Published: Friday - December 21, 2007
Words by Donny Goines
Blog by Donny Goines (Photo: Don Michaels)
Last week my single aired on Power 105...
During Ed Lover's show (one of the biggest stations in New York, let alone the country) and needless to say, it was one of the biggest achievements of my career thus far. Why did they play the record? I entered it into a contest called "Record deal or No Deal" where they pick one record every Monday from an unsigned artist to play and the audience votes if they feel they deserve a deal or not. 65% voted yes.
Now I have a love/hate relationship with contests. Anyone who is familiar with me and my music knows about the situation I had last year with The Source magazine (do your research if you don't), but needless to say that contests are another avenue unsigned artists can use to come up. With any luck who knows, you might actually. I personally have won a few contests related to music ($5,000, an article, airplay, etc.) and sometimes when your on the bottom you have to try your luck and roll the dice. Sometimes it pays off, sometimes it doesn't.
There are always several contest to enter, but which ones should you choose? It depends I guess. Me personally I tend to avoid contests where I have to pay some sort of fee (almost 99% of the time, but of course every situation is different and should be analyzed accordingly). The way I see it is, why would I pay to enter a contest when the reason I'm entering in the first place is because I'm lacking something (usually money) and the purpose is to come up? If I'm gonna spend any sort of money it damn sure won't be on any contests. One more thing I stay away from is contests that will make me look foolish and might take me out of my character. I remember somebody once offered me a spot on a upcoming reality show that will air on NBC in '08 and I turned it down. You know why? Once you lose your respect, it's rare that you get it back and I will never compromise what I stand for, if you have integrity you would do the same.
Now lets talk about some contests you SHOULD enter. First off, any contests that doesn't cost you any money, time or effort is ALWAYS a go. What do you have to lose? Another type of contest musicians should enter are those ones that are based on talent. Many sites out there (MusicNation.com is a good example) always have contests and you just have to do your research sometimes to find them. Also legitimate mail-ins and questionnaires contests are pretty good sometimes (just expect a lot of junk mail in the near future, lol) The bottomline is contests should definitely be a utilized tool on your come up.
Although I didn't actually hear my record on the station (others notified me) I still felt very happy because not many people can say there record was played on a station of that magnitude, even if it was only one time. Just imagine if I would have never entered though?
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