The annual CMA Awards took place live on November 14 from the Nashville’s Bridgestone Arena. Miranda Lambert took to the stage with Jason Aldean to perform their number one hit song, ‘Drowns The Whiskey.’

Donned in a black and blue jumpsuit, Miranda performed with Jason for the first half of the show and looked stunning in her one-piece with a two-tone blue leaf accent down the side. To finish off her look, Miranda wore hoop earrings and a chunky ring.

For the second half of the evening, Miranda changed into a black dress and rocked the stage with her band, Pistol Annies, as they sang their single, ‘Got My Name Changed Back.’

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The song, ‘Drowns The Whiskey’ with Jason Aldean got nominated for two awards, Song Of The Year and Single Of The Year and had seen a steady rise to the top of the charts since it's release in August. Miranda’s thoughts on their hit single were obvious when she said:

'It is interesting that I haven't had even a Top 20 in a long, long time,' And then it goes No. 1 because it’s a dude. “But you know — if we went and looked at how many singles or records were sold for the Top 10 songs right now, I’d probably triple it on record sales. So it doesn’t matter.”

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She made it clear that she had no issue with Jason, but with the industry as a whole. During her earlier years as a singer she had a string of number one hits, however, her new songs have struggled on the radio.

Artists like Miranda don’t necessarily need airplay to ensure sales, but it's quite the contrast when one looks at her achievements. By that alone it comes as a surprise that she hasn't had a number one hit in a long time.

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She has two Grammys and 16 nominations, she headlines arenas and she is also the Academy of Country Music’s most awarded artist in history. Gender imbalance in country radio is under scrutiny, especially since 2015 when a consultant advised country stations to decrease the number of songs performed by women to get higher ratings.

In recent reports, the Tennessean said that only 10.4 % of songs on country radio charts in 2017 were from female artists, this year the percentage is even lower.

The 34-year-old Miranda recently promoted her new album with her band, the Pistol Annies, and the women jokingly ‘dared’ country radio to play their new single and Miranda said:

“At this point, music’s just an in-betweener for advertisements on radio. But that’s fine, whatever. I’ll take both. But there are so many other ways to find music; I feel like people can find us and find all these artists that they love in other facets besides radio.”

Another great woman in country music, Carrie Underwood co-hosted this year’s awards show with Brad Paisley. Having hosted together before, they got up to their usual humorous banter.

With Carrie heavily pregnant Brad jokingly asked her to reveal the name and sex of her second baby. Funny enough, with her previous pregnancy Brad accidentally mentioned her baby’s sex. This time he nagged until Carrie caved and blurted out:

"Oh, my gosh, Willie, it's a Willie!"

Brad got excited and joked:

"Carrie blew it! Trending worldwide! Way bigger than when I did it, and worse.”

Carrie, later on, performed a moving rendition of her song, ‘Love Wins.’ And after a great night of music, laughter and reveals the annual event drew to a close. Let's hope that by the time the next annual CMA awards roll in that the odds for female country music singers have changed for the better.

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