Where do celebrated mainstream artists like Lady Gaga, Eminem and The Arcade Fire join internet sensations like Lindsey Sterling and Epic Rap Battles of History? At the first-ever YouTube Music Awards, streaming live tonight from New York City. At 6PM ET at YouTube, or embedded right here in this post, you can watch Jason Schwartzmann host what’s promising to be a crazy show.
Watch YouTube’s first-ever Music Awards, featuring Lady Gaga and Eminem
is a senior editor and founding member of The Verge who covers gadgets, games, and toys. He spent 15 years editing the likes of CNET, Gizmodo, and Engadget.
"Hopefully, it'll be a fun mess."
Famed director Spike Jonze is producing the event, and intends the show to be live in almost every sense of the word. He’ll be creating live music videos as the show unfolds, and the event will have no formal script. Reportedly, Schwartzmann and co-host Reggie Watts won’t know what’s going to happen until it happens on stage.
“We’ve been given a lot of room to make a mess,” Jonze told The New York Times. “Hopefully, it’ll be a fun mess.”
Though the YouTube Music Awards is technically YouTube’s first awards show, it’s not the company’s first attempt at this sort of spectacle. In 2008, the company tapped Katy Perry to host YouTube Live. That show was widely regarded as a debacle due to poor preparation, and quietly swept under the rug. We’re eager to see if Spike Jonze can do better now that he has a larger slate of celebrities and some better-known YouTube performers at his disposal.
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