After our patron saint, Nashville Mayor Bill Boner, went on national TV playing harmonica with his mistress while he was still married to his wife, our annual collection of follies, foibles and foolishness (including our own) was born. Crooks? We got ’em. Political shenanigans? We’ve got that, too. A lothario on the Hill, who inspired an attorney general’s investigation, the nickname “Pants Candy” and an expulsion during a special session of the legislature? That story is front and center of this year’s Boner Awards. (Illustrations by Benjamin Lancaster for L2L Creative)
This Year's Boner in Chief
Politics is not a thing in which the bad guys lose with any regularity, but sometimes justice is served, because an individual is so loathsome that he has no allies left.
And so it was with human dumpster fire Jeremy Durham. Has anyone ever fallen so far and so fast in Tennessee politics? He went from majority whip in January, expected to easily win re-election, to scandal after scandal, to a history-making expulsion in September, to a federal investigation that is still underway.
But it wasn’t just the repeat allegations of sexual harassment, the likely campaign finance ethics violations and the cheating on his wife with at least one other legislator (and a 20-year-old college student) that led to the unprecedented expulsion vote. It wasn’t the alleged forged prescriptions, the letter of support for a convicted child molester or calling the cops on a Scene reporter who was simply doing her job.
No, it was Durham himself — his arrogance, his temper, his threats, his obvious personal issues — that lost him the support of most of his caucus well before the news broke in January that he had sent inappropriate late-night text messages to three women, prompting a full-fledged investigation by the attorney general’s office. People on the Hill — staff, other legislators, lobbyists — despised Durham before the scandals broke, and the mood after House Speaker Beth Harwell got the two-thirds of the House she needed to expel him was something like Christmas, the joy was so palpable. This was a man, after all, nicknamed “Pants Candy” for the suggestive way he pulled an unwrapped mint out of his pocket and offered it to a female staffer.
Much has been made by certain far-right conservatives of the hypocrisy of other legislators who are rumored to be sexual harassers yet remain uncensured by Harwell, but the reason for that discrepancy is that they aren’t manifestly repugnant humans. Durham still is, as evidenced by the time he drunkenly got in a fight and was kicked out of the UT-Florida football game, and by his repeated threats to sue over the loss of his pension and health insurance. But the authorities aren’t done with Rep. Pants Candy yet.
Legislature
A Boner-Measuring Contest at the State Legislature
Promoting, proposing and enacting boneheaded policies isn’t enough for our state legislature. They have to bungle the easy, good things too. That’s what happened when some state Democrats tried to honor Renata Soto, the Scene’s Nashvillian of the Year in 2013, founder of the Casa Azafrán community center in South Nashville and chair of the National Council of La Raza, a Hispanic civil rights group. Some Republicans took issue with the group’s stance on immigration, but best of all was Sen. Frank Niceley from Strawberry Plains, who apparently got lost down a Google-hole and confused the National Council of La Raza with a street gang that also uses the name “La Raza.” We’ve pretty much gotten used to these folks embarrassing us, but if they could stop tripping over their Boners long enough to honor a local leader, that’d be great.
Vile on the Dial
State Rep. Martin Daniel had a quite a year. First he made news when he got upset that his fourth-grader was learning about the civil rights movement in school. Then he got in a physical altercation — and was later charged with assault — with a primary opponent during a live radio debate. Yet, somehow, Knoxville voters still re-elected him. And in more good news — he’s reactivated his Twitter account, too.
First, Do No Harm
Possibly the most unnecessary legislation passed last session was a bill to allow therapists to discriminate against LGBT patients if their religious beliefs called them to do so. Never mind that it isn’t what Jesus would do — it’s been bad for business, too, as multiple conventions have pulled out of Nashville after the bill’s passage. One would think the party of big business and small government would stop passing legislation to hurt the economy, but then that would presume a lot of other things about the legislature (which is at it again).
