Snubs and Surprises at the 2024 ACM Awards

Wallen lost to Chris Stapleton in three categories: album of the year, male artist of the year and artist-songwriter of the year. This is the second year in a row Wallen has been passed over in the latter category. He lost last year to Hardy.

One Thing at a Time’s loss for album of the year was surprising because the album topped Billboard’s all-genre year-end albums chart for 2023. The three most recent country albums before One Thing at a Time to achieve this feat – Carrie Underwood’s Some Hearts, Taylor Swift’s Fearless and Wallen’s Dangerous: The Double Album – walked off with the ACM Award for album of the year.

The Jordan Davis hit “Next Thing You Know” won song of the year, beating Tracy Chapman’s “Fast Car,” which most pundits had expected to win. “Fast Car” won the CMA Award for song of the year last fall. Davis co-wrote “Next Thing You Know” with Chase McGill, Greylan James and Josh Osborne. It’s the second win in this category for Osborne, who co-wrote the Old Dominion hit “One Man Band,” which won four years ago.

Jelly Roll won his first ACM Award, music event of the year for “Save Me” (with Lainey Wilson). But he lost two awards that some experts figured he would win – male artist of the year and single of the year for “Need a Favor.”

Trivia note: An instrumentalist who went by the nickname “Jelly Roll” won two ACM Awards in the ‘00s. Kirk “Jelly Roll” Johnson won top specialty instrument(s) player of the year in 2004 and again in 2009.

Wallen wasn’t the only artist who went into the show with a large number of nominations who was completely shut out. Others who fit that description were Cody Johnson, who had five nods; Kelsea Ballerini, who had three; and Zach Bryan, who also had three. For all three of them, and Wallen too, maybe next year.