Blake Shelton Celebrates 20th Anniversary of ‘Austin’ on ACM Awards

Blake Shelton brought his fiery new single “Minimum Wage” and celebrated the 20-year anniversary of his breakout, debut single, “Austin,” at the 2021 ACM Awards.

Performing from the famous circle at the Grand Ole Opry house in Nashville, TN, Shelton started his performance with “Austin,” beginning the song quietly with just his guitar. He sang the pre-caller-ID love song, which finds an estranged couple communicating solely through their outgoing voicemail messages, as his band joined in and blue lights shone behind him. His strong voice captured the continued emotion of the 20-year-old song, as he sang about the the lovers’ reconciliation over the phone.

After “Austin,” Shelton turned up the beat and the positivity by launching into his latest single, “Minimum Wage.” The Opry member joyfully sang the tune, in which he celebrates the rich love of his current relationship, as his band backed him up.

“Minimum Wage” wasn’t without controversy upon its release, however. The singer earned backlash during his New Year’s Eve performance of the song, with some accusing Shelton of being too rich to sing about living on minimum wage.

“I just feel like these days, there are people out there who don’t want to know the truth,” he told CMT.com in an interview following the controversy. “They just want to hear what they want to hear, and they want to pick a fight. No matter what your intention is, no matter what the truth is, they want it to be something that they can be upset about so that they can get on social media and try to grab a headline. With ‘Minimum Wage,’ at first I thought, ‘Wow, I guess I just I’ve missed something here.’ And the more I read into this, I realized this was really not real. Whatever this backlash is is just four or five people that probably don’t know anything about country music. They clearly hadn’t heard the song or read the lyrics. If they had, they couldn’t feel this way about the song. It’s literally a love song about how if times are tight and you ain’t got much money — as long as you have love and you’re happy — at the end of the day, that’s all any of us can really hope for. You got it if you got that. That’s all that matters. And if that’s offensive to you, then we’ll just have to agree to disagree.”

Despite the initial backlash, Shelton fans embraced the song, which was soon sent to country radio. The “God’s Country” singer included his fiancée Gwen Stefani’s brother behind the cameras for its accompanying music video. The track is also the album opener for Shelton’s upcoming 12th studio album, Body Language, set for release on May 21.

Shelton including “Austin” in his performance was a nod to the 20-year anniversary of the hit. The song was released on April 16, 2001 and will be commemorated with a special edition vinyl release. “This song started it all for me. I couldn’t be prouder to celebrate its 20th anniversary,” the singer shared recently.

The 2021 ACM Awards, hosted by Keith Urban and Mickey Guyton, broadcast live on Sunday, April 18 (8:00-11:00 PM, live ET/delayed PT) on the CBS Television Network and will be available to stream live and on demand on Paramount+.

See all of our ACM coverage right here.