“When we did our annual holiday party last week, we had more to be thankful for and celebrate than we ever have before. It’s really cool to be experiencing some of this stuff with a lot of the same guys who have been with me since I started in 2005. We’re definitely a family, and that has made the whole experience even more special,” says Aldean. “It’s been the most incredible year, and I’m lookin’ forward to some quiet time in the woods this Christmas, so I can really just spend some time reflecting on how much we accomplished and how grateful I am for all the support that the fans and my peers in the music business have given me.”

With industry awards recognition having eluded him in the past, this year Aldean was showered with nominations, winning two CMA Awards for Album of the Year and Musical Event of the Year for “Don’t You Wanna Stay” feat. Kelly Clarkson, sweeping the ACA awards with six wins including Artist of the Year and earning the “Breakthrough Award” at the Billboard Touring Awards where he beat out pop sensations Katy Perry and Rihanna with data based on ticket sales and Billboard Boxscore’s top tours of the year. Aldean claimed nearly 20 total award show nominations this year including three for the 2012 GRAMMYs as well as his first Entertainer of the Year nods at both the CMA Awards and ACM Awards.

Additionally, Aldean dominated the radio charts with three consecutive No. one singles this year, bringing his career total to eight No. ones when his most recent release, “Tattoos on This Town,” reached the summit. Aldean also enjoyed pop crossover success with “Don’t You Wanna Stay” feat. Kelly Clarkson reaching No. three on the AC chart and “Dirt Road Anthem” climbing into the Top 10 on the Billboard Hot 100.

This year Aldean‘s My Kinda Party tour played to over one million fans and broke several venue attendance records, selling out more than 50 arenas and amphitheaters in advance. The My Kinda Party tour was one of only four country outings to make the cut as a Billboard Top 25 Tour of 2011. The 2012 leg will pick up on Jan. 20 in Greenville, SC with Luke Bryan and Lauren Alaina.

Biggest accomplishments: Aldean topped USA TODAY’s country airplay chart three times this year: with “My Kinda Party,” the title track to his latest album; rap-influenced “Dirt Road Anthem”; and “Don’t You Wanna Stay,” a power ballad with Kelly Clarkson that crossed over to the pop charts. But what really gives Aldean a sense of satisfaction is his headlining tour, which sold out more than 50 arenas and amphitheaters. “This was our first major, major tour, where we jumped in with Tim McGraw and Keith Urban and played the same venues,” he says. “Where we were looking at this being our learning-curve year, we went in and blew it up. It wasn’t something we expected, but it was good it did.”

Crossover effect: The late Waylon Jennings liked to joke that he “couldn’t go pop with a mouth full of firecrackers.” Aldean felt much the same way until he saw the response to his duet with Clarkson. “It wasn’t until I heard it on The River (WRVW, a top 40 station) here in Nashville that I went, ‘I’m on pop radio!’ ” says Aldean, who records for the independent Broken Bow Records label. “They played, like, Rihanna, then they turned around and played us. As an artist, you want people hearing your music. But I don’t think there’s any doubt this may be the only song I ever have that crosses over.”

Trophy time: Before this year, Aldean hadn’t received much industry recognition — a top-new-male-vocalist award from the Academy of Country Music five years ago, and little else since then. In November, though, he won album of the year from the Country Music Association, then took home six American Country Awards a few weeks later. What does he think he gave back to country music in 2011? “We branched out a little bit and hopefully brought some new fans into country,” he says. “We’ve shown people that you don’t have to be on a major label to go out and make some big noise.”

Best seller: Aldean’s My Kinda Party sold better than any other country album in 2011 — the only country album that has sold more than 2 million copies this year. Receiving his double-platinum plaque ranks high on his list of proudest accomplishments. “When we were making that first album, I was dying to get just a gold record,” he says. “I thought that would be so cool, just to have something to hang on my bare walls. When I’m long gone, that’s something that I hope will still be around — my little legacy on a disc, maybe.”

