Maybe we’ve empowered Apple a little too much. Yes, the phones and laptops are really quite good, if ridiculously expensive. But, as the company’s recent, arguably weak-ass attempts to rub shoulders with Netflix and Amazon by producing original film and television content have shown, Apple isn’t some infallible behemoth. Does Apple have a Baby Yoda? Can you order toilet paper from Apple at competitive pricing and have it delivered to your home the same day? How many true crime documentaries has Apple produced? No, no, and FUCKING NONE. But that hasn’t stopped Apple, shit-house drunk with power, from trying to force its way into industries it has no business monkeying with—like music awards shows, of which we already have plenty, and people only watch, like, two of them anyway.
Whether you want it or not (you really don’t), Apple is proud (?) to introduce the Apple Music Awards. Based on the hilariously confusing press release, the Apple Music Awards are blessedly comprised of just five categories, including Artist Of The Year, Breakthrough Artist Of The Year, and Song Of The Year. The winners have already been determined (and you can probably guess them easily), with Album and Song Of The Year chosen based on streaming data, while the remaining winners were “hand-selected by Apple Music’s global editorial team of experts and tastemakers.” The awards “show” will be live-streamed around the world on December 4, featuring a performance by Billie Eilish, winner of Artist Of The Year, Album Of The Year, and Songwriter Of The Year (along with her brother and collaborator, Finneas). Lizzo won Breakthrough Artist Of The Year, while Lil Nas X’s “Old Town Road” nabbed Song Of The Year.
Predictable. Uncomplicated. Inoffensive. Just the way we love our Apple products. It may not surprise you to learn that Apple seems to have spent far more time crafting its Apple Music Awards than it did actually thinking this whole “awards show” thing through. To wit, the bizarrely detailed description of the award itself, which apparently took multiple months to manufacture:
Apple has designed a series of awards to celebrate the extraordinary craftsmanship integral to creating music. 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.
Would you, a mere mortal consumer, care to behold this “stunning and distinctive” object? Too bad, here it is:
It looks like a fucking phone.