So last night, Google launched their first and presumably annual YouTube Music Awards mostly because if the world needs anything, it’s another music awards show. And it probably has nothing to do with YouTube’s plans for a music subscription service to launch by the end of the year. But we digress… If it gives another opportunity for filmmakers and musicians to hang out and do creative things, then we’re all for it, because as you might guess, that’s kind of right up our alley. And last night’s broadwebcast featured more than a few treats.
As we reported before the weekend, Spike Jonze took the helm of the show, which featured live music videos helmed by the filmmaker along with fellow pals and directors. And the stars came out to help. For example, the Jonze-helmed video for Arcade Fire‘s “Afterlife” featured no less spectacle than Greta Gerwig infectiously dancing away to the song. Meanwhile, Jonze co-directed Avicii‘s “Hey Brother” / “You Make Me” / “Wake Me Up” with Chris Milk, and the Choose-Your-Own-Adventure inspired effort featured cameos by Jason Schwartzman, Michael Shannon, Dree Hemingway, Vanessa Hudgens, Nick Lashaway and Joel Marsh Garland. And there’s M.I.A., who brought her usual batch of color with “Come Walk With Me,” in a spot created by frequent collaborator Romain Gavras and directed by John Gonzalez.
Watch Arcade Fire’s video below, and the other two at the links above. (P.S. YouTube, not making the videos embeddable kind of goes against the whole idea of this, doesn’t it?). In case you care, you can see who they were right here.