Local
Sheriff Murfrees-boner
Rutherford County Sheriff Robert Arnold was a real contender for Boner of the Year. In what can only be described as a true Murfrees-boner, the sheriff started the year in the news by blaming Beyoncé’s Super Bowl “Formation” performance for gunshots near his home. A couple months later, Arnold was indicted on 14 charges in a jail vape scandal in which he and his family allegedly profited from selling e-cigarettes to inmates. Then he violated his pretrial release by allegedly beating his wife after getting drunk and taking Ambien on Labor Day. Now in jail in Kentucky, Arnold has continued to produce boners from behind bars: He refused to step down as sheriff (and then was forced by the court) and has used jail phones to try to get his wife to not talk. He might not have won the top Boner this year, but his trial starts in January, so there’s always 2017.
Not at the Dinner Table — or Anywhere Else
The trial of a stalker who secretly filmed sports broadcaster Erin Andrews naked in her hotel room was already a shitshow of voyeurism and revictimization before the peephole perv’s defense attorney and some friends went out to dinner in Nashville during the trial, and somehow the video of Andrews changing in her hotel room ended up playing on someone’s smartphone. After a Twitter user reported the incident online, attorney Neal Peskind admitted that the video was played but said a friend had pulled it up and he had objected. Either way, it was a gross incident in the middle of a disgusting spectacle that at least ended with some justice for Andrews.
Gentrification in Bonerville
Your first clue that the Broadstone Germantown apartment complex is a brick-and-mortar example of everything wrong with New Nashville: It describes itself as “a place to live soulfully.” No surprise, then, that it’s appropriated the names of hip Nashville bars (both living and departed) for the floorplans to its units. The Stone Fox (RIP). The Springwater. The Robert. Cool! We welcome the Broadstone with a phrase the kids like to use: GTFO.
Venom? Hardly Knew ’Em!
FooBar, which shuttered seemingly overnight in September, was never known for being a nice bar: People liked the venue and bar for quite the opposite reason, actually. The drama between the aunt and nephew who owned FooBar — basically a family feud of sorts with allegations of impropriety on both parts — definitely qualifies for a full-on Boner Award. And while not quite as bad, the new bar owner’s decision to call the place Cobra and commission a giant mural of a snake holding a beer can on the building is at the very least a half-chub.
Commissioner Boner
NHL commissioner Gary Bettman thought he had it all figured out when he brought the league’s annual All-Star Game festivities to Music City in January — Smashville is known in the league as one of the most enthusiastic arenas. But even more than hockey, we in Nashville love to root for an underdog. So when a man named John Scott — hardly a name in the league, with only five goals in his seven years with the NHL — was voted the unlikely captain of the Pacific Division through an online campaign, Nashville welcomed him with open arms. Villainous Bettman, however, didn’t want to see a no-name be a captain. This was a weekend for the stars! But every time Scott appeared on the ice, the arena exploded with cheers. And when it came time for fans to vote for the weekend’s MVP, and Scott’s name wasn’t on the list of players to choose from, everyone in the arena loudly protested. In the end, he was included. When Scott was declared MVP, Bridgestone’s crowd was louder than when Mike Fisher scored that game-winner in triple overtime. It was the kind of moment worthy of a feel-good Disney movie years down the road. And we recommend Willem Dafoe, at his weasel-iest, to play Bettman.
Museum Reach-Around
This town, largely known for its Bro-ner country, has a long history of a different kind of music, and various community leaders have been attempting to honor that history for a couple decades now. The most recent iteration of their planned museum is the National Museum of African American Music, set for a prime city-owned spot on Lower Broadway. But here’s the thing: Not only was the project put in the basement, it’s not on Broadway anymore, the entrance having been moved around the corner to Fifth Avenue. Museum leaders say it’s what they want, but some city leaders are concerned about whether foot traffic will reach around the block.
Shell or High Water
The First Amendment guarantees Americans the right to say whatever we want. But when you own a gas station and program your scrolling digital sign to say, “Trump Just Said It. Bill Clinton Did It! The Only P*$$y Trump Ever Grabbed Was Paul Ryan! #TrumpThatB*tch,” you can’t expect there won’t be consequences. And when the Lewis Family Store did just that, going viral in the meantime, they lost their contract with Shell. We don’t feel too bad about it.
