Jason Aldean named Artist of Decade at ACM Awards in Las Vegas

Memory lane was in the headlights, and Jason Aldean was barreling down the thing.

“Got me reminiscing on the good times,” Aldean sang on “Dirt Road Anthem,” his 2011 hit that remains the best-selling digital single by a male country solo artist ever.

Looking back on the past while reveling in the present was the theme of both the song in question and the moment that Aldean was commemorating at the MGM Grand Garden on Sunday as part of the Academy of Country Music Awards, as he revisited the country-rap smash upon being named the ACM Dick Clark Artist of the Decade.

Just the sixth artist to earn the honor, Aldean joined icons including Garth Brooks, Loretta Lynn and George Strait, who presented Aldean with the award.

“That’s the reason I wear my cowboy hat right here, so thank you very much,” Aldean told Strait prior to his acceptance speech.

Aldean’s win was indicative of the state of contemporary country music: A musical hybridist who embraces a rock ‘n’ roll, amps-to-11 guitar bluster as well as hip-hop flourishes, Aldean is the face of country’s increasingly permeable genre bounds.

A number of the winners on Sunday underscored this growing aesthetic diversity: Pop-centric duo Dan + Shay won the first three awards of the evening, earning trophies for Song of the Year, Single of the Year and Duo of the Year. Male Artist of the Year went to Thomas Rhett, earning his first ACM, while the outside-the-Music-City-box Kacey Musgraves took home the Album of the Year and Female Artist of the Year trophies.

“This award goes out to any girl, or woman, anyone really, who is told her style is too different to work,” Musgraves said upon winning.

“We’re just gearing up,” ACMs host Reba McEntire said after the show about the lack of female winners. “I think it’ll be different next year.”

A country stalwart was named Entertainer of the Year, as Keith Urban took home the award after winning his first ACM 18 years ago, though he too embraced country’s growing musical range.

“It’s a huge genre. It’s not one thing,” Urban said backstage after winning. “I love seeing what’s happening now.”

The ACM fireworks started early, literally, with Aldean opening the show with buddies Florida Georgia Line on the latter’s adrenalized, down-home anthem “Can’t Hide Red,” Aldean singing from a riser in the middle in the crowd before pyrotechnics rocketed up from the stage.

Swishing her hips and rolling her shoulders in attitudinal unison, Miranda Lambert stiff-upper-lipped her way through a medley of five cigarette-smoking, shotgun-wielding hits during the return of ACM Flashbacks in which artists perform signature tunes of their past, Lambert’s voice shining in unison with her gleaming get-up.

Elsewhere, Blake Shelton debuted new single “God’s Country,” a song that smoldered like the wildfires raging on the video screens behind as he played, while Carrie Underwood started her performance of her whiskey-ripened party anthem “Southbound” at the MGM Grand pool before sashaying into the arena with a crew of brightly attired dancers.

In one of the more understated moments of the evening, Chris Stapleton performed a muted, moving “A Simple Song” with his wife Morgane Stapleton, the two having missed the ceremonies last year when they welcomed newborn twins on the day of the show.

Similarly spare and affecting was Ashley McBryde’s equally vulnerable and galvanized reading of her hit “Girl Going Nowhere,” which she performed acoustically, alone onstage.

“Wow!” she exclaimed afterward, eyes as big as her voice as she completed a song about chasing down her dreams, some of which she caught up to on this night.

Later, McBryde would duet with Eric Church on his biblical, fork-tongued “The Snake,” one of many collaborations that took place throughout the night. There was rhinestone cowgirl Maren Morris high-stepping her way through her “All My Favorite People” with the Brothers Osborne; Dan + Shay “Keeping Score” with Kelly Clarkson; Brooks &Dunn airing a raucous “Brand New Man” with Luke Combs, who sipped from a red Solo Cup in between verses and the R&B-informed Kane Brown and Khalid getting soulful on their “Saturday Nights (Remix).”

That latter pairing is especially illustrative of how the sound of country has evolved into something that can’t be defined by a singular sound, a sentiment underscored by another collaboration that took place on Sunday, when Dierks Bentley teamed up with singer-songwriter Brandi Carlile on his “Travelin’ Light.”

“Well, starting over is overdue / And these old boots sure feel brand new,” they sang, the sentiment of the evening distilled in song, fittingly.

Contact Jason Bracelin at jbracelin@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0476. Follow @JasonBracelin on Twitter.