Asher Roth is nominated at the mtvU Woodie Awards, which air tonight on the MTV family of networks.
While a music awards show typically celebrates and honors world-renowned superstars, the mtvU Woodie Awards ceremony breaks the usual mold.
Rather than choosing winners solely based on how many records a group sold or how many times their single traveled through the radio waves in the past year, the Woodies allow college students across the country to choose winners.
“Artists tend to break in college campuses first and pull up bigger and bigger from there,” said Eric Conte, executive producer of the 2009 Woodie Awards, in a conference call with The Diamondback. “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 explained the hands-off approach mtvU takes to ensure college students have primary control over the awards.
“Our job is to basically step back with the college audience and let them tell us who makes the most sense — who really deserves and earned a Woodie this year,” he said.
An eclectic mix of artists received nominations for a Woodie Award thanks to mtvU’s strong variety of award categories, including the Left Field Woodie, which is reserved for seemingly unclassifiable artists. Other categories focus on performance, video and general achievement with the campus crowd.
Matt & Kim, nominees for the Best Video Woodie, epitomize Conte’s criteria. Despite being relatively unknown in mainstream circles, the indie duo made a huge splash with the college crowd and the Internet community last year. Their video for the song “Lessons Learned,” which took a not-so-bashful approach to public appearances and consisted of the two walking naked through Times Square, was an obvious choice for a Woodie nomination, proving quality can be achieved without strong financial support.
“Sometimes we have a smaller budget than other people,” said Matt Johnson of Matt & Kim. “That kind of forces you to think of what can you do with only a little bit of money that could be exciting or interesting for three-and-a-half minutes.”
While most would not immediately land on running through a landmark attraction naked, the duo’s brave idea clearly caught the attention of the student community.
Though the Woodie Awards ceremony has plenty of up-and-coming acts among its nominees, the ceremony also features some mainstream names.
The platinum-selling electronic-based pop group 3OH!3 was nominated for the Performing Woodie Award. After spending the last two summers on Vans’ Warped Tour refining their live performances, the Boulder, Colo., pair’s animated live show did not go unnoticed by students.
“What we try to do with our shows is definitely bring an energy and go crazy every time we have a show,” said vocalist Nathaniel Motte. “[We] also try to have our shows be pretty inclusive so that it’s fun for everyone. The crowd whips us up into a frenzy in what we do. Hopefully, we do the same to the crowds.”
The duo discovered a lot about themselves and their live show this past summer.
“When you’re putting on a show at 11:30 in the morning, you have to put on a show when all of our kids are usually sleeping,” said fellow vocalist Sean Foreman. “You just have to put that much more energy into it, and I think we learned a lot from it.”
Foreman explained the extent of energy expended during their shows and said he is not exactly able to be a couch potato on the off days because of the show’s wild nature.
“On my off time, I’d like to stay in shape,” he said. “I’d like to go for a run and stuff like that because I know these shows [are] going to be so grueling.”
Despite the aforementioned act generating an impressive amount of campus buzz, no other artist stayed on the tip of the tongues — and on iPod repeat — of college students in 2009 than Asher Roth. The rapper was nominated for Woodie of the Year after creating the quintessential college party song of the year in “I Love College.”
Not making any mistake about his intended audience, Roth’s nomination is rather fitting as he perfectly matches up with the Woodie’s core listeners. Despite his rapid rise in popularity, Roth is determined to stay relevant in years to come.
“[I] don’t want to be the one hit wonder obviously,” Roth said. “You just kind of continue to just trust your gut and make music that feels good and feels right to you.”
Even though Roth’s focus on his debut was on partying, he seems ready to grow both as a person and an artist.
“It’s not only going to be about partying and everything like that,” Roth explained. “People graduate, people grow up, people become young women or young men. So hopefully that allows you to grow up with me. That’s what I’m going to do and whatever happens happens.”
The 2009 mtvU Woodie Awards air tonight at 10 p.m. on MTV, MTV2, mtvU and Palladia.
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