> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.hypebot.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # How EDM Will Be Celebrated At This Year’s VMAs - URL: https://www.hypebot.com/edm-to-take-a-front-seat-at-this-years-vmas/ - Published: 2012-09-04T11:57:00.000Z - Updated: 2012-09-04T11:57:00.000Z - Description: MTV’s Video Music Awards (VMAs) debuted in 1984 from New York City's Radio City Music Hall and has since grown to become one of television's most watched live events. This year. Continue reading [https://www.hypebot.com/hypebot/2012/09/edm-to-take-a-front-seat-at-this-years-vmas.html] - Author: admin - Tags: Live & Ticketing, Major Labels, #wp, #wp-post, #Import 2026-01-21 10:49 [![556540_10151052168731169_409879220_n](http://hypebot.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451b36c69e2017744807377970d-150wi "556540_10151052168731169_409879220_n")](http://hypebot.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451b36c69e2017744807377970d-popup?ref=hypebot.com) ****MTV’s Video Music Awards (VMAs) debuted in** **1984 from New York City's Radio City Music Hall and has since grown to** **become one of television's most watched live events. This year continues the tradition** **of a star-studded lineup of presenters and performers from all over the music** **world, but playing a more prominent role than ever before will be electronic** ****dance music (EDM), coming off an explosive year and huge surge in popularity throughout North America.** Recognizing EDM’s big year, MTV has created new category for the 2012 VMAs: *Best Electronic Dance Music Video*. This category recognizes some of EDM’s biggest names including **Skrillex, Avicii,** **Calvin Harris, Martin Solveig, and Duck Sauce**. The category itself has risen from quite the evolutionary metamorphosis. Back in 1989, MTV began awarding VMAs for *Best Dance Video*, only to cut the category in 2007 and bring it back in 2008 under a new name: *Best Dancing in a* *Video*. The category was absent in 2009, but again brought back and renamed in 2010 as *Best Dance Music Video*.After another absent year in 2011, the award has again been revived and renamed for 2012 as *Best Electronic Dance Music Video*. **“**The *Best EDM Music Video* award is a respectful nod of recognition to the EDM community and signifies that this is an important genre of music that deserves to stand side-by-side with the genres like pop and hip-hop on music’s biggest night,” says MTV’s Executive Vice President of Music and Talent, [Amy Doyle](http://mtvpress.com/bios/profile/amy%5Fdoyle/?ref=hypebot.com). “For us, the award represents the latest mile marker in what’s been an incredible EDM journey that started in 2008.” MTV’s mtvU network, a 24-hour television channel available exclusively on more than 750 college and university campuses across the United States, serves an incubator for MTV to experiment with emerging artists and genres with an audience that is usually ready to embrace something different and fresh. **“**In the case of EDM, we started adding EDM artists into video rotation back in 2008 and instantly received strong feedback from the fans,” Doyle told Hypebot. “Based on that reaction, we added more artists and videos and broke new ground later that year by having A-Track serve as the house DJ at our annual mtvU Woodie Awards, which celebrates emerging artists.” Over the course of the next few years, MTV steadily kept increasing the amount of EDM artists on the channel, as well as expanding to other channels and brands like MTV, MTV2, MTV News and MTV Hive. “In 2009, we had Diplo serve as house DJ at the Woodies and working with MTV News, we started to really profile and interview these DJs, and aggressively cover the various EDM festivals,” Doyle continued. “In August of 2011, MTV launched Clubland, the first EDM music video block series that airs weekly Monday through Thursdays. The show has quickly established a loyal following of fans and has become the place for EDM artists, including Avicii, Wolfgang Gartner, Kaskade, Steve Aoki, Amtrac, Nervo and Felix Cartal to premiere new music videos.” This year’s VMAs is set to be broadcasted from the Staples Center in Los Angeles, the show’s biggest venue to date. Doyle says that this decision was made to be reflective of the EDM explosion. “We were really inspired by how EDM festivals were so large, yet still allowed the artists to have an intimate relationship with the fan,” she said. “Going into the Staples Center, we wanted to capture that feeling. While I don’t want to give a lot away, I can reveal that the set design and many of the performances have been crafted with the idea of bringing the audience directly into the moment. Calvin Harris \[nominee for *Best EDM Video*\] is serving as the house DJ and going to do a full-on hour long set for audience before the show starts to get them amped and ready, and will then drive the various acts of the show.” Doyle and MTV have been around long enough to witness key turning points in EDM that were clear indicators that the scene was more than an underground thing, and perhaps destined for the U.S. mainstream. **“**A few years ago, a couple members of my team who were passionate about DeadMau5 showed me a DVD of a performance he did in the UK,” Doyle said. “It was indescribable. Shortly after, I went to see him at EDC and couldn’t believe how many thousands of people were there. There is nothing underground about a jam-packed LA Coliseum. A few weeks after that, we made Deadmaus5 an offer to be the house DJ at the VMAs. We got such great feedback from the audience that it was a no brainer for us to find ways to embrace and showcase EDM across all of our screens. We then watched as attendance at EDM festivals began to grow into the hundreds of thousands and EDM artists became rock stars in their own right. Artists like Rihanna and Ne-Yo began to court and recruit EDM artists like Calvin Harris, who infused the electronic sound into their songs, which are now all over mainstream radio.” As EDM continues its rise in popularity, some feel it is destined to fade away as part of a short-lived explosion in the U.S., while others – including Doyle – believe that it is here to stay. **“**I think it’s just starting to hit critical mass now where artists like Avicii, Skrillex, Calvin Harris, and Deadmau5 are truly becoming rock stars and household names,” she said. “Now and in the coming year, I think we’ll hear more and more EDM on pop radio. I also believe that the fans want to keep the movement fresh and it will continue to evolve as fans rally around emerging EDM artists and sub-genres.” The 2012 MTV Video Music Awards airs this Thursday from the Staples Center in Los Angeles, California. Hypebot’s [Hisham](http://twitter.com/hishamdahud?ref=hypebot.com) [Dahud](http://twitter.com/hishamdahud?ref=hypebot.com) will be in attendance during the VMAs, so be sure to follow our [Facebook](http://www.facebook.com/hypebot) and [Twitter](http://twitter.com/hypebot?ref=hypebot.com) for photos and tweets from the event. — ***Hisham Dahud*** *is a Senior Analyst for Hypebot.com. Additionally, he is the head of Business Development for [Fame House](http://famehouse.net/?ref=hypebot.com) and an [independent musician](https://soundcloud.com/hishamdahud?ref=hypebot.com). Follow him on Twitter: [@HishamDahud](http://twitter.com/hishamdahud?ref=hypebot.com)*