Tuesday, November 5, 2013
Eminem takes top honor at YouTube music awards
New York City (AFP) - YouTube's first-ever music awards thrilled and spilled, with Eminem named Artist of the Year though most winners were lesser known acts who featured in an eclectic show filled with stunts.
Sunday's webcast was kicked off by indie rockers Arcade Fire performing their new song "Afterlife" in a live video performance featuring a chorus of young girl singers in Pier 36, a sprawling indoor events space in New York.
Up next was a crying Lady Gaga, minus her trademark peroxide blonde hair and make-up, dressed in a tomboyish baseball cap marked "Dope," for a first performance of an eponymous song that she delivered in a haunting, melancholic tone while playing the piano.
Pictures later showed the enigmatic artist, well-known for unpredictable behavior, scantily clad and in an apparently distressed state on stage, with fans reaching up to touch her.
Hosted by actor Jason Schwartzman and musician-comedian Reggie Watts, the show's creative director Spike Jonze said before the event that he wanted to stay true to the video-sharing website's experimental origins.
The 90-minute affair may have split the Internet audience down the middle, judging by comments posted on Twitter, in which some people complained of censorship, when the show's live stream stopped several times.
The Breakthrough Act award, however, seemed to stay loyal to Jonze's aim, as it was taken home by Macklemore & Ryan Lewis, whose featured video was shot for $5,000 and placed on YouTube, leading to great success.
The inaugural YouTube Music Awards joins a variety of industry events such as the Grammys, MTV Video Music Awards and American Music Awards, entering the fray at a time when people increasingly turn to the Internet for streaming and on-demand programming.
Unlike the established awards ceremonies, YouTube's event organizers said the nominees and winners were tallied in a distinctly Internet-age manner, based on "viewership, subscriber, and/or engagement metrics."
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