While she was shut out of any awards at the 42nd CMA Awards, Taylor Swift scored the "Favorite Female Vocalist" award at last night's American Music Awards.  The usual suspects also won in the other country categories while Chris Brown and the Jonas Brothers dominated the rest of the evening.

Brandon Rhyder has come quite a long way since he started his career in music at the beginning of the decade. He's really come into his own as a gifted singer and an emerging songwriter. Partnering with producer Radney Foster, Rhyder has delivered "Every Night," A collection of tunes that just might the best stuff he's put out to date.

According to today's mediabase chart that follows airplay, Blake Shelton has jumped into the Top spot on the charts with his cover with the Michael Buble' song "Home" while his leading lady Miranda Lambert has finally had a single reach the Top 10 with "Gunpowder & Lead."

So what do we make of the mess that appears to be Nashville Star. They have good judges who are actually relevent to the current country climate but NBC then hires a VH1 reality show producers to choose the contestents?