Finding family time: Even though 2011 has been Aldean’s most successful year in his career, he also found a better balance between his onstage and offstage lives. “I’ve been wanting to spend more time at home; I’ve got a pretty young family,” he says. “For the first few years on the road, I was gone 200, 250 days a year. This year was fun; we did about 75. I’m used to getting to this point of the year and feeling like I’m dead. So to get to this point and feel good and want to go out and play at the end of January, I won’t know what to do.”

Looking ahead: Aldean will launch his tour Jan. 20 with support from fellow Georgians Luke Bryan and American Idol runner-up Lauren Alaina, who name-checks Aldean in her new single, Georgia Peaches. “We’re in the process of building our new stage and production,” he says. “Hopefully, spring or summer, we’ll have a new album coming out.”

On his fellow artists of the year:

Kenny Chesney
“Kenny, to me, has set the bar for everyone else. He’s the guy we all want our careers to be patterned after.”

Lady Antebellum
“To see Lady Antebellum go from our opening act to just exploding like they have has been fun to watch. I’m really excited for them and proud of them.”

Brad Paisley
“Brad has taken over that Vince Gill (role), where he’s not only a talented entertainer/musician, he’s also this personality. He’s hosting the CMA Awards show, which Vince did for a long time. It probably ain’t something that I could pull off, so having somebody that can is pretty cool.”

Taylor Swift
“Taylor has gone out and brought a whole new fan base to our world. All these teenage girls that might not have listened to country before, she has brought them all into our genre. Nobody else is really doing that.”

By: Brian Mansfield, USA Today

Enjoy these amazing discounts from December 6-14 at 11:59 PM PT:

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As a special “thank you” to our wonderful Aldean Army, all fan club members will receive one free My Kinda Party bottle opener with their order*! What are you waiting for? Click here to start shopping now! Happy holidays from JasonAldean.com!

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Other honorees included Kenny Chesney, Lady Antebellum, Brad Paisley and Taylor Swift. The honorees were celebrated throughout the evening with surprise performances by artists spanning musical genres, including Gavin DeGraw, The All-American Rejects, Joe Walsh and The Avett Brothers. Heartfelt moments and humor were shared equally throughout the evening from host Rob Lowe and a variety of presenters representing the best of the music, sports, television and film including Sara Evans, New Orleans Saints head coach Sean Payton, former St. Louis Cardinals manager Tony La Russa, Lionel Richie and William Shatner. Other stars including Matthew McConaughey, Kelly Clarkson, Miranda Lambert, Ellen DeGeneres and Jeff Gordon appeared to congratulate the honorees on their big night.

Over the past 12 months, Jason Aldean, Kenny Chesney, Lady Antebellum, Brad Paisley and Taylor Swift have collectively received over 2.7 million spins of their current songs; sold over 9 million copies of their current albums; sold over 20 million individual downloads of their current singles; and have garnered over 10.2 million video streams, in addition to topping both the touring and CMT.com charts, proving themselves to be the top country artists for 2011.

For exclusive photo galleries, videos and more, visit CMT.com. Fans can also follow CMT on Twitter (@FollowCMT) with hashtag #CMTAOTY, Facebook, or download CMT’s mobile app, CMT Insider, at www.cmt.com/app.

“This is a little ridiculous now,” Jason said upon taking the stage for his sixth win. “It’s been a crazy year and so many people to thank. I could stand up here for an an hour and thank everyone I needed to … my band, everybody who plays on my records, my crew out on the road, the fans for coming to my show. It’s definitely ‘My Kinda Party.’ Thank you so much!”

Jason’s latest album My Kinda Party is the best-selling country album of the year and the winner Monday for ACA Album of the Year. Jason’s other ACA wins include Single By a Male Artist (for ‘My Kinda Party’), Touring Headline Package of the Year and both Vocal Collaboration and Video by a Group or Collaboration for ‘Don’t You Wanna Stay’ with Kelly Clarkson.

Read more about the night and all the winners here.

Photo by: Frazer Harrison/Getty Images

Tickets are on sale for the festival, which includes four nightly all-star concerts at LP Field, daily shows at Riverfront Park, admission to photo and autograph sessions and more. Tickets range from $115 to $325, plus handling fees, and can be purchased at Ticketmaster.com or by calling 1-800-745-3000 or 1-800-CMA-FEST (262-3378).

