Miranda Lambert is up for four honors at Wednesday’s 2018 Country Music Association Awards, and she’s sold millions of records. By any measure she’s a country music star, yet she hadn’t had a No. 1 song on the radio charts in more than four years until she collaborated with Jason Aldean on “Drowns the Whiskey,” a song that went to the top of the charts three months after it was released.

There was one particular reason for its success on country music radio, as far as Lambert was concerned.

Miranda Lambert at the Academy of Country Music Awards in Las Vegas on April 15, 2018. (Photo: Jeff Kravitz/ACMA2018/FilmMagic for ACM)

“Yes, I had to sing with someone with a ρenis to get a number one,” she told the Washington Post for a story that notes female artists are woefully underrepresented on country music charts. “I do like this person, Jason Aldean, a lot … so it was a great song with an old friend.”

Still…

“It is interesting that I haven’t had even a Top 20 in a long, long time. And then it goes No. 1 because it’s a dude,” Lambert said. “But you know — if we went and looked at how many singles or records were sold for the Top 10 songs right now, I’d probably triple it on record sales. So it doesn’t matter.”

Country music has dealt with the issue of gender balance — or, rather, imbalance — for years. In 2015, radio consultant Keith Hill infuriated Lambert and others when he instructed radio stations to limit the percentage of female artists they play to 15 percent of their total programming, if they wanted ratings to rise.

At the time, Lambert responded swiftly on Twitter.

“If you want to make ratings in country radio, take females out,”- Keith Hill

This is he biggest bunch of BULLSHIT I have ever heard. — Miranda Lambert (@mirandalambert) May 28, 2015

I am gonna do everything in my power to support and promote female singer/songwriters in country music. Always. — Miranda Lambert (@mirandalambert) May 28, 2015

The good news for Lambert and her fans is that despite being snubbed by radio, her music continues to sell. Her latest solo effort, 2016’s The Weight of These Wings, went platinum in July 2017.

Lambert is nominated for three CMA awards for her Aldean collaboration and another, Female Artist of the Year, alongside Kelsea Ballerini, Maren Morris, Kacey Musgraves and ​Carrie Underwood.

Notably, the top category — Entertainer of the Year — is all male.

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