CMA Awards Live - Greatest Moments: 2008-2015 Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		3.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		1.0
Overall		3.5

CMA Awards Live - Greatest Moments: 2008-2015 Blu-ray Movie Review

It might be questionable just how much of a “country artist” either Justin Timberlake, Kelly Clarkson or (perhaps less questionably) Taylor Swift might be, but their presence in this new collection of performances from the CMA Awards may indicate as well as anything how “ecumenical” modern country music has become. That may either come as good news or bad news, depending on your sensibility, but these snippets culled from the Country Music Awards, while perhaps leaning at least a bit toward the more contemporary pop flavored country idiom than old school “twang”, still provides some great performances along the way. Seven years of various performances are offered in this collection, with a prevalence of relatively younger artists like Miranda Lambert and Lady Antebellum probably outnumbering somewhat older folks like Reba McEntire, or the one true legend (old school style, anyway) seen in this set, a graceful Loretta Lynn.

• More Like Her - Miranda Lambert


• Cowgirls Don't Cry - Brooks & Dunn featuring Reba McEntire


• You're Gonna Miss This - Trace Adkins


• Need You Now - Lady Antebellum


• Fifteen - Taylor Swift


• Consider Me Gone - Reba McEntire


• As She's Walking Away - Zac Brown Band featuring Alan Jackson


• Don't You Wanna Stay - Jason Aldean with Kelly Clarkson


• Coal Miner's Daughter - Miranda Lambert, Sheryl Crow, Loretta Lynn


• A Little Bit Stronger - Sara Evans


• Country Girl (Shake It for Me) - Luke Bryan


• You and Tequila - Kenny Chesney featuring Grace Potter


• Remind Me - Brad Paisley featuring Carrie Underwood


• Begin Again - Taylor Swift


• Pontoon - Little Big Town


• Red - Taylor Swift, Alison Krauss, Vince Gill, Sam BUsh, Edgar Meyer, Eric Darken


• Round Here - Florida Georgia Line


• The Outsiders - Eric Church


• He Stopped Loving Her Today - Alan Jackson and George Strait


• Somewhere in My Car - Keith Urban


• Drunk on a Plane - Dierks Bentley


• Take Your Time - Sam Hunt


• Girl Crush - Little Big Town


• Tennessee Whiskey/Drink You Away - Chris Stapleton and Justin Timberlake


• Gonna - Blake Shelton

CMA Awards Live - Greatest Moments: 2008-2015 Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

CMA Awards Live Greatest Moments: 2008 — 2015 is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Time Life with an AVC encoded 1080i transfer in 1.78:1. While this is a generally agreeably sharp and detailed looking presentation, at least for an awards show, it's hobbled quite a bit of the time by recurrent noise that tends to show up most prominently in scenes that are bathed in either blues or slate grays. When those sides of the palette aren't being employed, the presentation looks nicely clear, with good fine detail on outfits and even the pixellated background that's upstage in some of the performances. I was surprised to see that there really isn't a huge variation in quality between the older and newer segments, and the same noisy appearance in the blue and gray lit material can be seen throughout performances spanning several years. There are occasional minor combing artifacts that can be spotted on fast movements like hands strumming guitars or drumsticks hitting toms. My score is 3.75.

CMA Awards Live - Greatest Moments: 2008-2015 Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

CMA Awards Live Greatest Moments: 2008 — 2015 features nice sounding DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 and 2.0 tracks. While most fans are probably going to be considering a purchase of this due to the performances, these snippets are all culled from an awards show, so there are also interstitial talking sequences, typically introductions and the like. The music itself receives a nice rendering in the surround track, though as sometimes tends to be the case, I found vocals more appropriately forward in some of the 2.0 versions. Instrumental forces all sound clear and full bodied, and there are no issues whatsoever with regard to dropouts, distortion or other damage.

CMA Awards Live - Greatest Moments: 2008-2015 Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Robert Deaton Interview (1080i; 27:00) features the Executive Producer of the CMA Awards.


• Record Breakers: Female Vocalist of the Year (1080p; 1:11) features Miranda Lambert.


• Entertain 'Em, Blake (1080p; 2:05) perhaps unsurprisingly features Blake Shelton.

CMA Awards Live - Greatest Moments: 2008-2015 Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

I just recently revisited my somewhat funny Time Life obsession in our Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: In Concert Collection Blu-ray review, and so I'm now wondering if there's going to be a spate of new Time Life CMA Awards releases that will require others sharing my obsessive tendencies to acquire a "complete set". I was frankly kind of surprised to read that the Country Music Awards had been around since the late sixties, when I did a bit of background research in preparation for this review. In that regard, I kind of wish this set had ventured further back into the "time capsule" of previous broadcasts (which evidently started in 1968). I'm frankly not a huge fan of country music, either old school, or the pop-pified "new, improved" offerings, but I found a lot of these performances quite winning, and the fans in the audience are typically very enthusiastic. Video is occasionally a little problematic, but audio is fine, for those who are considering a purchase.