I stayed up all night to watch the YouTube Music Awards, because I’m supposed to talk about them on the radio in, oh, three hours and also because I wanted to know. I found them to be a quite depressing affair, but exhilarating at times. They took place in some hall in New York, hosted by Jason Schwartzman and the beyond great Reggie Watts, who wore a wonderful Sesame Street sweater. Spike Jonze was the creative director.
The whole evening screamed “this ain’t your father’s Internet Music Awards!” and indeed the general mood was that of a kid’s birthday party held by overly excited but not completely insufferable art students.
In the end the whole thing was just a TV awards show, only broadcast live on the internet. A bit looser, a bit weirder – sometimes beautifully so. At one point Schwartzman was genuinely pissed that he had to hold a baby – because he felt bad for the baby, who started crying because of all the loud noise I hasten to add. Angry TV hosts are of course one of the best things.
The “hook” of the evening were the “live music videos” – essentially short stage shows created for the various songs. The music videos by Spike Jonze were of course an aesthetic revelation when I first saw them. So it was sad to him recycle ideas and concepts – during the performance of Arcade Fire’s “Afterlife” he had Greta Gerwig do a wild dance through hallways and sets, just like Christopher Walken did in “Weapon of Choice” way back when.
I don’t want to use the word that starts with s and ends with -ellout, because really, who are we kidding here. But to see all these images that seemed so alive and vital all these years ago treated like a commodity, like something you can pack up and take out again whenever it suits you, that did hurt a bit.
And then a member of “Girls’ Generation”, the K-Pop band who won Video of the Year, declared that “YouTube is my best friend!” And then, at the end of the show, Artist of the Year Eminem did a song and referenced Monica Lewinsky. So I don’t know what the hell is going on right now.