Music inundates pop culture, and artists willing to take risks — a la foam fingers (Miley Cyrus) and controversial music videos (Robin Thicke) — or somehow shutting out the lights at the Super Bowl (ahem, Beyonce) are masters at garnering attention. And whether it's a live performance at the VMAs or a viral music video, when millennials see something new, different and absurd, they tweet, share, comment and endlessly talk about it on social media.
In 2013, Beyonce's Super Bowl performance spurred 268,000 tweets per minute, Miley Cyrus and Robin Thicke's performance at the VMAs rang up 306,000 tweets per minute and the entirely of the American Music Awards, in which Ariana Grande walked away with the most mentions (231,966), saw more than 7.6 million tweets.
Check out the infographic below to see how 2013's biggest music events, performances and OMG moments stacked up on social media and in search queries.
Infographic produced by Mashable; thumbnail image: Flickr, JD Hancock