A Plight at the Museum
The longtime director of the Tennessee State Museum, Lois Riggins-Ezzell, will finally retire Dec. 31 after 35 years at the helm. But the search for her replacement is a mess — partly due to her involvement in it — and she leaves amid questions about a secret and possibly illegal 25 percent raise, a cushy new job with unspecified duties at the Tennessee State Museum Foundation, nepotistic hires, and a staff terrified to cross her or her deputies. If Riggins-Ezzell were smart, she’d have walked away from her tiny basement fiefdom by now. As it is, expect museum Boners to continue well into 2017.
A Walk in the Woods
Shortly after Donald Trump’s surprising victory last month, Sen. Bob Corker went for a stroll in the woods near Chattanooga. He likely didn’t expect to run into a group of rabid liberals, one of whom repeatedly questioned Corker about his support for Trump, the noted sexual assault proponent and soon-to-be King Boner. The hiker who questioned Corker, a Sewanee professor named David Haskell, might, we admit, have acted a bit Boner-ish himself by violating the senator’s alone time, but Corker trumped Haskell when he asked the professor — a Pulitzer Prize finalist for his 2012 book about the woods in our beautiful state — what he had ever done for Tennessee, and repeatedly told him if he didn’t like our Boner-infested homeland, he could leave.
The Greatest (Boner) of All Time
When Muhammad Ali, legendary boxer and activist, died in June, Republican state Rep. Martin Daniel — unlegendary in every way — fired up his Twitter account and started stirring things up. Referring to Ali by his original name, Cassius Clay, Daniel criticized Ali for being a conscientious objector during the Vietnam War. Lots of people tweeted at Daniel to tell him he was being dumb, and to his credit, he did the right thing: He deleted his account.
Not So Niceley
State Sen. Frank Niceley is an interesting — and very funny — guy. But the beloved darling of #TCOT Twitter is never actually tweeting himself. Nope, not a single tweet. He doesn’t even read it. It’s all managed by a friend of his. So next time you get upset at a particularly inflammatory tweet from the legislator, just remember the actual Niceley has no idea what he tweeted or why you’re upset at him.
Glenn and Out
University of Tennessee law professor and Instapundit blogger Glenn Reynolds is actually a smart guy, despite some of his rather dumb beliefs. But when he tweeted, “Run them down” in reference to Black Lives Matters protesters stopping highway traffic in Charlotte, it was not smart, not at all. His Twitter account was briefly suspended, his USA Today column was quashed for a month, but UT took no actual disciplinary action. Pro tip: Calling for violence and/or automotive homicide is never a good idea.
Crime
Owners’ Boners
People shouldn’t steal cars — that’s a given. But people probably shouldn’t leave the car doors unlocked and keys in the ignition when they run into the store, either. More than 50 percent of cars stolen in a two-week period in November had the KEYS IN THE CAR. We put that in all caps because that’s how it’s always written on Metro Nashville Police Department releases about car theft — as if the department is screaming: “WHAT THE HELL, GUYS?” And seriously, what the hell, guys?
Hold on to Your Butts
This is a real thing that happened this summer: Stan Butt (a real person), who is the husband of Republican state Rep. Sheila Butt (also real), took a trailer from the parking lot of an Ace Hardware in Columbia. Just took it. He wasn’t arrested or indicted because he had this perfectly reasonable explanation: The trailer had been for sale for a few weeks and he couldn’t get a hold of the seller; so he took the trailer and left behind his business card, assuming he could negotiate a price when the owner called him. Bless his heart.
Best Defense
Everyone deserves a vigorous defense, but not one that is contrary to reality. Brandon Vandenburg was found guilty — again — for his part in the infamous Vanderbilt rape case, and despite the fact that he shot video while his friends raped the unconscious woman he was dating and then lied to her about what had happened, his lawyers at sentencing brought three witnesses to talk about what a good man he is. (The judge also received 30 letters from supporters along those same lines.) Boners all around for those who argue you can facilitate a rape and still be a pillar of society.
