Oh The Dove Awards!

The Dove Awards, "Christian Music's highest honor", were announced last week. In the midst of all the hooplah many people missed a very important omission (three actually). The Gospel Music Association quietly removed three of their most prestigious awards from the nominations list: Male Vocalist of the Year, Female Vocalist of the Year and Group of the Year.

I've always liked the Doves- even when they got thing ridiculously wrong (Jason Crabb's song of the year win in 2011???) but now that they've removed Male and Female Vocalist and Group of the Year I don't really see the point in paying attention to them. Truthfully those three were the best categories BY FAR and the most well revered along with Song and Artist and New Artist of the Year! There is no good reason to remove such important categories- all the Country, R&B, Bluegrass, and MTV music awards have these categories and they always are some of the most celebrated of the night! 

From a marketing standpoint, the winners of the above all-genre awards become the "face" of CCM- not just for the year- but forever. It gives the ability to the GMA to diversify their winners since usually the Artist of the Year sweeps all the awards. It also allows the GMA to have recognizable categories that can be the prestigious awards. I mean, who really knows the difference between Pop or Rock Contemporary Albums or Traditional or Contemporary Gospel Albums? They all kind of blend together- especially when albums are allowed to be nominated in multiple categories (Christ Tomlin's Burning Lights shows up in both the Pop and Worship categories and "10,000 Reasons" is nominated in every category from Pop/Contemporary Song to "Performance of the Year" to "Worship Song of the Year"). The only meaningful awards that really rise above the sea of bronze Dove statues (over 40 awards are handed out) are the all genre ones (Song, Artist, New Artist, Male and Female Vocalist and Group of the Year)  By removing three, they have essentially cut the number of recognizable Dove Awards in half.... So pretty much Matt Redman will be the only real award winner this year when he takes home Artists, Song, and Songwriter of the Year Doves- lol. Also removing the all genre awards removes all human interest in the awards. People root for people not albums and songs. CCM Magazine always ran an awesome column on their Dove predictions. Guess what the only categories they talked about were? The all genre ones! 

Add this debacle to the fact that albums and songs are nominated multiple times in multiple genre categories (which is unfair on so many levels) and the fact that there are over 20 song of the year nominees (5 of which are from the Crabb family) the Doves have proven once that there is nothing interesting or relevant about these awards at all. I, who have been an avid  Dove Award follower for years, am completely turned off by these changes and no longer consider the Doves to be an authoritative organization in CCM. Hopefully the "I Heart CCM" awards can change their name and grow in prominence because at least they have a pulse on what actually sells and is liked in CCM. The Doves have turned into a giant industry group hug with no actual relevance to what the listening public enjoys. RIP Doves- it was fun while it lasted. It's a shame the current regime had to ruin such a stories institution :(

2013 Dove Award Nominations