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Apple Announces Winners of Second Annual Apple Music Awards

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Apple has announced the winners of the second annual Apple Music Awards, which recognize "the best and boldest musicians of 2020 and their enormous impact on global culture."

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The awards honor achievements in music across five categories, with winners chosen through a process that reflects both Apple Music's editorial perspective and what customers around the world are loving most.

Apple has named Lil Baby is Artist of the Year, and Megan Thee Stallion is Breakthrough Artist of the Year. Songwriter of the Year goes to Taylor Swift for her album folklore. "The Box" by Roddy Ricch is Top Song of the Year, while Top Album of the Year goes to Please Excuse Me for Being Antisocial by Roddy Ricch.

Apple plans to kick off its Apple Music Awards celebration on Monday, December 14, with a week of special performances, fan events, interviews, and more, streaming worldwide on Apple Music, Apple Music TV, and the Apple TV app.
"The Apple Music Awards is our opportunity to recognize and honor the incredible artists who we feel have deeply impacted and inspired the world and our customers, and helped us feel connected through music this year," said Oliver Schusser, Apple's vice president of Apple Music and Beats. "We have an exciting week of music planned in December and are very much looking forward to celebrating together with these artists and their fans."
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Apple's full article has a more complete list of details on all of the artists that are to be honored with a special Apple-designed award.

Article Link: Apple Announces Winners of Second Annual Apple Music Awards
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2020/11/19/2020-apple-music-awards-announced/
  • Haha
Reactions: decypher44
Taylor Swift is both extremely talented and an awful person for defaming people because she doesn’t like a contract after the fact, that she voluntarily agreed to.
 
  • Disagree
Reactions: eas and Stevez67
What even are these awards?

The only people I know from the list are Taylor and Megan Thee Stallion. Taylor's award is 100% deserved, folklore is brilliant.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Stevez67 and javade
darkcompass said:
They need to expand the categories. There's plenty of new music and new artist that are not US centric or hiphop/dance/pop this currently makes the awards a joke.
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All awards are a joke — they are one body's perspective of not only what they think was good, but in this context, what (most likely) did well on Apple music. If you were ever looking for accuracy in awarding merit in something as subjective as music then that's the joke, as I'm not sure what you were expecting from an American company that tries to appeal to everyone.
 
  • Like
Reactions: thedarkhalf and TheDemogordon
Oh, big whoop! Another meaningless award.

By the way, whatever happened to the ACE Cable Awards?
 
Websnapx2 said:
All awards are a joke — they are one body's perspective of not only what they think was good, but in this context, what (most likely) did well on Apple music. If you were ever looking for accuracy in awarding merit in something as subjective as music then that's the joke, as I'm not sure what you were expecting from an American company that tries to appeal to everyone.
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It's not even that much - it's not about which artists the body thinks is good. It's about which artists the body wants to give a boost to, and which names will benefit the body itself by having their names attached to it.

Think about it - did Apple give Taylor Swift the award because she was particularly amazing this year, or because they knew it'd raise the profile of the Apple Music awards by sticking her name on it?

With that said, I'm still divided on whether or not this is a bad thing. If we were ranking music objectively you'd certainly get some interesting music but not necessarily a product that people would be interested in. As much as we may like to pretend it's all about the music the far more important aspect is the brand around that music.
 
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Reactions: Peperino and TheDemogordon
darkcompass said:
They need to expand the categories. There's plenty of new music and new artist that are not US centric or hiphop/dance/pop this currently makes the awards a joke.
Click to expand...

I'm not going to do my typical "who?" post on this but I spend a lot of my time listening to new music but not really pop (or at least not these people who won). I would really like to see other categories added. At the very least, Apple should honor one artist in every genre category they have on their store. I'm sure the hardworking artists in the Metal or Electronic categories would love to get a reward for being the best in their space. Apple can do it purely on streams + engagement (time listened) and make one algorithm to spit out 75 'best ofs' without any additional effort.

I happen to like funk/soul/jazz/hip hop a lot but I know thanks to Jimmy, Dre and Interscope ties, Apple Music has always been hip hop first until their algorithms learn more about what you like to listen to
 
Marbles1 said:
Fair point and it may well be, but the idea of her being the best songwriter on planet earth, in any language, is a bit of a stretch.
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The award was not for "the best songwriter on planet earth" as you say. It was of the *YEAR*. It's a yearly award, not the best EVER award. And I agree that folklore is a great album.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Stevez67
JoelTheSuperior said:
It's not even that much - it's not about which artists the body thinks is good. It's about which artists the body wants to give a boost to, and which names will benefit the body itself by having their names attached to it.

Think about it - did Apple give Taylor Swift the award because she was particularly amazing this year, or because they knew it'd raise the profile of the Apple Music awards by sticking her name on it?

With that said, I'm still divided on whether or not this is a bad thing. If we were ranking music objectively you'd certainly get some interesting music but not necessarily a product that people would be interested in. As much as we may like to pretend it's all about the music the far more important aspect is the brand around that music.
Click to expand...
That's my point — awards themselves are not very meaningful, there is usually much more than artistic merit behind the receiving of one so my point was its only value is what we give it. I think it is interesting but not particularly valuable. Could it be? Yes, if given with the intent to elevate the status through recognition of deserving artists who fly under the radar, but then we are back at square one with what metric was used to quantify "deserving". Most of these awards are self-serving — we want a big name to value this award so we give it to them in hopes that their fans will find validation in it, and though that the award donors themselves.

I don't knock them for it as they are easily ignored, I just also don't put any weight behind it.
 
MacRumors said:
The awards honor achievements in music across five categories, with winners chosen through a process that reflects both Apple Music's editorial perspective and what customers around the world are loving most.
Click to expand...

So similar to the Billboard Music Awards. It's a reflection of fans/customers choice. Just because I don't know about these artists, I won't disparage what others obviously like. Good for them. 👏
 
  • Like
Reactions: PickUrPoison and Websnapx2
I don’t care about the award, but the graphical interaction between text and circle in the “logo” ... I can’t look at it. Something is just not right
 
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