Politics
Stand in the Place Where You Work
Sometimes you get what you pay for, and sometimes you spend a helluva lot of money and totally screw it up and get nothing. Unfortunately for Stand for Children (a pro-charter education advocacy group), the latter is how the organization spent this election season. Stand poured upward of $230,000 into races in support of pro-charter candidates and more than $700,000 into Tennessee races overall, losing almost every one — and ended up facing $685,000 in fines.
… On My List
Email is a great tool for coordination. You can get a lot of information to a lot of people so very quickly. But there’s a catch: If you’re engaging in potentially illegal behavior — like using nonprofit Martha O’Bryan Center’s employee email list to jockey for political candidates — it’s fairly easy for others to read and see that behavior. (Like maybe, say, a reporter gets ahold of it.) But, of course, the lesson here isn’t to avoid email — it’s that it’s probably a bad idea to jeopardize the integrity of a nonprofit by involving yourself in political races.
Miller’s Crossing
One school board race was a complete embarrassment to the city — partially because Jackson Miller’s legal history should’ve been enough to make him back up and think before he ran, and partially because Will Pinkston can’t help but take every crumb of controversy and turn it into a loaf of bread. Should Miller have scrubbed his Twitter of dumb posts from his youth? Probably. Did it make Pinkston look like he was scrambling to even acknowledge it? Probably.
Media
Our Endorsement: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
While editorial pages all over the country struggled with who to endorse for president — a fairly uninspiring Democrat with lots of baggage or the worst Republican candidate in the history of the party — the editorial board at 1100 Broadway instead endorsed “the legitimacy of the U.S. electoral system.” Yes, that’s right, when leadership was required for the biggest political question facing the republic, the Tennessean cut and ran. When other editors at papers around the country got death threats for endorsing someone, our daily essentially said, “We know this is a divisive issue, PLEASE DON’T CANCEL YOUR SUBSCRIPTION.” Bold strategy, guys. You can come out of your hole now.
An Embarrassment of Glitches
The problem with rolling up all of the area’s papers under one online entity, tennessean.com, as Gannett has done in acquiring every small paper it can get its hands on, is that sometimes you end up publishing Boner-riffic garbage under your name. Before, when a dim-bulb op-ed appeared in the Ashland City Times, we could ignore it pretty easily. But thanks to technology and the greedy insistence on capturing all of those pageviews under the Tennessean mothership, Cheatham County Republican Lea Hudson’s gems about people who receive government assistance being “like animals at the zoo” wound up displayed on the Tennessean’s home page. The paper’s brass was horrified, but we bet they’re not giving back those pageviews.
Boners in Paradise
If a pastor-turned-erectile-dysfunction-specialist doesn’t deserve a Boner, who does? The ABC network sought to show that there’s more to our fair city than rhinestoned Rayna wannabes by casting a bunch of our hapless hipsters on The Bachelorette and Bachelor in Paradise. Unfortunately, these guys — who included former Vandy quarterback Jordan Rodgers, radio DJ Wells Adams and the aforementioned Viagra evangelist Evan Bass — put the “bro” in “SoBro,” being best remembered as The One With the Big Hair and a Famous Brother, The Dude Who Never Kissed Her and, well, The Penis Guy. This Boner’s for you, bros.
Pay No Attention to the Boner Behind the Curtain
In the Boner-tastic Jeremy Durham report, all of the representatives appearing under the fake names “Rep. John Doe” and “Rep. Jane Doe” were immediately identifiable about five minutes after it was released. And yet the daily refuses to name the elected officials out of a tortured sense of logic that they’re protecting someone. So when the Scene went out and verified all of the names — including Mary Littleton, the representative who fired one of her staffers who was receiving unwanted attention from Durham — the daily’s response was to ignore it and the Democrats who were calling for Littleton to answer the charges. Nope, nothing to see here.
