The selection of Platinum-selling Scotty McCreery should not be a surprise. He's the best-selling artist in this list and had the added benefit of being part of the American Idol machine.
The selection of Brantley Gilbert shouldn't be a big surpise either as he's the second-biggest selling artist on this list with a nearly Gold-selling album in Halfway To Heaven and a Gold-selling #1 hit in "Country Must be Country Wide" and is the writer of huge hits for Jason Aldean in "My Kinda Party" and "Dirt Road Anthem."
These two always felt like front runners with Thompson Square for this award so it was a little surprising to see Thompson Square passed-over by Hunter Hayes. He's still on his first single "Storm Warning," it has yet to go Gold (it's close) and his self-titled debut hasn't even sold 100,000 copies yet. Still, We really do enjoy Hunter's album and fully believe he's a break-out star and in a few years he'll be the biggest name on this list.
There could've been a case made for Jerrod Niemann, David Nail and Justin Moore as well (JT Hodges knew he wasn't that likely to get the nomination, he's yet to release his sophomore ("Goodbyes Made You Mine") single to radio).
With the final artists set, voting will begin soon and we have to guess that Scotty McCreery's lead in terms of exposure and fans is going to give him a major leg-up on the other competition for this award still, if Brantley Gilbert and Hunter Hayes proved anything, it's that they have as equally passionate fans as Scotty McCreery does and this will be an interesting award to predict come April.
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