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Avery Anna and the Weight of an ACM Win: What Comes Next for Country’s New Female Artist of the Year
Avery Anna’s ACM New Female Artist win condenses a 2020s origin story: a viral bathtub clip, a Nashville move, major-label deals and a steady co-writing practice. At 22, she sits in a lineage of country breakout stars but has the songwriting chops to push past the moment.
When the Academy of Country Music named Avery Anna its New Female Artist of the Year on April 28, the moment felt both inevitable and instructive. At 22, the Flagstaff, Arizona singer-songwriter has already lived through the circuitry of modern country stardom: a viral bathtub video, a swift Nashville move, a major-label deal, and enough co-writes and duets to suggest that this is not a flash in the pan.
That category at the ACMs is a weirdly exacting yardstick. It has tracked careers that became generational stories and others that fizzled. Winning New Female Artist puts Anna in a lineage that includes Shania Twain, Carrie Underwood, Taylor Swift and Kelsea Ballerini. It also puts her alongside this year’s heavyweights; the show’s host, Shania Twain, and the top nominees for the May 17 broadcast are all past winners. In other words, the award is recognition, but it also points a directional arrow. Industry expectations follow.
Her origin story is very 2020s. In October 2020, a bathtub video of Anna singing “Say Something” blew up on TikTok, racking up roughly 10 million views. Matt Thomas of Parmalee shared that clip with writer-producer David Fanning, and the chain reaction led to management and production interest from 33 Creative. It is a tidy illustration of how discovery looks now: raw intimacy, platform virality, and then professional scaffolding. The bathtub, acoustically blunt and unadorned, remains a useful shorthand for how simple moments can recalibrate a career.
She writes. A lot. Anna is not just a voice; she is a co-writer on much of what she releases. Both of her full-length albums, Breakup Over Breakfast and Let Go Letters, plus EPs like Mood Swings and forgive, forget, lean on songs she helped finish. She co-wrote all 17 tracks on Breakup Over Breakfast, and the record includes collaborative credits with writers and artists such as Parmalee, Dylan Marlowe, Hillary Lindsey, Liz Rose and Lori McKenna. That network of collaborators matters because it signals industry faith. It also explains why her songs often sit comfortably between conversational country and pop-songcraft.
There are commercial markers too. Anna was a featured voice on Sam Barber’s “Indigo,” which peaked at No. 8 on Billboard’s Hot Country Songs and crossed over to No. 40 on the Hot 100. She’s opened for Josh Turner, Parmalee and Martina McBride. Those résumé items are the kind that matter when programming festivals and radio support are on the line.
Her sound is rooted but ecumenical. She talks about singing with her grandfather to Willie Nelson and Johnny Cash, and she name-checked Carrie Underwood, Miranda Lambert and Kelsea Ballerini in a 2022 Billboard interview. But Anna also cites Cage the Elephant, Noah Kahan and YEBBA, and she’s covered Donna Fargo’s “The Happiest Girl in the Whole U.S.A.” on TikTok. The result is a singer who traffics in country signifiers without committing to any single era’s aesthetic. Production choices on her records swing between intimate acoustic moments and radio-ready gloss; the songwriting remains the constant anchor.
The arc to Nashville was expedited. Anna graduated high school in May 2021 over Zoom and moved to Nashville three months later at 17. By June 2022 she had signed with Warner Music Nashville; within a few months she made her Grand Ole Opry debut. That compressed timeline—graduation, relocation, major-label signing, Opry—speaks to a pace that can be exhilarating and exhausting. It also means that the machinery around her is primed to push, for better or worse.
Small victories start to mean something bigger. One moment that punctuated her early career came when Kelly Clarkson covered Anna’s song “Narcissist” on The Kelly Clarkson Show as a Kellyoke performance. Anna, who co-wrote the track with Andy Sheridan and Ben Williams, described being “in shock” about the cover. It was not just a celebrity endorsement; it was a moment that confirmed her songs were landing beyond country circles.
Winning the ACM New Female Artist of the Year will change the calendar: more press, more tour offers, possibly more collaborations. But the thing worth watching is less the trophy itself and more how Anna deploys the tools she already has. She writes, she leans into a set of influences that move between classic country and contemporary indie, and she has already navigated the platform economy that can amplify a single performance into a career. The category’s track record suggests some winners become radio fixtures and crossover stars; others peak early. Anna’s songwriting credit ledger gives her the best possible chance of outlasting the moment.
There is pressure in that lineage. To be grouped with Shania or Carrie or Taylor is flattering and heavy. For now, though, Anna’s career reads like a work-in-progress that learned the rhythms of modern country quickly: make something honest, let it travel, then be ready to write the next one. The bathtub video was the beginning. The ACM will be an accelerant. Whether she turns that into longevity will depend on songs she still has to write and the stories she decides to tell.
