The Apple Music Awards didn’t feel much like an awards show.
There was no red carpet. There were no long speeches with people thanking managers and various deities. Kanye West didn’t jump onstage at any point. Most of all, no trophies were handed out at the inaugural event (at least not publicly), which was held at the Steve Jobs Theater at Apple Park in Cupertino on Wednesday, Dec. 4.
Instead, the night served as a showcase for Billie Eilish, the 17-year-old pop sensation who won three of the five honors presented by the tech company, including global artist of the year and songwriter of the year, along with the prize for album of the year for her debut, “When We Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?”
After a brief introduction from Zane Lowe, Apple Music’s global creative director and an early supporter of the headliner, Eilish and her older brother and creative partner, Finneas O’Connell, took the stage to perform a straightforward 75-minute concert that followed the well-worn “MTV Unplugged” acoustic format.
“I’ve never done this before,” Eilish said, surveying the crowd made up of contest winners. “It’s kind of crazy.”
The frills-free concert was relatively tame compared with the full Billie Eilish experience, mostly serving as a reminder that 2019’s most daring pop duo are homeschooled, classically trained siblings from Los Angeles, whose futuristic compositions sound startlingly conventional when stripped of their sleek minimalist beats and ASMR-friendly sound effects.
Performing on stools set against a backdrop of trees that made the stage resemble the forest from “Stranger Things,” Eilish and O’Connell brought a jazz club sophistication to songs like “Wish You Were Gay,” “Ilomilo” and “Xanny.”
Even her big radio hits like “Bad Guy” and “Bury a Friend” were delivered without their usual electric accoutrements, but with a casual elegance that belied their sinister nature (although it did feel slightly creepy when Eilish, perhaps unintentionally, stared into her brother’s eyes during the former as she sang the line, “Bruises, on both my knees for you”).
The singer apologized early on for her hoarse voice, saying that people had been talking to her all day. But the slight rasp at the back of the throat added some much needed edge to the acoustic format, as did her goofy demeanor between songs — a good reminder that she is still a teenager finding her way, despite the steely expression she wore when she landed on the cover of Rolling Stone earlier this year.
“You guys all live here?” she marveled at one point. “You live in San Fran? Sick!”
The geographic confusion fit the theme of the event. When Eilish revealed that she was going to play a surprise concert in the Bay Area in a mysterious Twitter post on Monday, Dec. 2, her wording made it sound like it was going to be an intimate show in San Francisco. It was only later that fans discovered that the performance was part of the heretofore unknown Apple Music Awards an hour outside of the city.
The sense of disorientation was not lost on Eilish.
“I wish I could give you guys an actual show. But here we are,” she groused at one point, before quickly catching herself. “But it’s cute. I’ve never done an acoustic performance for you guys!”
To prove her point, she closed out the set with “When the Party’s Over,” throwing herself down at the edge of stage and crawling around on her knees as she hugged fans and exchanged high-fives before leaving the stage.
While Apple Music also named Lizzo its breakthrough artist of the year and “Old Town Road” by Lil Nas X the song of the year, neither of those artists appeared at the event.
The awards may be entirely inconsequential.
While the Steve Jobs Theater fits about 1,000 fans, the concert was streamed live and then on-demand to Apple Music’s 60 million subscribers in 115 countries — and surely thousands more signed up for the service to watch the show.
Apple’s deal with Eilish goes further. The company is reportedly paying the singer $25 million for an exclusive Apple TV Plus documentary that charts her success after the release of “When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?” in March (which, incidentally, notched more than a billion streams on Apple Music).
Eilish is scheduled to return to the Bay Area next year to perform a sold-out concert at Chase Center in San Francisco on April 7.