Taylor Swift, Miranda Lambert rule Country Music Awards

The song's about revisiting the past via a childhood home that strangers now inhabit, but it portends an ever-brightening future for the 27-year-old who sings it as if she was attempting to dislodge her heart from her throat.

"The House That Built Me," Miranda Lambert's first No. 1 hit on the country charts, catalyzed a big evening for the spitfire singer/shotgun enthusiast.

The tune won for single record, song and video of the year at the 46th Annual Academy of Country Music Awards on Sunday at the MGM Grand Garden and the Mandalay Bay Events Center, where Lambert was also named top female vocalist en route to taking home the most trophies of the night and putting the ACMs in a headlock.

Lambert was rivaled only by another blond sparkplug, Taylor Swift, who was named entertainer of the year.

"It's just the biggest thing in the world to me because my heroes won that award," Swift said of the honor after the show.

Other winners included Brad Paisley for top male vocalist, which he earned for the fifth time, Sugarland for top vocal duo, Lady Antebellum for top vocal group and album of the year and Steel Magnolia for top new vocal duo or group and top new artist.

Still, per this show's custom, the ACMs are more about performances than awards, with the first winner not even being announced until nearly a third of the way through the three-hour program.

This go 'round, the festivities were defined in large part by a series of sometimes-unlikely duets.

Carrie Underwood and Aerosmith frontman Steven Tyler, united by their ties to "American Idol" and a mutual love of frilly stage wear, dueted on Aerosmith's "Walk This Way," busting out some synchronized leg kicks, with Underwood singing with vein- bulging force.

Pass that girl some throat lozenges, already.

Sugarland's Jennifer Nettles teamed up with popster Rihanna on the latter's "California King Bed."

Clad in a white dress appointed with the kind of tassels last seen dangling from the handlebars of your kid's bike, Rihanna looked a little out of sorts swishing her shoulders to the song's fiery guitar solo, her voice getting dominated by Nettles' like a younger, undersized sibling.

Elsewhere, the Zac Brown Band and James Taylor teamed up on a medley of Brown's stirring ballad "Colder Weather" and Taylor's "Sweet Baby James."

"It's the all time best musical moment of life," Brown said of performing with Taylor afterward.

Earlier in the night, Brad Paisley amped up the volume on his "Old Alabama" with members of Alabama themselves, with Paisley leaning hard into his guitar, bent over at the knees, his contorted features suggestive of either intense bliss or serious indigestion.

At other times, Nashville's past and present collided more subtly.

Taylor Swift, plucking a banjo, performed her latest single "Mean," on a stage dressed as the front porch of a rustic-looking house, clad in a vintage country dress.

Singer Jason Aldean delivered a fiery take on his "Dirt Road Anthem" where he rapped the verses, channeling Charlie Daniels on "The Devil Went Down To Georgia."

There were plenty more fireworks among the nearly 20 acts who played the ACMs this year.

Sporting mirrored shades and a ball cap pulled down tight over his eyes, top new solo vocalist Eric Church roared through his reefer blazin' hit "Smoke A Little Smoke," punching the air with his fists, gesticulating like a drill sergeant goading on some lazy recruits.

The shaggy, denim-encased Dierks Bentley bolted into the crowd while howling through his hangover courting party anthem "Am I Only The One," belting it out while engulfed by clapping fans.

Eventually, though, the woman of the evening had her own time on stage, making her coronation complete.

"These are the days I will remember," Lambert sang during "A Heart Like Mine," playing a pink guitar in a pink dress while singing into a pink microphone, looking tickled, well, you know.

Contact reporter Jason Bracelin at jbracelin @reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0476.