Apple has just announced a new award, actually five of them, and a new piece of award hardware to go with it - the first piece of solid metal and glass that the company has managed to keep completely, utterly secret for years!
Appleannounces first Apple Music Awards
The Apple Music Awards are being presented this year for the first time - a sign that Apple is recognizing in a new way that music is an essential part of the company's identity. Of course, it always has been, from the first version of Garageband to the iPod to the highly successful iTunes concerts it held in London for years.
Now, there is a select series of awards to be bestowed: Artist of the Year, Songwriter of the Year and Breakthrough Artist of the Year. All three are editorial choices made by Apple's in-house music curators. The final two are awarded on the basis of how many streams they've achieved on Apple Music. So, there's Top Song of the Year and Top Album of the Year.
With the announcement of the awards came the names of the winners and the fact that there'll be a special event at the Steve Jobs Theater on Wednesday, December 4.
Oliver Schusser, Apple’s vice president of Apple Music and International Content, said: “The Apple Music Awards are designed to recognize the passion, energy and creativity of the world’s favorite artists. The musically diverse group of inaugural winners have sparked deep social conversation, influenced culture and inspired our customers around the world. We couldn’t be more excited to celebrate them.”
You can read the winners' names below, but just as interesting as the recipients is the hunk of metal they'll be given to commemorate it. The Apple Music Award is a handsomely designed object, from the same Apple team that designs the iPhones, iPads and everything else. And yes, since you ask, the company's departing design head, Jony Ive, was involved in the creation of it.
The award is roughly 20 inches tall by 16 inches by three quarters of an inch. So it's a sizeable and solid piece. It's meant to be wall-mounted (all fixings supplied by Apple) but an acrylic stand is another option.
The brand new Apple Music award
The back story is pretty interesting. Apple wanted the award to include its trademark materials: polished glass, brushed aluminum and, oh yes, silicon. Silicon, the second most-abundant element in the earth's crust after oxygen, is refined and purified in a process that leaves the material in a heavy ingot shaped like a cylinder. The designers were inspired by the fact that this cylinder has a diameter of 12 inches, and is sliced into super-thin wafers of the same dimension. And yes, that's the same size as, you're way ahead of me, a record.
Apple Music Artist Award 2019
So, the Award has a circular panel of silicon chips at its center, a super-flat, extremely thin wafer of chips. These are the exact same chips that go into an iPhone, for instance. It has over 500 of these chips in the panel. (Dear winners, don't try taking the ward apart and jimmying out the chips. They won't work.)
The design process is explained in some detail on the back of the award, so to find out more, all you need to do is win one.
The Award looks like an ultra-modern speaker, perhaps or a science-fiction style TV with circular screen. It's attractive and eye-catching, coming in different colors, achieved by depositing copper layers on the wafer, for instance.
You can see the event live on Wednesday, it's being broadcast on Apple TV: December 4 at 6:30 p.m. PST.
And the winners of the Apple Music Awards are
Global Artist of the Year Billie Eilish
Songwriter of the Year Billie Eilish O'Connell
Breakthrough Artist of the Year 2019 Lizzo
Album of the Year “When We Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?” - Billie Eilish
Song of the Year “Old Town Road” - Lil Nas X
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