The First-Ever YouTube Music Awards Happened
posted in: Music News
The world – starving, hysterical, dying for a new music awards show – saw the arrival on Sunday of the first ever YouTube Music Awards. We kid, but obviously the first question that springs to mind when hearing the phrase “YouTube Music Awards” is ‘do we really need this?’
And the answer is, no, certainly not, no one ever needs an awards show for anything, ever. But, in the big picture of the music business, and accepting that awards shows exist and are watched with some interest, we can consider what the point might be of a YouTube Award. We think that what it really speaks to is the seemingly permanent shift from television to the Internet as a target for music videos. With that in mind, a YouTube Music Awards makes a hell of a lot more sense than an MTV Video Music Awards.
The show – streamed on YouTube, of course – was an announcement that YouTube is planting their flag on Planet Music Business. No secret there, but this was certainly one giant leap for YouTube kind. Word is that YouTube will soon be announcing a subscription service for music fans, who will be spared the pre-roll commercials so common on the site. Accurately reflecting the content of the behemoth video site, the show was a pretty random, shambolic mess, mixing superstars (Artist of the Year Eminem) with relative unknowns (Video of the Year winners Girls’ Generation and Innovation Prize winner DeStorm) in a free-form format. Co-host Jason Schwartzman announced early on that everything was unscripted. YouTube may be trying to contrast themselves with the glitz of MTV’s and other awards shows, or it may just have been an organic mess. It remains to be seen how that aesthetic will be received by their core, 18-34 year-old audience, only about 250,000 of whom tuned in at any given time on Sunday. But with one billion current users, watching 30 billion music videos per month, next year’s YouTube Music Awards could signal a whole new ballgame.
See the complete list of winners below.
Breakthrough of the Year
WINNER: Macklemore & Ryan Lewis
Kendrick Lamar
Naughty Boy
Passenger
Rudimental
Response of the Year
WINNER: Lindsey Stirling and Pentatonix, “Radioactive”
Boyce Avenue (feat. Fifth Harmony) “Mirrors”
Jayesslee, “Gangnam Style”
ThePianoGuys, “Titanium/Pavane”
Walk Off the Earth (feat. KRNFX), “I Knew You Were Trouble”
Innovation of the Year
WINNER: DeStorm, “See Me Standing”
Anamanaguchi, “Endless Fantasy”
Atoms For Peace, “Ingenue”
Bat For Lashes, “Lilies”
Toro Y Moi, “Say That”
YouTube Phenomenon
WINNER: “I Knew You Were Trouble”
“Diamonds”
“Gangnam Style”
“Harlem Shake”
“Thrift Shop”
Video of the Year
WINNER: Girls’ Generation “I Got A Boy”
Demi Lovato, “Heart Attack”
Epic Rap Battles Of History, “Barack Obama vs Mitt Romney”
Justin Bieber (feat. Nicki Minaj), “Beauty and a Beat”br> Lady Gaga, “Applause”
Macklemore & Ryan Lewis (feat. Mary Lambert) “Same Love”
Miley Cyrus, “We Can’t Stop”
One Direction, “Best Song Ever”
PSY, “Gentleman”
Selena Gomez, “Come & Get It”
Artist of the Year
WINNER: Eminem
Epic Rap Battles Of History
Justin Bieber
Katy Perry
Macklemore & Ryan Lewis
Nicki Minaj
One Direction
Psy
Rihanna
Taylor Swift