The Indie Music Awards (IMA) was an international awards program initiated in 2003 to recognize self-distributed recordings and releases from independent record labels.
Again, it was not the most prestigious award show, but it was a starting point for many famous singers. It came at 4th or 5th in terms of significance among the American music awards, with Grammy being the top.
Still, the awards show was pretty professional, and it would even be telecasted live on TV, and many prestigious singers and even the mainstream artists will attend the night.
The IMA honoured works in over a dozen categories that were evaluated by judges who were normally genre experts. The judges mainly were celebrity musicians and artists.
Aside from that, there was even a banquet that was held after the shows with the chance to meet many people and make connections. Record labels would even try poaching artists here since it was a big business opportunity.
Pretty much, it was like any other award show in America.
For Aiden, it was a huge thing because this was the first time he was nominated for something. And not even in one but two categories.
After getting the news, he celebrated the whole night in the bar with the rest of his band and Wade. They were all happy for Aiden.
As he had started from The Rabbit Hole, many here considered him a part of the bar, and many regular customers even said they would vote for him.
The winners were chosen by a mix of votes and the judges' verdict, so every vote was crucial for Aiden.
They would only get to know if 'Revolution' got selected as the title track or not at the end of December, so for now, Aiden had enough time to attend the award show.
As for his band members, they all decided to return to their homes for Christmas.
The next day after he got the news, Wade woke him up early in the morning even if he hadn't gotten a lot of sleep. The awards show would be held in a week, so there was not much time.
After waking him up, he dragged him to a stylist to get a suit for Aiden.
"This one is too big."
"Don't suit you at all. Feels too flashy for someone like you."
"I don't think a green suit is good. It's not a costume party to see who can dress the weirdest."
Aiden awkwardly smiled as he looked at the woman in front of him. Her name was Minerva, and she was the stylist hired to get a good suit for Aiden to wear to the party.
She had a finger on her chin, trying to wonder what would suit Aiden the best.
Currently, he was standing in one of the most expensive stores on the Upper East side part of New York, the place where a lot of stores were.
The only reason Wade knew this place was because he had worked with Minerva before. Though, even with that, buying a suit from here would surely be expensive.
But for an award show, they can't be stingy.
Standing on the side, Wade couldn't help but take some pics seeing Aiden change into suits that didn't look good on him at all.
He felt like it would be a waste not to post these on Aiden's social media.
"Minerva, can we hurry? I think I have already tried over ten suits."
Aiden said politely. Wade had told him earlier that Minerva's temper wasn't good, so he needed to be careful.
"Ten is just the start. I had a top actor come here just yesterday, and he tried over fifty suits for three hours. So if you want to look your best in the award show, just listen to me and stay silent."
Minera said, taking out a white suit and holding it in front of Aiden. He tried to smile but was already frowning inwardly.
'No one said trying to make it in Hollywood would be easy.'
He thought, and for the next two hours, he just stood there as Minerva tried more and more suits on him. Ultimately, they decided on a simple black suit that just needed him to wax his hair properly.
It was a look that won't make Aiden stand out a lot, but at the same time, it will give people a good enough impression.
Just the cost of the suit was 10k dollars. Even then, it was one of the cheaper ones in the store. Wade had said it was important to look his best, especially since he was nominated.
"I feel like I have become poor again today."
Aiden sighed after they came out of the store. The bustling street in front of him was filled with many people, most of them looking like they were wearing expensive clothes.
"You have earned enough to afford a suit like this." Wade laughed. "Moreover, you need to have your own stylist after a point in Hollywood. So, get used to trying out a lot of stuff."
In Hollywood, every prominent star has their own stylist. It was not just for events and award shows but also for personal stuff. Some celebrities would even have clothes chosen for the time when they would go out to buy something trivial like milk.
Of course, it would just so that paparazzi get some clicks, and they could be in the news.
"I'm far from that."
Aiden said, hoping he gets used to the long hours of suit selection. After a while, he suddenly asked.
"Do you think I will get any awards?"
"Hard to say. Though, I hope you get the Rising Star Of The Year award. It's the best one for you. As for Breakout Digital Single Of The Year, I don't really know if you will get it. That category has too much competition."
"I will be happy with anything."
Aiden said. Both the categories were famous as they were one of the main ones. He had heard that the criteria to be nominated in the 'Rising star of the year' category was for a single to reach the top ten on music charts.
Lonely did that for him.
As for the breakout digital song of the year, that was 'Hold onto me', which has collectively got over 130 million views till now on different platforms.
'Let's hope it goes well.'
He thought, following Wade to the car. The suit was ready, but they still needed to go over the makeup, hairstyling and a lot of other stuff.
No one said awards shows were fun to attend.
***
As the nominations for the Indie Music awards were announced, many articles popped up covering the topic and talking about the prospective winners from each category.
One of these articles was from Pop Zap magazine by a famous music critic Johnny Greyfield.
In the article, he talked in detail about the nominations for the IMA this year and how it was much more than a simple award show for artists that are good but not as popular as they should be.
[Last night, the nominations for Indie Music awards were announced, and after going through them, I couldn't help but wonder if it was going to be just another meet and greet for the artists.
Especially because in recent years, many artists think these awards don't really matter because they are fixed. But in my opinion, maybe that's true for popular awards like Grammys, but the reality is entirely different for Indie Music Awards.
It's easy to see that if you look at the list of winners in the last year.
4 out of 12 of the singers who won in big categories went on to sign big record labels and finally break into the mainstream. But unfortunately, some of those didn't still manage to earn huge on their albums.
I'm saying here that the Indie Music awards give a platform to people who don't have the resources to truly hit it big. Although it's hard to bet on it, it's undeniable that these awards sometimes become the first stage for an artist who would go on to do some big things worldwide.
Take Little Shawn, for instance, he was a practically unknown rapper before his performance at the Indie Music Awards. He got a record label deal and now is on the verge of breaking into 20 million subscribers on MeTube, alongside several awards.
Like that, there are several cases.
Now, let's look at the nominations for this year. The band Infinity got six nominations, the most out of any, including best album and most popular Artist of the year.
No one would be surprised if they won most of the major categories. But they are already pretty famous and have also won awards like this in previous years.
The new and exciting artists are mainly in the Rising star of the year category.
There are four nominations for this. A rapper called 'Mach', a band called 'Moth to a fire', a girl duo named 'Duology', and Aiden Silvereye, who came out of nowhere this year to produce great songs.
All these musicians are great in their own right, but it would be pretty interesting to see who would win. Each has excellent songs and a good fanbase, so the focus naturally shifts to the judges.
Whoever wins this would surely be in the eyes of a lot of people and at the same, maybe, the winner of this category would go on to be the next big artist from America...]
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