's "Home."

Women suck at entertaining

If you believe the country music industry, that is.

The 2008 Academy of Country Music Awards nominations just came out, and it's business as usual. The ACM awards are presented in the spring, the CMAs in the fall. They're technically run by two different groups, but they're pretty much the same. They both give out an Entertainer of the Year award. And every time, when the Entertainer of the Year nominees are announced, the contenders are four solo men, and one male group, usually Rascal Flatts or Brooks & Dunn.

Seriously, how could Carrie Underwood and Taylor Swift not have been nominated this year, with all the huge hits they've had? Or how about Miranda Lambert? Are we really supposed to believe they were lesser entertainers than George Strait and Rascal Flatts during the past 12 months?

For a woman to get an Entertainer of the Year nod, she has to do something superhuman. In the past 10 years or so that I've been paying attention, only a handful of women have gotten nominated: Shania Twain, Faith Hill, and the Dixie Chicks. In Shania's case, she had to sell 10+ million copies of two consecutive albums before she finally got recognized.

Interestingly, Shania and the Chicks both won the award, which seems to suggest that the general academy has no problem recognizing women. It's just the elite group that chooses the nominees, the Good Old Boys' network of Nashville, that is keeping the girls down.

I'm always amazed that more people don't get upset about this.