Apple on Monday announced their first ever Apple Music Awards. Billie Eilish, Lizzo and Lil Nas X will receive awards for their work during 2019.
Billie Eilish was named Global Artist of the Year, and her album, “When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?” snagged album of the year honors, as the most streamed album of 2019 with more than a billion streams on Apple Music. Billie will also receive the award for Songwriter of the Year, which will go to both her and her brother FINNEAS.
Eilish is scheduled to perform at Apple Park in Cupertino, Calif., on Wednesday. The singer is set to perform a set at an awards ceremony to be held at Steve Jobs Theater starting at 6:30 p.m. Pacific. Apple will live stream the event.
Lizzo was named as the Apple Music breakthrough artist of the year. The singer, songwriter and rapper’s hit “Ain’t I” was used in an early HomePod advertisement in 2018.
“Old Town Road” by Lil Nas X was named Apple Music’s song of the year. The song was the biggest single of 2019 and the most streamed song on Apple Music this year.
“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,” Oliver Schusser, vice president of Apple Music and International Content, said in prepared statement.
Apple says the Apple Music Award itself is “An Award That is Uniquely Apple.”
Each award features Apple’s custom silicon wafer suspended between a polished sheet of glass and a machined and anodized aluminum body. The wafers start as a perfect 12-inch disc of silicon with nanometer level flatness. Copper layers are deposited and patterned by ultraviolet lithography to create connections between billions of transistors. The result of this multi-month process, before it is sliced into hundreds of individual chips, is stunning and distinctive. In a symbolic gesture, the same chips which power the devices that put the world’s music at your fingertips sit at the very heart of the Apple Music Awards.
The Apple Music Awards are the first ever awarded by Apple’s four-year-old streaming service.
