Hearty congratulations to Taylor Swift! Not because she won four trophies at last night’s CMAs, though.

Or because she’s the youngest-ever CMA Entertainer Of The Year. No, congratulations should go to Taylor Swift because she managed to get through all of her acceptance speeches without being interrupted by a hieroglyphic-haired berk with a weird compulsion to unfavourably compare her to Beyonce – the first time this has ever happened.

But then how could Kanye West possibly unfavourably compare anyone at a country music awards show? “Imma let you finish, but Darius Rucker is one of the most derivative, tedious and inbred-looking singers of all time. OF ALL TIME!”? Hardly.

Right now Taylor Swift has got everything she ever wanted. The Kanye West thing made her a household name. She’s hosted Saturday Night Live. She’s got a boyfriend who doesn’t understand how clothes work.

And, most importantly, she deals with a genre of music that’s so uniformly generic and terrible that she comes across as a bravely innovative pioneer just because she isn’t a toothless 90-year-old man who plays the banjo, whistles when he tries to pronounce any word with the letter S in it and routinely gets cautioned by police for firing shotguns at children who stray too close to his porch.

And that’s why Taylor Swift cleaned up at last night’s Country Music Awards. We’ll get straight to the details, courtesy of Reuters:

Taylor Swift claimed a piece of music history on Wednesday when she became the youngest artist ever to win the coveted title of Entertainer of the Year at the Country Music Awards. Swift, 19, also claimed awards for Female Vocalist of the Year, Music Video of the Year and Album of the Year. “I’ll never forget this moment because at this moment everything that I ever wanted has just happened to me,” a tearful Swift said.

More than that, though, Taylor Swift must be relieved that nobody staged a Kanye-style speech interruption during any of her wins. Because this is country music we’re dealing with – if people don’t like you, they won’t simply imply that another singer deserved to win ahead of you, they’ll either strangle you or marry you and then molest some children or, if the interrupter is Billy Joe Shaver, simply shoot you in the face because you looked at him funny.

Still, you know who we feel sorry for here? Kenny Chesney. Up until now he’d won the CMA Entertainer Of The Year award four times in five years – possibly only because he likes to wear unusually large hats sometimes – and so he must have thought that he’d be a shoo-in for this year’s title, too. But, no, Taylor Swift has gone and spoilt all of that, the cow.

However, Kenny Chesney didn’t get where he is by not moving with the times, and that’s why next year we’re sure we’ll be seeing him copy some of Taylor Swift’s tricks. He’ll ask to present Saturday Night Live, for starters, and if we don’t see him out and about on the arm of a topless 17-year-old boy by Christmas we’ll be stunned. Because, you know, we heard those rumours too.

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You know what we like in an entertainer? The wild hope that wearing a big hat will cover for an overwhelming lack of charisma.

And we’re not the only ones, because Kenny Chesney – a man with a big hat and hardly any charisma – has just won the CMA Entertainer Of The Year award for the fourth time in five years, making him officially the most entertaining country singer ever born. Except for Garth Brooks. He’s equally entertaining.

This must count as one of Kenny Chesney’s proudest moments. Now he can look back on all the other country singers of the past and know he’s more entertaining than them. He’s more entertaining than Billy Shooter, Old Jeb Clovercleb, Whistlin’ Jimmy McFormaldahide, Redeyes O’Murderer and even, in a controversial twist, Barefoot Bobby And The Pregnant Mistakes. Congratulations, Kenny Chesney. You earnt this.

Being an entertaining country singer is a lot like being a successful plate-spinner – you have to try and make references to farming equipment at the same time as keeping up your quota of lengthy pun-filled song-titles, without forgetting about blind patriotism that regularly veers into racism or the fact that your personal life has to include some form of mild tragedy.

It sounds exhausting, which is why we should all be congratulating Kenny Chesney for being named the most entertaining country performer at last night’s Country Music Awards – something he seems to have been given for being the only country performer who hasn’t punched any of his fans or shot a stranger in the face recently.

More than that, in fact, Kenny Chesney has now won the CMA Entertainer Of The Year award four times in five years, more than anyone else except for Garth Brooks, whose record he has tied. And, to think, all he had to do to get there was marry a skinny actress briefly and constantly deny that he’s gay.

Obviously what makes Kenny Chesney so entertaining is his noble humility, which he displayed last night after winning his award. AP reports:

“Winning entertainer of year for the fourth time in five years is more than this kid ever dreamed of,” Chesney said backstage. While Chesney knows his reign will eventually end, he said, “I’m not going to lay down. I love the heart, commitment and sacrifice it takes to do this.” And to his competitors, he issued a challenge: “Come and get me.”

We think Kenny Chesney is being too modest. He’s never going to stop being the most entertaining country singer on Earth because, like he said, he understands the sacrifice that winning it takes.

For instance, all Kenny Chesney really wants to do is work 20-hour shifts down a mineshaft every day for the rest of his life but, oh no, there’s always someone on his back telling him to earn millions of dollars by endlessly recycling his one already-generic idea into another best-selling album. Now that‘s sacrifice.

But, still, this must be an important award for Kenny Chesney because it’s the first award he’s won for ages where he didn’t act like a turd about it afterwards.

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