Brandon's Buzz

Reba McEntire — “If I Were a Boy” (from All the Women I Am) —

A micro-review of last night’s Country Music Association awards telecast, with bullet points arranged in no particular order:

• co-host (and, apparently, the Entertainer of the Year, though you’d play hell proving that by me) Brad Paisley continues to irk me incessantly and utterly (although, alarmingly if not surprisingly, he forever stole A’s heart when he grabbed his guitar during the stilted monologue and ripped into eight bars of Lady GaGa’s “Alejandro” (aka A’s favorite single of the new millenium, for reasons that are no doubt obvious.))
• The Band Perry got genuinely gypped for having to split a performance of their powerful smash “If I Die Young” with the presentation of the radio station awards. (Was I just imagining things, or did poor Kimberly Perry seem silently livid to have to stop herself halfway through the song and deliver a rough, tritely written valentine to country radio? The sharp knife of a short, uh, CMA performance, indeed.)
• Brava, Taylor, for staying solidly on key throughout your bold, brilliantly stark take on “Back to December,” which I assume is going to be Speak Now‘s second single and whose virtues I extolled in this here space last week.
• The hilarious look of pure pulsing befuddlement on Sheryl Crow’s face immediately following Sugarland’s slightly overbaked take on “Stuck Like Glue” really said it all.
• The night’s most surprising performance? Give it to Miss Reba, still a knockout at 55 and still towering over a passel of churren half her age, takin’ ’em all to school with a flawlessly crunchified, fabulously captivating rendition of Beyonce’s gender-jangled instant classic.