Like the Academy Awards and all the others, the Grammys were created by the entertainment industry to get people talking about entertainment and spending their money there. That said, people like talking entertainment and buying music, and if money has to be spent, here's my two cents' worth:

Best country album
Of my Top 10 picks for the best country CDs of 2006, only Alan Jackson's "Like Red on a Rose" was nominated for a Grammy. My favorite country CD of last year, George Strait's "It Just Comes Natural," came out too late to qualify, and one of the nominees, the Dixie Chicks, has become to country music what Jethro Tull was to heavy metal when the progressive folk-rock band famously won the wrong Grammy Award in 1989.

Nevertheless, if I had to choose among Jackson, the Chicks' "Taking the Long Way," Little Big Town's "The Road to Here," Willie Nelson's "You Don't Know Me" and Josh Turner's "Your Man," I'd waffle between Jackson and Little Big Town.

Best country song
In country music it all starts with the song, and I have great respect for great songwriters. Of the five nominees, only "Every Mile a Memory" was performed by one of its co-writers, Dierks Bentley. But performance and arrangement aren't central to the task of evaluating the caliber of a song. "I Don't Feel Like Loving You Today" by Matraca Berg and Jim Collins is the kind of traditional bone country love song that could have been a hit any time in the past 40 years. Gretchen Wilson does it justice on "All Jacked Up."

Best female country vocal performance
When Carrie Underwood won "American Idol" in 2005, I couldn't have possibly cared less. But her vocal performance on last year's "Some Hearts" caught my attention, and seeing her use that voice to work the crowd at the Jamboree in the Hills won me over. She takes my vote with "Jesus, Take the Wheel."

Best male country vocal performance
Of the five nominees -- Bentley, Vince Gill, George Strait, Josh Turner and Keith Urban -- only Strait and Turner have voices that are so distinctive and identifiable they might be remembered years from now. If have to pick one, I'll go with Strait for "The Seashores of Old Mexico" from his "Somewhere Down in Texas" CD. Factoring in the convoluted criteria of Grammyland, however, they could throw the prize to Bentley for his 250-show-a-year work ethic, Gill for his body of work, Urban for forgiveness of his drinking problem, or Turner to help bump him up to headliner status.