God and Boner at Vandy
Carol Swain is, in the kindest terms, divisive. The God-fearing Vandy professor is a conservative black woman who is anti-Black Lives Matter and pro-life, and she also believes that Islam is evil. And when she writes an op-ed for The Tennessean, a wave of angry letters to the editor often follows. But her May 26 column, “Vanderbilt’s policies pull campus away from Christianity,” was especially appalling. In it, she claimed one current and two former Vandy students died in terrorist attacks overseas because of the school’s “religious freedom and free speech” policies. Um, what? She went on to say the infamous Vandy rape case also supports her theory. In Swain’s eyes, if the school didn’t have open-minded policies in place that helped ensure all students felt safe and welcome on campus, then God wouldn’t have killed those young people or allowed those guys to rape that woman. Oh, and a tree fell, too. She said that was also because of godlessness.
Bone Me Up, Scottie
Hendersonville’s own Scottie Nell Hughes made a name for herself this campaign season because of her astonishing ability to say literally anything on television with complete confidence. She said “riots aren’t necessarily a bad thing”; admonished a fellow CNN commentator for directly quoting Donald Trump because Hughes’ daughter might be watching; and used the phrase “mazel tov cocktail” while trying to stir up outrage about Jay Z’s lyrics. Most recently she said, on the radio, “There’s no such thing anymore, unfortunately, as facts.” That may be true in a way, thanks to local heroes like Hughes.
The Beatings Will Stop When Morale Improves
Nothing says “We care about Nashville” like laying off your only local columnist in the days before an election. Now, we in the committee may have quibbled with Frank Daniels before — anybody remember those damn Wikipedia-entries-as-history-columns he used to do on the op/ed page? — but The Tennessean’s decision to ax him (and others) as part of Gannett’s shedding of 2 percent of the company’s workforce left them with no local voice in their pages. And just two weeks before elections? Boner-worthy. The best (or worst?) part is that the cuts were supposedly made to shore up Gannett’s bottom line to buy the old Tribune newspapers, a deal that fell apart when their bankers balked after the layoffs. But they didn’t give any of those journalists their jobs back — pocketing the savings is a tried-and-true Gannett Boner.
Tritt Fit
Internet rage isn’t new, but it reached scorching new levels when it was announced that Beyoncé was scheduled to appear during this year’s CMA Awards. Anyone who paid attention to Bey’s mega-hit Lemonade wasn’t surprised — the song “Daddy Lessons” is a full-on country jam. Still, country purists (read: white people) protested when Queen Bey took the stage with the Dixie Chicks, who had been covering the song on their tour. One the most high-profile hissy fits came from Travis “Haven’t Had a Hit Since 2000” Tritt, who ranted that country doesn’t “need pop or rap artists to validate us.” He denied his anger had anything to do with race, but he specifically called out the predominantly black platforms BET and Soul Train for not inviting country artists to perform as a counterpoint. For a man whose album just debuted at No. 44, he could probably benefit from a little bit of Bey’s magic.
Beware the Second Burn
Food Republic ran an article essentially arguing that the supercharged popularity of hot chicken around the nation was due to Hattie B’s. If, at this point, you’re still writing articles where black people have been doing stuff for years, going mostly unnoticed by white people, and it’s only when the white people come in and decide to monetize it that you declare it cool, then you will get a Boner award every single time.
A Grown-Ass Boner
Forty-nine people died and more than 50 were wounded when 29-year-old Omar Mateen opened fire inside Pulse, a popular gay nightclub in Orlando, Fla., in June. It was the deadliest mass shooting in modern American history, and the tragedy stayed in the news cycle for weeks. So how did local columnist Jacob Jones, aka 12th & Broad’s Grown-Ass Man, approach the news? He wrote about how the tragedy reminds us to “savor life,” with a stock image of a golf club and golf ball. Grown-Ass Man has proved to be a generic column about the most traditional masculine gender roles, including how to go to the gym and which manly cocktail to drink, so it’s not surprising that Jones would approach the tragedy with little actual empathy. But the most offensive line in his self-centered blathering was the final line, when Jones wrote “Onward.” Onward? Officials are still identifying bodies, and you, a straight dude, are telling the reeling LGBT community it’s time to move onward? That’s not your call to make, Grown-Ass Boner.
