2019 Golden Boot Awards: Vote Now for Artist of the Year

Welcome to the sixth annual Golden Boot Awards! The Boot’s fan-voted digital awards, the Golden Boot Awards feature 10 categories of staff-selected nominees who made waves in the country music world in 2019. Readers can vote for their preferred winner in each category as often as once per hour through 11:59PM ET on Jan. 23. We’ll announce the winners on the site on Jan. 24.

The 2019 Golden Boot Awards Artist of the Year nominees tested the limits on what country music is and can be. Each of these artists released music or reached career milestones that propelled the genre into national headlines. The nominees include newcomers (Lil Nas X), legends (Tanya Tucker), supergroups (The Highwomen) and country chart mainstays (Eric Church, Carrie Underwood).

Church was nominated for three CMAs, including Entertainer of the Year, thanks to the the success of his latest album, Desperate Man, and his Double Down Tour; the album also earned him two Grammy Awards nominations. Underwood was also nominated for Entertainer of the Year at the CMAs, and her album Cry Pretty won Favorite Country Album at the 2019 American Music Awards. She is the only artist to win that award for every album she’s released.

Lil Nas X’s collaboration with Billy Ray Cyrus on “Old Town Road” spent 19 consecutive weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 and is the fastest song in history to be certified diamond. The song netted Lil Nas X and Cyrus a CMA for Musical Event of the Year.

Maren Morris had a huge year, too: She released her sophomore album, Girl, in March, and it hit No. 1 on the Billboard country chart and also earned her the award for Album of the Year at the CMAs. Morris released another album in September, this time as part of the country supergroup the Highwomen, alongside Brandi Carlile, Amanda Shires and Natalie Hemby. The group made their live debut at the 2019 Newport Folk Festival, and their anticipated self-titled debut album hit No. 1 on the Billboard country chart and No. 10 on the all-genre Billboard Top 200.

When she wasn’t recording or performing with the Highwomen in 2019, Carlile took on the role of producer: She and Shooter Jennings produced Tanya Tucker’s While I’m Livin’, and she’s also been producing work for the Secret Sisters and up-and-comer Candi Carpenter. Tucker’s album, her first since 2009, was released to much critical acclaim and nabbed her four Grammy Awards nominations, the most of any country artist this year.

Tyler Childers released his highly anticipated sophomore album, Country Squire, and officially became a Grammy-nominated artist in 2019. “All Your’n,” the album’s second single, is nominated for Best Country Solo Performance at the upcoming Grammy Awards.

Before wrapping up his massive Beer Never Broke My Heart Tour with two sold-out shows at Nashville’s Bridgestone Arena, Luke Combs released his second album, titled What You See Is What You Get, which broke the record for the biggest streaming week for a country album. His debut album, 2017’s This One’s for You, spent 50 weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard Top Country Albums chart in 2019 as well.

Kacey Musgraves swept the 2019 Grammy Awards categories in which she was nominated, including winning Album of the Year for Golden Hour, kicking off a year of highlights that included a CMA, a holiday variety special and a song on the Frozen 2 soundtrack.

Which one of these groundbreaking artists gets your vote for Artist of the Year in the Golden Boot Awards? Cast your vote below!