O Awards honor digital creativity

Once upon a time, the music industry celebrating the digitalization of its medium would have been looked at as an act akin to dancing at a loved one's funeral.

We've since learned better -- if you think the Internet has polluted the musical landscape, as some artists and labels argued for years, I have some magic beans to sell you, gullible.

Fact is, the growth of various digital platforms has abetted the evolution of the way music is disseminated and listened to, and the new O Music Awards, put on by MTV and partially taking place here today at 8 p.m. with acts playing at the Fremont Street Experience, call attention to as much.

Featuring performances by such notables as indie duo Matt & Kim, rapper Chiddy Bang and others, the production's aiming for a more idiosyncratic spin on the traditional awards show, which has grown increasingly moribund.

"With the struggle and the turmoil of the traditional music industry, you're seeing an amazing growth of new things," says Shannon Connolly, vice president of digital music strategy for MTV Music Group. "The music category online has never been bigger. Music has never mattered more to our fans, they've never consumed more music over our entire history. So we felt like, just flip the conversation and celebrate all the great stuff."

And they're doing so in a way that's emblematic of the spirit of the digital domain, where boundaries are mutable.

The show is meant to be a spontaneous event and not a formal, ticketed affair.

"This is not a room where celebrities are going to show up and take their seat and watch an awards show," Connolly says. "This is the opposite in every regard. It's open to everybody. Anybody who has a mobile phone or a laptop gets to attend this show."

Perhaps the best thing about the digitalization of music is that fans and artists have been put on more of an equal footing, and the O Awards reflect as much, with awards to be given for "Must Follow Artist on Twitter," "Best Fan Forum," "Fan Army FTW," "Favorite F**k Yeah Tumblr" and more, as voted by fans themselves.

How meta is that?

"This is the first awards show that we've ever done where we're giving awards away to fans, to website owners, to music hackers," Connolly says. "We looked at the convergence of fans, artists and computer programmers all coming together to just create a really interesting cauldron of great music content and conversation. We felt like the time was right to spotlight that."

Contact reporter Jason Bracelin at jbracelin@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0476.