Cringe Benefits
Every year. We do this every goddamn year. Despite knowing no good can come of it, someone attempts to make a HILARIOUS promotional video with the end result being more problematic than parody. Last year it was the Aerial Development Group, which tried to sell the diverse Shelby Hills neighborhood as an all-white homogenous wonderland (remember that hot turd?). This year’s offender is “Welcome to Nashville,” a music video/tongue-in-cheek tour of Music City led by two white dudes named Austin and Colin who look like Wiggles rejects. The “rap” song (which isn’t rapping so much as white dudes softly speaking in rhyme) criticizes the traffic and condos, dismisses Nolensville Road as nothing but a collection of auto shops, and reminds us not to get shot while visiting East Nashville. It’s what gentrification would sound like if it took human form.
Boner Owners
You Are So Nashville If … you can’t count which YASNI you’re on. That’s right, this year was the 28th edition of the Scene’s perennial favorite issue, but because somebody mislabeled the editions a few years back, we’ve been running the wrong number. A proofreader caught it this year, so if someone tells you they won first place in the 27th edition, give them a Boner like the one we had to give ourselves.
Music
Shed Games
In June, a 13-year-old lawsuit against Ticketmaster for levying excessive fees on its online sales finally paid out — sort of. The ticketing giant emailed customers vouchers for free tickets to (very) select shows. As in, the only voucher-eligible events in Nashville were a block of eight concerts at Ascend Amphitheater, which is operated by Ticketmaster’s parent company, Live Nation. For the few of you who were actually able to redeem your vouchers through the anemic website, here’s hoping you enjoyed Goo Goo Dolls.
Marble City Hall Monitor
It’s not hard for most folks to figure out that satirical country duo Birdcloud’s ultra-raunchy act is purpose-built to lampoon dangerous, offensive ideas like casual racism and sexism. Disgruntled Knoxvillian Daniel McBride is not most folks. While Birdcloud played to a packed house at The Pilot Light in August, McBride took to Facebook Messenger, firing off warnings to promoters of other shows on the tour falsely claiming the show had been cancelled, due to “public outcry” — as if said promoters didn’t have access to ample evidence to the contrary, posted all over the social media platform he was using.
Keep Your Songs to Yourself
In August, the U.S. Department of Justice seemed to reveal that no one on staff has looked at the liner notes of a major label album in the past 30 years. It handed down a ruling requiring performing rights organizations to enact “100 percent licensing.” Effectively, that means any song that generates royalties for multiple songwriters must be licensed by a single PRO. Of course, it’s difficult to find a group of co-writers who have all assigned their rights to just one of the big three — ASCAP, BMI or SESAC. A group of 200 writers calling itself Songwriters of North America has filed a suit explaining why this won’t work.
The Buck Should’ve Stopped Here
The timing really couldn’t have been worse when local former rap star Young Buck dropped his anti-police-brutality track “Riot” via XXL magazine’s website. It’s bad enough that the site posted “Riot” — which includes lyrics like, “I’m military minded / I could kill a cop with this Glock if I’m blinded” — on July 8, at the same time a sniper started shooting and killing cops at a Black Lives Matter march in Dallas. But it was in even poorer taste when, 12 minutes later, the rapper doubled down on the song’s sentiments, tweeting a link to the track, along with the missive: “NOW LETS SHOOT BACK AT THESE CROOKED ASS POLICE.” The tweet was capped with emojis of microphones, guns and exclamation points. “In no way am I promoting, ‘Pick up your gun and shoot police,’ ” the rapper told the Scene later on. “I don’t promote the taking of innocent life, period. But people have the right to protect their lives from those crooked police officers.”
The Buck Should’ve Also Stopped Here
It’s been a rough year for former G-Unit rapper and Nashvillian Young Buck. Did we say Nashvillian? Well, when we checked in with him in August, he was locked up in a federal prison in Kentucky. Buck (né Darnell Brown) went up the river for a seven-month stint for multiple parole violations. He was released from a Mississippi prison in 2013 after serving 18 months on a weapons conviction. And he was just months shy of fulfilling the terms of supervised release on Aug. 10, when he allegedly tried to kick down an ex-girlfriend’s front door while threatening to burn her apartment down, and racking up domestic assault and vandalism charges.