Proceeds from this auction benefit Susan G. Komen for the Cure. The full package includes:

• 2 Tickets AND 2 Meet & Greet Passes to a Show of Your Choice*
• 1 Jason Aldean “Rockin’ The Ribbon” T-Shirt
• 1 Autographed Jason Aldean Cowboy Hat
• 1 Pink Wrangler Scarf
• 1 Gift Certificate For a Pair of Wrangler Jeans

Click here to bid now!

*Per availability.

Lauren Alaina will be joining Jason and Luke Bryan for the winter leg of Jason’s 2012 My Kinda Party Arena Tour. Tickets for many shows are on sale now. Click here to check out the announced tour dates now!

“I was totally stunned last night, and it all happened so fast. I was feelin’ a pretty big adrenaline rush from our performance with Luda, and then to be told we had three nominations was just crazy. We were flying pretty high all night…there was definitely some celebrating on the flight back to Nashville,” says Aldean. “That ‘Album’ nomination is what artists dream of their whole career. And then for both the duet with Kelly and ‘Dirt Road’ to get some recognition, which were both different kinds of songs for us this year, it’s just incredible.”

Nominations were announced during the one-hour GRAMMY Nominations Concert LIVE!! special last night, where Aldean got a standing ovation for his performance of the DOUBLE PLATINUM, No. 1 hit “Dirt Road Anthem.” He was joined by fellow Georgia native Ludacris who re-wrote a verse of the fan-favorite song earlier this year.

The 4th release off the CMA Album of the Year, My Kinda Party, “Tattoos on This Town” marks the album’s 4th consecutive #1 single. Aldean also claims the top selling country album of the year.

Aldean recently wrapped his 2011 My Kinda Party Tour which sold out more than 50 arenas and amphitheatres across the nation this year and smashed several venue attendance records. The 2012 leg of the My Kinda Party Tour will pick up Jan. 20 in Greenville, SC with special guest Luke Bryan. Click here to check out the announced tour dates now!

Barring a last-minute surge by Lady Antebellum or the kids in the Band Perry, Aldean’s My Kinda Party is almost certain to end up as the best-selling country album of 2011, thanks in large part to the crossover successes of “Dirt Road Anthem” and “Don’t You Wanna Stay,” his killer duet with Kelly Clarkson. Earlier this month Party beat out records by Taylor Swift and Brad Paisley for Album of the Year honors at the CMA Awards, and tonight Aldean is scheduled to appear alongside Lady Gaga and Rihanna on CBS’s live Grammy-nominations special. I recently sat down with him prior to a show at L.A.’s Gibson Amphitheatre, where he performed “Don’t You Wanna Stay” with an enormous video version of Clarkson that reminded me of Apple’s famous “1984” commercial.

Shortly before the release of My Kinda Party, your manager described your career to Billboard as “a really good build.” He said you’d never had one album that put you over the top. A year later, though, it’s hard not to think of My Kinda Party as that album.

Yeah, man—this album has been a completely different deal. It just goes to show you: When you have songs like “Dirt Road” and the song with Kelly, it kind of takes things to a whole different place.

Do you think new fans or old fans are primarily responsible for the record’s breakthrough?

I think it’s a little bit of both. The people that have been there all along, they’re still there. But I also think that by having a crossover song like [“Don’t You Wanna Stay”], you’re gonna hit new genres of people that might not even know who you are. That really helped. But, you know, we’ve had two out of the previous three records sell a million and a half.

Which I think a lot of non-country fans might be surprised to hear. Until now there’s been something almost stealthy about your success.

Up ’til this point everything was kind of clicking except for recognition at awards shows. But you can’t even say that anymore, because this year it’s like a light switch came on; all of a sudden we’re getting a ton of nominations for these shows. To me that was the only thing that wasn’t really happening. I mean, our songs were doing well, the albums were doing well, the tour was doing well. Now, this year, [the nominations] came. I don’t know if we can really claim that under-the-radar situation anymore.

