carrie underwood (18 posts)

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Taylor Swift may not have walked away with the most Country Music Association Award nominations this morning, but she did walk away with the most impressive nod.

While Brad Paisley emerged as the clear chicken-fried frontrunner of the CMAs, amassing a leading six nominations, the teen songbird had the distinction of becoming the first female solo artist in nine years to make the cut in the male-dominated field of Entertainer of the Year, the highest honor.

(The award is not to be confused with the ACMs' Entertainer of the Year Award, a glass ceiling shattered by Carrie Underwood earlier this year.)

"I am jumping up and down surrounded by dogs and my mom and screaming like it's Christmas morning," Swift tweeted in reaction to her nominations. "I'll never forget this."

Aside from Paisley, who will pull double duty on the big night, cohosting the show with Underwood, Swift vies against country heavyweights George Strait, Keith Urban and Kenny Chesney for the night-capping award.

But they're not the only sampling of Nashville's finest to make the awards show cut. Hootie, anyone?

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Already in possession of numerous keys to the castle, Brad Paisley and Carrie Underwood get to hold court again this year.

The reigning male and female Vocalists of the Year have been tapped to cohost the 43rd Annual Country Music Association Awards, which will be their second straight year helming the increasingly glamorous kudosfest.

"I thought we did a good job [last year]," Underwood told People. "I wasn't nervous about being asked back. But I was hoping they would ask us."

The Nashville superstar is a five-time winner at the CMAs, including the Horizon (top newcomer) Award she picked up in 2006.

"I figured if they wanted us back they'd ask and if not, we'd get to sit and watch somebody else go through it," added Paisley, who has 11 golden microphones at home.

The 2009 CMA Awards air live Nov. 11 on ABC.

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The last time the Academy of Country Music Awards enjoyed a bigger audience than it did last night, American Idol wasn't around to make Carrie Underwood a star who would help boost the telecast.

Sunday's Underwood-crowning ACMs was watched, on average, by 14.8 million, per preliminary Nielsen estimates, up about 3 million viewers from last year, and the show's biggest crowd since 1998.

Elsewhere on Sunday:

• The post-Dennis Rodman Celebrity Apprentice (7 million, down about 1.5 million from last week) could've used Dennis Rodman.

• At 9 p.m., Family Guy (6.3 million) had a bigger night among adults 18-49 as a rerun than most shows do as originals.

• Desperate Housewives and Brothers and Sisters aided the ACMs' cause by phoning in reruns.

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Don't let the 10-gallon hats and odd odes to tractors fool you—the 44th Annual Academy of Country Music Awards knew how to keep it real.

From erstwhile reality show winners Carrie Underwood and Julianne Hough triumphing once more—and with hardware that will no doubt put a certain mirrorball trophy to shame—to surprising, diva-like superstar dropouts (sorry, Tim McGraw fans), to an amazingly topical performance of "Shuttin' Down Detroit" from John Rich, the Reba McEntire-hosted awards show did their best to prove that the current crop of twangers are nothing if not relevant.

Doing their part to keep things modern were Taylor Swift, Keith Urban and arm candy Nicole Kidman and—no awards show would be complete without her—Miley Cyrus.

And while Brad Paisley ended up king of the night, taking home a leading three awards, it was double winner Underwood who proved the evening's queen, becoming the first artist in five years to unseat Kenny Chesney as the fan-voted Entertainer of the Year, the highest honor of the night, and the first female performer to take home the prize since the Dixie Chicks did it way back in 2000.

"I've had a lot of good moments over the past four years," she said. "This one takes the cake."

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As American Idol contestants drop like flies in the coming weeks, they'll be buzzing off to sound of former champ Carrie Underwood.

The four-time Grammy winner has recorded a cover of Mötley Crüe's "Home Sweet Home," which, beginning tomorrow, will play as each week's eliminee gets sent packing. The track will, natch, be released as a digital single, with proceeds benefiting the Humane Society of the United States.

"I've always loved this song, and besides being very fitting for Idol," says Underwood, "the title is also very fitting with animal rescue and finding animals their own homes."

The blond belter's too-bad, so-sad song follows such fellow AI alum's dismissal tunes as  Ruben Studdard's take on Kenny Loggins' "Celebrate Me Home" and Chris Daughtry's "Home."

If you don't want your favorite finalist to hear the Crüe-ner, pick up the phone after tonight's Michael Jackson week performances. Just be careful what number you dial.

Carrie Underwood has a new boyfriend, but she apparently doesn't want us to know about it.

Underwood is dating NHL'er Mike Fisher, a source confirms to E! News, and attended a hockey game at Nashville's Sommet Center between her man's Ottawa Senators and the Nashville Predators Monday night.

During a break in the action, the live telecast zoomed in on Underwood in her luxury suite. But as soon as the country singer saw herself onscreen, she immediately dropped to the floor to hide under her seat. (Might have been a bad omen for her hometown team, which lost to the Senators 2-0.)

Underwood, sources tell E!, has been quietly dating the Canadian-born Fisher, 28, since last year. In fact, a source close to his family says Fisher is a "hard-core Christian" and that he and Underwood, 25, have bonded over their religious beliefs. Underwood has been spotted this season at several Senators games.

Later during Monday's hockey game, however, Underwood's undercover efforts proved fruitless when a TV camera again panned to her in the suite. This time, we're told, she failed to realize she was on camera and didn't do her country-style duck.

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Everything old was new again in Nashville tonight.

While Sugarland's Jennifer Nettles injected a much-needed jolt of femininity into the Entertainer of the Year category, it was still Kenny Chesney who was tippin' his hat to the audience at the end of the 42nd Annual Country Music Association Awards.

"As much as tonight is about awards, I really believe that being able to stand up here is more about great songs, it's more about the fans," said the touring dynamo and now four-time Entertainer of the Year.

"It's more about being onstage every night in front of a lot of people that really make it happen for me and the band out here…I'm really humbled tonight and I really appreciate it."

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