The 2012 American Country Awards were a mix of returning veterans and newcomers. Most of the winners were familiar names, although there were a few fresh faces on the winner list.
While it would be easy to say that Lady Antebellum’s Hillary Scott’s brand new pregnancy was good luck for the group at Monday’s American Country Awards, that wouldn’t be giving them nearly enough credit. Lady Antebellum ended up winning two awards, including Group Artist of the Year and Group Single of the Year
The Best New Artist category is always an important sign of things to come. Last year’s winner Scotty McCreery helped present the award to fellow American Idol alum Lauren Alaina. She was up against tough competition, with names like Pistol Annies, Hunter Hayes, Jana Kramer and Kip Moore. Alaina looked genuinely shocked when accepting her award, and started crying on stage. Jake Owen took home the award for Breakthrough Artist of the Year.
Taylor Swift took home no awards for the night, which didn’t seem out of place for some reason since she didn’t show up. But she was up for five awards, which is pretty significant. Carrie Underwood beat her to Female Artist of the Year, Luke Bryan won Artist of the Year, Miranda Lambert won Female Single of the Year and Female Music Video of the Year and Jason Aldean took home Touring Artist of the Year.
Underwood also took home the award for Best Vocal Collaboration along with Brad Paisley.
Luke Bryan was the big winner of the night, though. The singer won seven awards, including Male Single of the Year, Single of the Year, Male Artist of the Year, Artist of the Year, Male Music Video of the Year, Music Video of the Year and Album of the Year.