Some artists say in retrospect that they’re glad the recognition didn’t come right away.

Oh, yeah.

Why is that?

You start on top of the mountain, bro, you don’t have anywhere else to go. The first album did really well, but we had a lot of room to grow after that. And I think we’ve built it with each album. The shows have gotten bigger and bigger, and it’s kind of allowed us time to get ready and prepare for what’s going on this year with the tour. When you explode the first year, then you’re trying to go out and headline shows for an hour and a half when people are only really coming to hear the two or three songs you’ve got.

You’re launching an arena tour early next year, but right now it’s not set to hit New York or L.A. What are those markets like for you?

Well, obviously, they’re different. I mean, you look at New York, they don’t even have a country radio station. So it’s really hard to go in there and promote a show, because radio’s such a big part of that. It’s tough. You talk about playing Atlanta, Georgia, versus playing New York City—there’s no comparison. There’s just not many country acts that can go in and sell out Madison Square Garden. Now, on the flip side of that, we’ve always done really well out here in California; there’s radio stations here. But New York, that’s the one place I would say it’s probably toughest to play.

Is playing a city like New York important to you?

I wanna play everywhere. I would love to sell out Madison Square Garden; I think it’d be awesome. But I’m also realistic in the fact that it’s gonna be tough to do that. In any kind of business, people have to have a way of knowing that you’re gonna be somewhere. So if there’s no avenue to promote, it’s hard. Even if there was just one radio station there, it would change everything about country music acts playing New York City. But there’s not.

The Internet has allowed a lot of musicians to promote themselves outside that established system. Has it been useful for you?

Yeah. I think it’s definitely important, and it’s effective. But when it comes to country music and the way that it’s done in our business, you can’t take radio out of that equation. They’re still the biggest part of the promotion. They play the songs, people get familiar with the music; they run contests and give away tickets. There’s no making up for that. You can get online and promote your website and do whatever else. But you’re not gonna go out and sell 2 million copies of a record on the Internet at this point.

The crossover success of the singles from My Kinda Party has probably resulted in shows like the ones you described earlier, where people are only coming to hear the two songs they know. What do you make of that?

I want people to come out to the show, and if those are the only songs they know, that’s fine. I’ve always felt like if I can get them to the show, I’ve got a 50-50 chance of making a fan out of them. So if it takes that one song to get somebody to buy a ticket, cool, come on. That’s my best way to sell you on what it is that I’m about.

Does the album accurately represent what you do to a first-time listener?

Absolutely. When we made this record, we knew it was different. I knew we were traveling down some paths we hadn’t gone before. But I think that’s kind of what I’ve done from day one. That’s our whole deal: not being scared to try things that nobody else wants to cut. Those are the songs that will typically end up with us going, “Yeah, give it to us.” I don’t wanna play it safe; I don’t wanna be a guy that cuts things that are right down the middle. I don’t like songs like that.

Have you started thinking about the next one?

Oh, yeah. We’re actually going in Tuesday to start cutting it.

It’s a juicy opportunity, right? You’ve got the chance to make some of those new fans stick around.

Yeah, but at the same time, I don’t wanna overthink things too much. In my opinion, what got me to this point was cutting songs that I enjoyed. I make records I wanna hear, and luckily for me there’s an audience for the kind of stuff I do. So I don’t wanna go in there like, “We’ve gotta beat this last record.” I don’t like comparing records. It’s like comparing Michael Jackson Thriller to Michael Jackson Dangerous—both great records, but completely different things.

Will the next album reflect any newfound differences in your life?

I don’t think so. With every year you get a little older, hopefully a little bit wiser. But I don’t think my life has necessarily changed that much from the last record to this record. I’m just looking for songs that I enjoy performing—that’s how I pick my albums. And then we put those out, and the response is either good or bad. But I want it to be on my own terms. It’s like, “This is me. I cut this record, and I think it’s great, but apparently everybody hated it.” I can deal with that more than I can somebody telling me what to cut and then my career going down the shitter.

Jason Aldean performs tonight on The Grammy Nominations Concert, which airs on CBS at 10.

By: Mikael Wood