Did the MusicRow Awards Just Give Us an Early Look at the 2026 CMAs?
Country music's biggest night is still more than two months away, but Nashville may have just gotten its first preview of who could be in for a big CMA Awards season.
MusicRow revealed the winners of its 38th annual MusicRow Awards on Wednesday, Sept. 2, offering an early look at which artists, songs and songwriters have support from some of Nashville's industry insiders. The awards are the city's longest-running music industry trade publication honors, recognizing work across the artist, songwriting, production and business sides of country music. Winners are selected by MusicRow subscribers.
That distinction matters. The MusicRow Awards are not the CMA Awards, and the voting bodies are different. But arriving just days before CMA nominations, the results offer an interesting temperature check on where momentum is building.
This year, much of that momentum belongs to Ella Langley.
Langley was named MusicRow's Entertainer of the Year and Female Artist of the Year, while Riley Green won Male Artist of the Year and The Red Clay Strays took Group/Duo Artist of the Year. Carter Faith, meanwhile, won Breakthrough Artist of the Year.
But one of the most interesting but not surprising results may be Song of the Year, which went to Langley's "Choosin' Texas," written with Joybeth Taylor, Luke Dick and Miranda Lambert.
Langley performed the song at last year's CMA Awards, before it was eligible for consideration during this year's awards cycle. Since then, "Choosin' Texas" has gone on to become the defining hit of her year, breaking chart records and spending months at the center of the country music conversation. Now, its MusicRow Song of the Year win only adds to the case that the track could be a major player when CMA nominations arrive, not only in the song categories, but in strengthening Langley's position across the ballot.
There is some symmetry to that. Langley walked into last year's CMAs as one of the night's biggest winners behind "You Look Like You Love Me," then used the same stage to perform the song that would help carry her into the next awards cycle. A year later, "Choosin' Texas" could bring her back with an even larger presence.
The categories between the two awards are not exact matches, but the major honors provide some natural comparisons. MusicRow's Male and Female Artist categories roughly correspond with the CMA's Male and Female Vocalist awards, while both recognize an Entertainer and Song of the Year. MusicRow combines groups and duos into one category, while the CMAs separate Vocal Group and Vocal Duo.
Last year showed why the MusicRow results can be useful without being a perfect predictor.
MusicRow named Morgan Wallen its 2025 Entertainer and Male Artist of the Year and Lainey Wilson its Female Artist of the Year. At the CMAs that November, Wilson repeated as Female Vocalist and also won Entertainer of the Year, while Cody Johnson took Male Vocalist.
Langley, Green and Wilson ultimately finished as the night's leading winners with three CMA Awards each, while The Red Clay Strays won Vocal Group of the Year. Now, several of those same names are back near the top of MusicRow's list.
The songwriter results offer another piece of the picture. Ashley Gorley was named Male Songwriter of the Year, Jessie Jo Dillon won Female Songwriter of the Year, Dan Alley earned Breakthrough Songwriter of the Year and Hudson Westbrook was named Breakthrough Artist-Writer of the Year.
Ultimately, the CMAs operate on a larger scale. Nominees and winners are selected through multiple rounds of voting by professional members of the Country Music Association, with the field eventually narrowed to five finalists in each category. The 60th annual CMA Awards will take place Wednesday, Nov. 18, at Bridgestone Arena in Nashville.
But we will get the first real comparison much sooner.
The 2026 CMA Awards nominees will be announced Thursday, Sept. 10.
So Langley, Green, The Red Clay Strays and the rest of this year's MusicRow winners have not been handed CMA trophies just yet.
But the first Nashville votes are in.
Now we see whether the CMA voters agree.
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