"MtvU Woodie Awards" to be held in New York City

On Nov. 18 the sixth annual MtvU Woodie Awards will be in New York City. This music award show is not your typical award show, where the winning artists are determined solely by the audience and voters.

Aimed towards college students, the MtvU Woodie Awards creator Eric Conte explained that, "People always kind of ask me, what are the Woodie Awards, and what does mtvU have to do the Woodie Awards? We think it's a way for us to call our artists that are having a huge impact in college campuses and respond to the attention that the artists are getting from the college audience."

"We've always looked [to] the college audience as a crystal ball as far as music prediction. Artists tend to break in college campuses first and pull up bigger and bigger from there. So, the Woodies are a way to promote new music, and give some love for the way these artists are doing what they do and making music that the audience loves every day," Conte said.

From categories like Woodie of the Year to the Breaking Woodie, the award show highlights music artists and their impact on college campuses nation wide. College students cannot only help vote on the winners, but they are also able to be winners themselves.

Two awards in particular, the College Radio Woodie and Best Music On Camps (BMOC) Woodie allow college students to participate and be eligible to win an award as well. The College Radio Woodie is given to the college radio station with the most winning votes.

"There are 300 radio stations in the initial round and the final rounds are all fan-voted. We step back from the process and say ‘We're not going to decide.' The audience will decide for us," Conte said.

The BMOC Woodie is another award where college students are given the opportunity to showcase their musical talents. By gaining exposure on Bestmusiconcampus.com, student artists are able to network their music and have audiences vote to determine the BMOC Woodie award winner.

Celebrating the work of artists both mainstream and indie, nominees for this year's Woodies range from new hip-hop favorite Drake and rapper Wale to indie favorites like bands Passion Pit and Grizzly Bear.

Also up for nomination are the indie band Matt and Kim. Their music video for "Lessons Learned," features the twosome as "two tourists walking through Times Square dressed inappropriately for the weather," as Matt Johnson said. The video follows Matt and Kim as they walk through Times Square and shed their clothing, piece-by-piece leaving them ultimately in the nude, or "inappropriately dressed," in one of the busiest areas in all of New York.

"I came up with this idea for this video and I basically had to beg Kim to shoot it. She did not want to," Johnson said. It appears that Johnson's begging paid off because not only is the video well executed but it won the Video Music Award for Best Break-Out Video and is now up for the Best Video Woodie.

The dynamic duo will be one of the many live performances on Nov. 18. Also performing that evening is the collaborative band The Dead Weather, featuring members of The White Stripes, Queens of the Stone Age, The Raconteurs and The Kills. Famed band Death Cab For Cutie will be performing as well, playing "Meet Me On The Equinox," their recently featured song in the anticipated second film of the Twilight Saga, New Moon.

Newcomers 3OH!3 are up against the likes of music veterans Green Day and the ever eclectic Animal Collective for the Performing Woodie, highlighting those who have toured nonstop and put on countless amazing live performances.

"I think, what we try to do with our shows is definitely bring an energy and go crazy every time we have a show [and] have our shows be pretty inclusive so that it's fun for everyone and you don't just go to watch us play or whatever. And it's more like an inclusive thing and everyone is getting crazy together," said 3OH!3 member Nathaniel Motte.

The man who has everyone loving college, hip-hop artist Asher Roth is up for one of the biggest awards of the night, Woodie of the Year. Up against artists like newcomer Drake and indie favorites MGMT, Roth believes that "they all work really hard and make good music. It's good to see that we're recognized."

Performing at the 2008 Woodie Awards, it has been a long journey to get to where Roth is today. "Being nominated for Woodie of the Year, it's really kind of remarkable to see and step back and watch it all happen," Roth said.

When asked about college, "it's really the most innocent [time], finding yourself, you're really clueless, you really start to realize that you don't know anything. That kind of irresponsibility and innocence in life is really something to enjoy. And I hope everybody takes the opportunity to kind of spend some time with themselves and wild out, step outside their comfort zone and college is really a perfect time for that. So you know, that's really the honest answer, of why I love college," Roth said.

Full of amazing artists, live performances, and a guarantee of a good time, The MtvU Woodie Awards will be full of fun and surprises.

"The Woodie Award is a different animal entirely in that it's a celebration of the college audience and the artist that makes the music they live their lives to on a daily basis," Conte said.

"It's a big party and ultimately it's a celebration of music."