The first-ever YouTube Music Awardson Sunday, improvised with plenty of celebrity cameos thrown into the mix, saw awards go to rapper Eminem and hip-hop duo Macklemore and Ryan Lewis.
The show made a clear bid for the quirky, a benefit of being streamed by YouTube rather than broadcast on television.
If the music itself sometimes felt a little overshadowed by all the hoopla, it shouldn't surprise; the show was also an announcement of sorts by YouTube of its intentions to take a bigger role in the music industry.Crying babies, Win Butler's Kanye moment, a faked double suicide, face painting, a makeup-free Lady Gaga in plaid and a trucker's cap. There were all kinds of unexpected moments on the first YouTube Music Awards, as imagined by Spike Jonze and carried off by the odd couple hosts Jason Schwartzman and Reggie Watts.
Eminem, Taylor Swift and Macklemore & Ryan Lewis were among the winners during Sunday night's live webcast from New York. But the awards were sort of beside the point as Jonze and others directed live videos with Eminem, Gaga, M.I.A. and rapper Earl Sweatshirt, and Schwartzman and Watts careened about the soundstage with only notecards to point the way.
Eminem was named artist of the year before performing a word-perfect version of his new lung-busting tour de force "Rap God," filmed in black and white. Swift's "I Knew You Were Trouble" won YouTube phenomenon and Macklemore and Lewis won YouTube breakthrough.
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