A Boner Stiffs His Openers
On July 29, Brian Hughes was just another Nashville-residing country singer with a dream — a dream he hoped to help realize that night with an album-release show at The Basement. But by the end of the weekend — once word went viral that he had slipped out of the club with all the door money, $350, without paying openers Molly Brown and Joel Adam Russell — Hughes was the biggest, perhaps most-loathed-and-laughed-at pariah in the local music scene. The Boner icing on the asshole cake came when Brown posted screenshots of a post-show conversation with Hughes asking about payment. The latter singer closed the convo by telling the former singer: “Thank you for being a part of this and [I] hope that your night is great! Please do not contact me again :)” Hughes eventually did make things whole by paying Brown and Russell. But the damage was done. In the wake of the social-media blowback, Hughes moved out of Music City.
Mad Madge
So apparently it’s a thing for Madonna to take the stage hours after the printed ticket time. But perhaps because the singer didn’t make her Nashville debut until this year, Music City fans didn’t know that when they filled the seats at Bridgestone Arena back in January. And for more than two hours, locals just sat there, bored, while a shitty DJ spun shitty club music to a shitty light show. Madge eventually did take the stage … at 10:33 p.m. The show was about as long as the wait.
Reformation
We never did get a good explanation for why Beyoncé had to postpone the May 5 Nissan Stadium stop on her massive Formation World Tour. Something about the behemoth stage production — which, to be fair, included a fucking swimming pool — not being able to make it from Raleigh, N.C., to Nashville in time. But we did get to feel the pain of waiting five agonizing months for the rescheduled date to come around on Oct. 2. Sure, Bey played more than 40 cities in North America and Europe before finally rocking Nashville, but the wait was worth it.
Snub Hub
Around this time of year, critics are assembling their year-end best-albums lists. Two Nashville outsider country singers — Sturgill Simpson and Margo Price — are shoo-ins for nearly all of them: the former for his highly anticipated, country-soul must-have A Sailor’s Guide to Earth, and the latter for her trad-country breakout Midwest Farmer’s Daughter. Sailor’s Guide went to No.1 on Billboard’s Folk Albums, Top Country Albums and Top Rock Albums charts, and No. 3 on the U.S. Billboard 200. Meanwhile, Midwest Farmer’s Daughter entered at No. 10 on Billboard’s Top Country Albums chart — the first time in the chart’s 52 years that a solo female artist had debuted in the top 10. And yet, neither album nabbed a nod when the Boners at the Country Music Association announced nominees for its 50th Annual CMA Awards in August.
Humble Berry Pie
The music world lost a pioneer in May, when Beastie Boys co-founder John Berry died at 52, following a long struggle with frontotemporal dementia. Nashville country singer John Berry, however, was still alive and well. That Boner of a detail made it past the fact-checkers at AOL Entertainment, who posted obit copy about the late Berry over a video montage of images of the still-among-the-living Berry on its Facebook page. What’s worse is that despite hundreds of comments correcting the post — not to mention a post from country singer Berry confirming his lack of death — the AOL story remained live and untouched through the following weekend.
Road to Rooin’
There were two new elements to get used to at Bonnaroo 2016. The first: real, actual bathrooms. The second: real, actual personal space in Centeroo. It was Live Nation’s first year as a controlling-share co-owner of the festival, and you can probably thank them for both. Ticket sales weren’t just down at Tennessee’s most culturally significant festival this year — they were down a reported 46 percent. Was the cause a lineup that was short on top-draw acts? Was it the increased ticket price or newly added camping fees? Was it an increasingly crowded and competitive music festival market in the region? Yes! That said, performances from headliners the likes of Pearl Jam, LCD Soundsystem and Dead & Company were still epic and extraordinary. And we’re not gonna complain that it was easier than ever to get a good spot.
