Vote For Sam Smith, Charli XCX, J. Cole And More: The 2015 mtvU Woodies Nominees Are Here
Get your voting fingers ready, music fiends: The 2015 mtvU Woodies Awards are coming at you, and there are tons of your favorite (and soon-to-be-favorite) acts up for those wooden trophies. Do the names Sam Smith, FKA twigs and Charli XCX ring any bells? Yup, those dudes are among the nominees -- and they need YOU to help them take home the glory.
For the first time ever, MTV will air all the action LIVE starting at 9 p.m. ET on Friday, March 20, from the SXSW Music Festival in Austin, Texas. That's 60 minutes of performances, awards and Texas-fried fun.
Voting starts TODAY (Feb. 18) at Woodies.MTV.com and runs through March 10, and we're guessing right about now you're itching to see who's up for all those fabulous prizes.
Well, we won't make you wait any longer. The biggest award of the night, Woodie of the Year, sees Grammy winner Sam Smith facing off against Charli XCX, J. Cole, Run the Jewels, Porter Robinson and FKA twigs. In our up-and-coming category, Artist To Watch, we've got Rae Sremmurd, Raury, MisterWives, Kygo and James Bay.
On the visual side, the Best Video Woodie finds FKA twig's "Pendulum" pitted against Childish Gambino's “Sober,” Beyoncé's “7/11,” Flying Lotus and Kendrick Lamar's “Never Catch Me," Bad Suns' “Salt," and Vic Mensa's “Down On My Luck.”
And that's only a sampling of the awesome awards slated for March 20 -- several acts garnered multiple nominations, including Drake, Sia, Sam Smith, Ed Sheeran, FKA twigs and Childish Gambino.
Check out the full list of nominees below, and get ready to VOTE:
Woodie Of The Year (Artist of the Year)
· J. Cole
· Sam Smith
· Charli XCX
· Run the Jewels
· Porter Robinson
· FKA twigs
Artist to Watch Woodie (Best Emerging Artist)
· Years & Years
· Rae Sremmurd
· Raury
· MisterWives
· Kygo
· James Bay
Best Video Woodie (Best Video of the Year)
· FKA twigs – “Pendulum”
· Childish Gambino – “Sober”
· Beyoncé – “7/11”
· Flying Lotus featuring Kendrick Lamar – “Never Catch Me”
· Bad Suns – “Salt”
· Vic Mensa – “Down On My Luck”
Cover Woodie (Best Cover Song)
· Ed Sheeran, Sia, and Grouplove covering Beyoncé – “Drunk In Love”
· Kiesza covering Hozier – “Take Me To Church”
· Lorde covering Jeremih – “Don't Tell Em”
· Charli XCX covering Taylor Swift – “Shake It Off”
· Taylor Swift covering Vance Joy – “Riptide”
· Sam Smith covering Whitney Houston – “How Will I Know”
Next Level Performance Woodie (Finding New Ways to Reach Audiences)
· Drake and Lil Wayne – created an app that allowed the audience to decide who performed first on their joint tour.
· Childish Gambino – created an app that allowed users to display messages onto his tour stage.
· Big Data – used social media during their performances to acknowledge specific audience members in real time in front of the entire crowd.
· Sia – performed in several TV appearances without showing her face by utilizing performance artists and actors to serve as a proxy for her.
· Skrillex – performed Bonnaroo SuperJam session fusing EDM and live instrumentation with numerous surprise guests.
Co-Sign Woodie (Best Collaboration Between Artists)
· Alesso featuring Tove Lo – “Heroes (We Could Be)”
· Hoodie Allen featuring Ed Sheeran – “All About It”
· Jack Ü featuring Kiesza – “Take Ü”
· Fences featuring Macklemore & Ryan Lewis – “Arrows”
· iLoveMakonnen featuring Drake – “Tuesday”
· Eminem featuring Dej Loaf – “Detroit vs. Everybody”