iTunes posted its annual awards in movies, music, apps, books, podcast, and television on Monday, Mac World reported. Categories are neatly broken into either four sections or eight sections, depending on what iTunes deemed most relevant. Awards seemed to be a mix of opinion and performance, as the lists differ from country to country, according to Mac World. Still, not all top iTunes sellers won awards. Check your iTune's home page for all the awards.
Few surprises in the musical industry, where Justin Timberlake won artist of the year for his new album that is both played out and yet still playable. He also collaborated quite successfully with Jay-Z (as if there was any other outcome), most famously with the emotional, "Holy Grail." Lorde's "Royal" won song of the year. The Australian teen's poppy, bluesy number transcends genre if one simply goes by radio stations. (Her track is even played on less hardcore hip hop stations). Macklemore and Ryan Lewis won album of the year and breakthrough artist of the year went to Kendrick Lamar, whose playful lines in that ASAP Rock song with the curse word in the title defined his 2013 for this University Herald writer (though fans and critics summarizing his year will probably point to songs in which he is the primary contributor).
The winner of the movie category potentially benefited from the surplus of highly anticipated movies slated to debut (or that just recently debuted) in the next few weeks. iTunes easily chose "Gravity" as its winner, following the example of many Oscar predictions (including those from IMDB and IndieWire). Likely, it neglected the recently released "American Hustle" and films soon to hit theatres, such as "Wolf on Wall Street" and "Her," based on the fact that it didn't choose "Frozen" (released: November 10) or Japan's "The Wind Rises" (February 2014) as its winner in the animated feature category. Both those films have received more Oscar hype than "Despicable 2," according to several websites. Then again, "Frozen" was released a month ago so perhaps iTunes simply had a different opinion in this category.
Looking to purchase a young adult novel for your teen this Christmas? iTunes highlighted Brandon Sanderson's "The Rithmatist" as the best teen novel of the year.
