Westlake Village, CA (Top40 Charts/ Guitar Center) - Continuing its support of aspiring artists, Guitar Center (www.guitarcenter.com), the world's largest musical instrument retailer, today announced Guitar Center's Your Next Record with
Keith Urban - the second installment of a one-of-its-kind, unsigned artist competition that provides emerging artists the chance to win career-altering opportunities. The winning artist in this competition will earn the opportunity to record a 3-song EP with a top producer and have three-time Grammy Award winning singer, songwriter, guitarist, and performer Keith Urban, also a two-time 2010 CMA nominee, appear on the winning artists' single.
"I'm always ready to do whatever it takes to give aspiring musicians the chance to do what they love," said Urban. "I think we've all heard someone whose musical talents blow us away and sometimes all that stands between their garage and an arena is a chance. Opportunity. That's what 'Guitar Center's Your Next Record' is all about."
Starting today through November 30th, unsigned artists across the United States are invited to submit their music at YourNextRecord.com for a chance to win the aforementioned prize package, which includes:
A 3-song EP with a top producer
Keith Urban to appear on a recording with the winning band
$10,000 Guitar Center shopping spree
$10,000 in new gear and endorsement deals from Gibson, D'Addario, Planet Waves, and Evans
An Opening slot on a Keith Urban show
A feature of the band's single on iTunes
A Guitar Center Presents Your Next Record with Keith Urban teaser can be viewed here at https://www.youtube.com/user/GuitarCenterTV?feature=mhum
The opportunity coincides with the release of Urban's new, highly anticipated CD Get Closer, which comes out on Tuesday, November 16th. It's first single, "Put You In Song" has just been released and marks one of Urban's highest debuting singles of his career. Get Closer follows Urban's platinum selling, Billboard Top 200 and Country Album Chart No 1 Defying Gravity, which produced two No 1 singles including "Only You Can Love Me This Way" and "Sweet Thing", for which Urban won his third Grammy Award (Best Male Country Vocal Performance). Urban is also a two-time 2010 CMA nominee - Entertainer and Best Male Vocalist of the Year.
Guitar Center commissioned the leading online music company for unsigned bands, OurStage.com, adopting its proprietary competition management technology, to collect and present each music artist's submissions and allow music fans to rank them using OurStage.com's fan judging software, ensuring that the best artists rise to the top. In addition, all artists will be armed with digital tools to help encourage their fans to judge their submissions as well as other great, unsigned artists. After the 8-week submission and judging period, the top 20 artists will be personally evaluated by Keith Urban, with one winner selected personally by him.
Guitar Center Presents Your Next Record with Keith Urban is just one of many Guitar Center initiatives created to foster growth and success within the music community. In addition to the first edition of this competition, Your Next Record with Slash, Guitar Center also provides its annual King of the Blues, Drum-Off and On-Stage competitions to emerging musicians, among others. Guitar Center's King of the Blues is a nationwide amateur guitar skill competition with the goal of finding the next great undiscovered blues guitar player. Drum-Off is an annual drumming competition that, now in its 21st year, has been a launching pad for many drummers, including Cora Coleman-Dunham and Tony Royster Jr, two Drum-Off winners who have gone on to become highly acclaimed professional drummers (with Prince and Jay Z respectively). Guitar Center On-Stage is a musical competition judged by Motley Crue. The winning band, The Last Vegas, has since gone on to open for Motley Crue on tour and subsequently topped iTunes critics' 2009 "Rock Singles of the Year List" with their hit single "I'm Bad."
