After being narrowed down to six finalists, the nominees for Video of the Year at the 2021 CMT Music Awards have now been whittled down to four entries, just ahead of Wednesday night’s show. Finalists include Carrie Underwood and John Legend, Kane Brown, Keith Urban with Pink and Kelsea Ballerini, and the final round of voting is officially open on Twitter.
Voting is now only available on Twitter, and fans can vote by tweeting artist-specific hashtags; #VoteCarrieCMT, #VoteKaneCMT, #VoteKeithCMT and #VoteKelseaCMT. While the odds are high that the winning video will be from an artist whose name starts with K, last year’s winner, Underwood, is the most-awarded artist in CMT Music Awards history. Brown and Ballerini are co-hosting the show, which airs Wednesday, June 9 at 8 p.m. ET on CMT, MTV, MTV2, Logo, Paramount Network, TV Land and CMT Australia. Keep reading to watch the final four videos before casting your vote.
Videos by PopCulture.com
Carrie Underwood & John Legend – ‘Hallelujah’
“Hallelujah” was written by Legend and Toby Gad, and Underwood included the song on her 2020 holiday album, My Gift, as a duet with Legend. The accompanying video was directed by Underwood’s longtime collaborator Randee St. Nicholas and sees the two stars performing together in a room warmed by a fireplace as Legend plays the piano.
“We’re both singers, and we really get into what we are singing, what we’re communicating,” Underwood told Entertainment Weekly, whom she asked to join her on the song. “It’s just such a beautiful song. I’m so glad they sent it to me and he sang it with me, and I’ve had this opportunity to just be around somebody of his talent.”
Kane Brown – ‘Worldwide Beautiful’
Brown released “Worldwide Beautiful” as a single last summer amid racial unrest in the United States, and the song’s unifying theme is echoed in its music video, directed by Alex Alvga. The clip also features Brown’s 1-year-old daughter, Kingsley, in her very first music video.
“I wrote this song with three of my buddies out of Nashville,” Brown said on CBS This Morning. “We were just like ‘You know, it would be a great day when everybody could just see the beautiful in the world… we’re all a little different, but we’re all just different types of beautiful.’ So we just wrote a song about it. When everything started coming out in the media, we felt like it was time to release it. Our fans were asking for it. I couldn’t ask for it to come out any better than it did.”
Keith Urban with P!nk – ‘One Too Many’
Urban and Pink’s duet was released in September 2020, and the Dano Cerny-directed music video uses green screen technology to place the two stars in the ocean and on the beach, respectively.
“It’s what I call a reluctant surrender,” Urban told Zane Lowe on Apple Music of the song’s subject. “You know. You’re at the end of the night, it’s been a long night. You’re at the bar. You swear to God you’re not going to answer that phone. You’re not going to make that call. Eventually, you’re like, ‘Come take me home. I’ve had one too many.’ I know that place really well.”
Kelsea Ballerini – ‘hole in the bottle’
Ballerini’s “hole in the bottle” appears on her March 2020 album, kelsea, and its colorful video, which features several nods to Shania Twain, was directed by Hannah Lux Davis. Beginning in black and white with Ballerini in a flapper-inspired ensemble, the clip quickly flips to vibrant color and fun.
“We wrote ‘Hole in the Bottle’ as a drunken joke and listened to it back and I was like, ‘This is the song to round out the album,” Ballerini told Bobby Bones on The Bobby Bones Show. “This is the song for the live show.’ I put it on the album to play it live, that was the whole point of it.”
