The point here isn’t the nominated artists, but the often-disregarded reality that YouTube, ostensibly a watching platform, is a massively magnetic listening platform with an immense catalog. The upcoming awards seem to plant a stake in the ground that asserts what millions of young listeners already know — that YouTube is a music-service gorilla in the room which surreptitiously competes with Spotify, Pandora, Rhapsody, Rdio, Slacker, and the other music-marketed platforms.
Anyway, the nominees are in, user voting will transpire according to a complex viral-sharing scheme described here, and the gala concert will take place on Nov. 3.