CMT Awards See Taylor Swift and Brad Paisley Win Major Awards

Taylor Swift, the well-liked country music artist who put out her "Love Story" album at the tender age of 19, had quite a night at the CMT Music Awards. Swift, whose album is about teen romance – appropriate, given her age – won Video of the Year and Female Video of the Year on Tuesday night. The CMT awards are a fans’ choice show revolving around the music video side of the Nashville scene.

Said Swift after winning, "I wanna thank CMT for letting me live so many of my dreams this year! I want to thank Shania Twain for always making such theatrical videos and I want to thank Garth Brooks for always putting his fans first. I take my cues from you. And I want to thank my little brother, Austin, for agreeing to be my date tonight." Swift also performed two songs for the show, including "You Belong With Me" and "Pour Some Sugar on Me," a song she did with Def Leppard, the original performer of the song.

Brad Paisley, for his part, may have lost out of the Video of the Year award, but the video for "Waitin’ on a Woman" still garnered the Male Video of the Year nod. He also won awards for Collaborative Video and CMT Performer of the Year. Oddly, Kid Rock, who didn’t really have any business at the awards (come to think of it, why were Def Leppard there?), won the "Wide Open Country Video" award for "All Summer Long." Yes, it truly is a sign of how far and how fast country music has fallen when aging rockers and Kid Rock are at the show, much less honored in any way. But that, alas, is the modern story of Nashville.