YouTube Music Awards

The YouTube Music Awards (commonly abbreviated as YTMA) is an awards show presented by YouTube to honor the best in the music video medium.

History

The 2013 edition of the YTMAs were held at New York City's Pier 36 and were broadcast live at Youtube.com/YTMA. Some notable artists, including Arcade Fire, Pentatonix and Lindsey Stirling (collaboration), Tyler, The Creator, M.I.A., Lady Gaga and Eminem, performed. The award show started at 6pm EST and was scheduled for 90 minutes.

Fans could vote in each category by posting a specific links from Youtube.com/YTMA on either their Facebook, Google+ or Twitter. The video with the most posts in each category was the winner. Artist of the Year was won by Eminem and Video of the Year was won by Girls' Generation for their video "I Got a Boy".

The 2013 edition was directed by Spike Jonze. The show was mostly unscripted because Jonze wanted the show to "..feel like a YouTube video — the raw messiness of making stuff..."

The winners of the 2015 edition of the award show were announced on March 2, 2015. 50 winners were chosen based the "growth in views, subscribers and engagement over the last six months."

Lindsey Stirling

Lindsey Stirling (born September 21, 1986) is an American violinist, dancer, performance artist, singer and composer. She presents choreographed violin performances, both live and in music videos found on her YouTube channel, Lindsey Stirling, which she introduced in 2007.

Stirling performs a variety of music styles, from classical to pop and rock to electronic dance music. Aside from original work, her discography contains covers of songs by other musicians and various soundtracks. Her music video, "Crystallize" finished as the eighth-most watched video of 2012, and her cover version of "Radioactive" with Pentatonix won Response of the Year in the first YouTube Music Awards in 2013. Stirling achieved one million singles sold worldwide by August 2014. As of April 2015, her Lindseystomp YouTube channel exceeded 7 million subscribers and over a billion total views.

Stirling has been named in Forbes magazine's 30 Under 30 In Music: The Class Of 2015. Forbes notes her quarter-finalist position on America's Got Talent season five in 2010, a No. 2 position on the Billboard 200 for her second album Shatter Me in 2014, and her 7 million subscribers on YouTube.

Girls' Generation

Girls' Generation (Hangul: 소녀시대; So Nyeo Si Dae), also known as SNSD, is a South Korean girl group formed by S.M. Entertainment. The group is composed of eight (formerly nine) members: Taeyeon, Sunny, Tiffany, Hyoyeon, Yuri, Sooyoung, Yoona, and Seohyun. Girls' Generation officially debuted on August 5, 2007 with its debut single "Into the New World" and subsequently gained some attention with their self-titled debut album. However, it was not until 2009 that they rose to prominence with the single "Gee", which claimed the top spot on KBS's Music Bank for a record-breaking nine consecutive weeks and was named the most popular song of the 2000s decade by Melon. The group solidified their place in the South Korean music industry with follow-up singles "Tell Me Your Wish (Genie)", "Oh!", and "Run Devil Run" from late 2009 to early 2010.

In mid-2010, the group signed with Nayutawave Records (present-day EMI Records Japan) to embark into the Japanese music scene. In April 2011, Girls' Generation's Japanese self-titled debut album was released, which peaked atop the Japanese Oricon Albums Chart and became the first album by a South Korean girl group to achieve a double Platinum certification by the RIAJ. The group returned to the South Korean music scene in October 2011 with The Boys, which has sold over 457,000 copies in South Korea, becoming the best-selling album in the Gaon chart history since its launch in 2010. During this time, the group also expanded their endeavor to the United States by signing with Interscope Records. In 2013, Girls' Generation's fourth Korean studio album titled I Got a Boy was released. The title track was subjected to major attention from western media after it was awarded Video of the Year at the inaugural YouTube Music Awards.

Music video

A music video or song video is a short film integrating a song and imagery, produced for promotional or artistic purposes. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a marketing device intended to promote the sale of music recordings. There are also cases where songs are used in tie in marketing campaigns that allow them to become more than just a song. Tie ins and merchandising could be used in toys are marketing campaigns for food and other products. Although the origins of music videos date back to musical short films that first appeared in the 1920s, they came into prominence in the 1980s when MTV based their format around the medium. Prior to the 1980s, these works were described by various terms including "illustrated song", "filmed insert", "promotional (promo) film", "promotional clip", "promotional video", "song video", "song clip" or "film clip". Since the creation and increased popularity of YouTube, mainstream artists now promote new music videos by releasing trailers of short promos on the site for their upcoming song and music video. Consequentially, YouTube has been converted into a social media platform for celebrities and artists to market themselves to their fans and audiences.

Video of the Year

Video of the Year may refer to: