SONG CONTEST BLOG

Next week, we’re launching our proprietary user management system.  Big words for a small organization!

Think of it as your personal song contest and critique status manager and editor, accessible by clicking on My Account (at the top right of every page on our site).

What is a Status?

We assign a status to your contest submission or critique the second your transaction is complete.  For contests, your status is Received until the contest deadline.  After the deadline, it’s In Review for up to 30 days.  Within 30 days, at the point that the judges have made their final selections, you receive a final status: Not Selected, Runner Up, Finalist or Winner.

With critiques, it’s simpler.  As soon as you purchase your critique, your entry is In Review.  When the reviewer has completed the critique (within 14 days), the status is Complete.

Why is Status important?

1. So you can self-edit your entries.

For example, if you had trouble uploading your song file, wish to make changes to your lyric or even want to substitute your entire contest submission, as long as your status is Received, you can!  And you can do it in just a couple of clicks by logging into your account.

2. So you can keep a record of your important communications with us.

When we assign your final status (Not Selected, Runner Up, Finalist or Winner) or complete your critique, we notify you via email.  As of next week, these emails will be saved in your account, along with every single detail associated with your contest entry or critique.

How do I access these details?

By clicking on Details on the right of each contest or critique item in your account!

If a final status has been assigned to your contest entry (Not Selected, Runner Up, Finalist or Winner) you can click on that to view the email that was sent to you, by whom and when.

Why did we go to the trouble?

1. So you have total control over and insight into the service that you are paying us for.

2. So you no longer need to depend on emails from us.  We will continue sending them, you can be sure of that, but all the information you can possibly wish to have about your contest entry or critique will be at your fingertips.

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I’m delighted to announce that Godin Guitars is now a proud sponsor of The Singer/Songwriter Awards, our most prominent and prestigious music contest.  The good people at Godin have generously reserved six guitars from their distinguished 5th Avenue line to be awarded to a select group of contest winners.  Please show your support for Godin by visiting their website and trying the 5th Avenue and 5th Avenue Kingpin models at a dealer near you.

We Are Listening have teamed up with StudioPros.com for the Lyric Writer Awards, a lyric writing contest with a 360-degree approach to turning the winners’ lyrics into publishable, radio-ready soundtracks.  Learn more…

StudioPros.com brings the studio recording experience, production value, and LA’s finest session musicians and audio professionals to your home at a price you can afford. From quick songwriter demos to radio-ready masters, the entire tracking, mixing, and mastering schedule is managed by you, online and in real-time, from the comfort of your desktop. The StudioPros.com team comprises of session players who have performed with Seal, Jessica Simpson, Miley Cyrus, Jesse McCartney, among others, and Grammy nominated mixing engineers credited by Wyclef Jean, Leona Lewis, Kelly Clarkson, OneRepublic, Beyonce, and more.

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Andrew Allen

Since the release of his debut album, “The Living Room Sessions”, in April 2008, Andrew Allen has toured and played live in more than 200 venues throughout Western Canada and the UK, secured airtime on the UK’s BBC Radio 1 as well as on Canada’s own CBC radio, and, most recently, won Round 1 of The 2009 Singer/Songwriter Awards from We Are Listening.  His winning entry, “Not Loving You”, draws striking resemblance to “I’m Yours” by Jason Mraz, while other tracks from his setlist gravitate toward the sound and songwriting style of Maroon 5, John Mayer and Jack Johnson.  Congratulations Andrew, we look forward to working with you!

Andrew Allen on MySpace

Los Angeles native, Alana Grace, was selected as the winner of Round 6 of The 2008 Singer/Songwriter Awards songwriting contest by We Are Listening’s panel of judges last month.  Having spent most of her childhood in Nashville, today she splits her time between the two cities and just completed a five month recording session in LA with producers Don Gilmore (Linkin Park, Good Charlotte, Eve 6) and John Fields (Switchfoot, Pink, Andrew WK).  She is now gearing up to promote the concerted musical effort: her debut album titled “Break the Silence” from which her winning song, “Words Escape Me”, was selected.  The album was mixed by industry legends Bob Clearmountain (The Rolling Stones, The Cure, Aerosmith) and Chris Lord-Alge (Green Day, Hoobastank, Alanis Morissette).

Visit Alana at www.alanagrace.com

Nashville-based finger-picking singer/songwriter, Chris Volpe, wins Round 4 of the 2008 Lyric Writer Awards.  This is not Volpe’s first success story with We Are Listening.  In 2006, he won The Singer/Songwriter Awards song contest and spent a weekend with us in London recording his selected song, “Shoes”, at Sphere Studios in South London with Producer, Steve Williams.  “Shipwrecked”, Volpe’s debut studio album, will be in hand within a week and slated for distribution shortly after.

Oren Lavie, Runner Up in We Are Listening’s 2007 Singer/Songwriter Awards, has achieved rare success on YouTube with his stop-motion music video, “Her Morning Elegance”. To date, the clip has garnered over 1.6 million views. Oren is currently based in LA and has a gig tonight at local Los Angelian venue, Largo, with vocal support from my good friends at Fonogenic Studios.

In an effort to establish We Are Listening’s music contest price structure in relation to other music contest providers in the market, I did a little research to determine the range in entry fees these various companies are charging.  It would be interesting to analyze the cost-to-return ratio also (i.e. what a music contest offers as a prize and whether it’s proportional to the entry fee) but I think I’ll leave that for another post.  Here’s what I found:

$45 – Durango Song Contest
$35 – International Songwriting competition
$35 – USA Songwriting Competition
$30 – Billboard World Song Contest
$30 – John Lennon Songwriting Contest
$30 – Great American Song Contest
$30 – UK Songwriting Contest
$30 – We Are Listening
$28 – Unisong International Songwriting Contest
$25 – Life In The Years Song Contest
$20 – Annual Independent Music Awards
$20 – Cooche Music Annual Amateur Songwriting Contest
$10 – Music City Song Contest
$10 – West Coast Songwriters International Song Contest

I’m sure that I have excluded a music contest or two from the list, however, I don’t think I missed the leaders, of which We Are Listening is a proud member.  Incidentally, although I included We Are Listening’s music contest entry fee to the list as $30, it is important to stress that it represents the average music contest fee.  For instance, the Lyric Writer Awards is $20 whereas Breaking the Band is $40.

The Singer/Songwriter Awards from We Are Listening is a prestigious international songwriting contest that takes place six times a year and attracts songwriters and performing artists from across the globe.  The songwriting contest boasts a music industry panel  of the highest caliber and offers a range of songwriting, recording and marketing related prizes for unsigned and professional artists.  For lyricists, We Are Listening has developed a lyrics-only songwriting contest called the Lyric Writer Awards, the first independent songwriting contest to offer a co-writing and publishing deal, and takes place four times a year.  Songwriters that write in any language other than English have also been catered to with a world music song contest called the World of Music Awards, a songwriting contest for foreign-language and instrumental composers that reflects the rich variety of music and culture from every corner of the world.

Founded in 2004, We Are Listening provides aspiring and established artists with relevant music industry opportunities and artist development services.  In addition to its songwriting contest initiatives, We Are Listening caters to fledgling songwriters with a unique approach to music education through professional feedback and on-going evaluations.  Armed with a 37-strong panel of the music industry elite, We Are Listening is quickly becoming one of the leading independent music companies in the new music economy.

We Are Listening currently accepts entries for three international song contests: The Singer/Songwriter Awards, Lyric Writer Awards, and World of Music Awards. 

The Singer/Songwriter Awards is a song contest for songwriters writing original material with English-language lyrics in any genre.  The songs may be the product of more than one songwriter and winners have a choice of six song contest prizes, including a trip to London to record the winning song.  Participants are not required to be the performing artist on the recorded submission. 

The Lyric Writer Awards is an English-language, lyrics-only song contest in any genre.  The lyrics may be the product of more than one lyricist and winners enjoy professional publishing opportunities in the US market. 

The World of Music Awards is a world music genre song contest.  The songs are not required to contain words and, those that do, may be recorded and submitted in any language.  All entries may be the product of a songwriting team and, like The Singer/Songwriter Awards song contest, participants are not required to be the performing artist on the recorded submission.  Winners receive a fully-financed trip to world music festival, WOMEX, accompanied by one of We Are Listening’s music industry veterans.

We Are Listening also provides songwriters and performing artists with an assessment service as well as a special performance-oriented contest called Breaking the Band.  All of this and more on We Are Listening’s music contest page.