2024 ACM Awards predictions: Duo of the Year and Group of the Year

The 2024 Academy of Country Music Awards are on May 16, honoring the best achievements in country music. The nominations are packed with a truly top-notch collection of stars, from Brothers Osborne to Little Big Town and many more. In the artist categories, recognition can either be a good sign of momentum for the upcoming awards season, or the culmination of a successful (or not) season depending on the timing of the artists’ music rollout. But who will win? Let’s consider who will take home the awards in two major categories.

Group of the Year
Old Dominion has won this award for the last six years consecutively, and from the looks of it, they are heading for a seventh win. The band is undeniably the strongest out of the nominees right now, notching the top-five Country Airplay hit “Memory Lane.” While the award isn’t necessarily for “band with the biggest hit,” this type of exposure is very much what can help them win again, especially when none of their competitors have scored a top-10, let alone top-five song in the past year and a half. It also helps that the group has another nomination this year: Best Musical Event, for “Can’t Break Up Now” featuring Megan Moroney. If someone were to upset, it could be Zac Brown Band, who had a smaller airplay hit with “Tie Up,” which peaked at number-24 on country radio. That said, it’s probably best not to overthink this: congratulations, yet again, to the Old Dominion men.

Duo of the Year
This category has alternated between Brothers Osborne and Dan and Shay since 2017, with the former winning the past two. They could realistically three-peat here, but there’s good reason to believe Dan and Shay are coming back for the award. Most importantly, their album “Bigger Houses” has notched a big country hit with “Save Me the Trouble,” which peaked at number-two on country radio. In comparison, Brothers Osborne’s last radio hit didn’t crack the top-20. Granted, Dan and Shay have been beaten by the Bros before despite consistently making hits.

But that Brothers Osborne streak might have to do with a) a general sentiment that Dan and Shay had won enough in the three years prior, and b) all the waves of support T.J. Osborne got after coming out. It’s been quite a while since that though, so voters might want to switch it up and go with Dan and Shay again. The wildcard here is The War and Treaty, who may lack radio exposure but generate a lot of passion. The duo was nominated for Best New Artist at the Grammys and might be a nice change of pace from the recent Dan and Shay/Brothers Osborne duopoly of this category. I’ll go for Dan and Shay as my final pick, though, but consider this a two-horse race with a possible spoiler.

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