Taylor Swift performs “Forever & Always” at “The 43rd Annual CMA Awards,” on Wednesday, Nov. 11, 2009, live from the Sommet Center in Nashville on the ABC Television Network. Photographer: John Russell / CMA. Provided by Country Music Association.

Judging from the early online comments from GACTV.com readers, Taylor Swift’s four wins at the 43rd annual Country Music Association Awards will be accompanied by controversy. She won Entertainer of the Year, Female Vocalist, Album and Music Video, setting records as the first teen victor in each category and ending streaks of three-year reigns for Kenny Chesney and Carrie Underwood.

Taylor is not a traditional artist in any sense of the word — not in sound, not in age and not in the demographic she appeals to. So when her band and record company president, Scott Borchetta, gave her a group hug at the end of the evening, it was a physical manifestation of the embrace she got at the ballot box from the country business.

It’s a tough time in the record business. Thanks to the proliferation of downloading — legal or otherwise — the industry has reverted from one built on albums sales to one that relies more heavily on less profitable singles sales. The CMA itself has discovered in a research study that only half its audience has regular access to the Internet, where those downloads occur. And yet the number of physical stores that sell music has shrunk dramatically. Those retailers that still sell CDs keep fewer titles in stock, making less music available to the half of the audience that continues to buy in person.

Last night, fans left a mix of positive and negative comments on GACTV.com, with detractors saying Taylor had pitch problems during her performances. It’s not a new issue, and it hasn’t been a turn off to the millions of people who’ve bought her albums at a time when million-selling acts are a rarity. The CMA is realistically an organization that represents a business, and in the current marketplace, the organization gave props to the one person providing the biggest ray of hope.

She has delivered to Music Row a new audience: teen females with money to spend on entertainment who are more prone to use the Internet than older country fans. In a way, she’s mimicked the early-‘90s performance of Garth Brooks, who likewise delivered a new audience when he grafted arena-rock theatrics onto a country style just when pop radio was alienating much of its core audience. Like Taylor, Garth won four CMA awards in 1991 on the heels of his sophomore album. Also like Taylor, three of those awards were for Entertainer, Album and Video.

Garth became a gateway for country’s greatest surge in sales. The country business sees Taylor as a new gateway for album and concert-ticket buyers and is recognizing a juggernaut that jingles.

While there will be plenty of attention devoted in the coming weeks to her age-defying achievements, a few other marks of interest occurred during Wednesday’s ceremony at Nashville’s Sommet Center. Among them:

• Brad Paisley, who co-hosted for the second year with Carrie Underwood, picked up his third straight Male Vocalist award and shared Music Video with Keith Urban. In the process, Brad’s career total reached a lucky 13 CMA honors, placing him solely in fifth place all-time behind Alan Jackson, with 16; Vince Gill, 18; Brooks & Dunn, 19; and George Strait, 22.

 

• When Taylor won Album of the Year for Fearless, it came rather fittingly on the one-year anniversary of the project’s release.

 

• Taylor’s Entertainer trophy left Kenny Chesney tied with Garth Brooks as the leaders with four wins apiece in the CMA’s most prestigious race. Kenny is still the only act to win Entertainer three years in succession.

 

• In claiming Female Vocalist, Taylor blocked Carrie from joining Reba McEntire as the only singers in history to win that honor four straight years.

 

• While Taylor set youthful marks, Darius Rucker stretched the upper age boundary in the New Artist of the Year honor, previously called the Horizon Award. At 43, he’s the oldest person ever to claim the trophy. The previous elder stateswoman was Naomi Judd, who was a mere 38 (twice Taylor’s current age) when she accepted the Horizon as one-half of the Judds in 1984.

 

• Lady Antebellum won twice, taking Vocal Group and Single of the Year. In claiming the group title, they ended Rascal Flatts’ six-year reign. The Statler Brothers are the only other act to control the category six years straight.

 

• Paul Worley — who co-produced Lady A’s winning single, “I Run To You,” with Victoria Shaw — had the CMA’s Single of the Year for the second time in his career. The first was exactly a decade ago: the Dixie Chicks’ “Wide Open Spaces.”

 

• When Jamey Johnson took Song of the Year for “In Color,” it marked his second time to win the honor in the last three years. Two years ago, he was a winner for co-authoring George Strait’s “Give It Away.” In both cases, Jamey was one of three writers involved.

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