Sensible Netnonsense

Fighting for Pinoy independent music

Nov 4, 2009 08:55

In case you haven't heard yet, yes, we are budding rock stars. At least, we think so...

No, we do not have our own record deal yet, nor do we have our own Web site, t-shirts and faces plastered on MTV. But we do have groupies, albeit three or four, and we do have a MySpace and Facebook page. I guess that's a start. And yes, we have aspirations of hitting it big.

Enter MTV Emerge, a new Web site aimed at helping local independent music artists get a chance at a record deal. The site, made in partnership with Splntr.com, features a boatload of original content in the form of music and videos from aspiring artists in and around the Philippines. The whole purpose of the site is to let Pinoy Black Eyed Peas member Apl.de.ap's record label, Jeepney Music, award sven recording contracts to the most enthusiastic and deserving artists in the local independent music scene today.

Now, isn't that something to look forward to? Here's an excerpt from the About page:

MTV Emerge is a platform for unsigned music talent in the Philippines to showcase their work and to be given an opportunity to win a one-year recording contract with Jeepney Music.

Collaborating with the Department of Tourism (DOT) and Jeepney Music, MTV Emerge not only aims to hunt for the hottest unsigned music talent from all genres of music (indie, rock, hip hop, R&B, metal, solo artists, DJs, etc.), it is also an online music community where new music from the Philippines can be discovered.

Participants from any music genre are encouraged to register and upload their profiles, photos and original music on the MTV Emerge site during the contest submission period. All entries will go through a public voting process, after which a total of seven winners will be selected from the top entries on November 20 by a panel of judges, including Apl.de.Ap, founder of Jeepney Music and a Black Eyed Peas member.

I am just a bit concerned with the public voting process, though, because as of yesterday, the top most voted song by a band (which was uploaded only on November 1) already had 500+ votes, while today, it had over 1.5K votes. Checking the site voting process, one user can actually vote up to 10 times per day (or per cookie), each vote at an interval of 5 minutes.

Technically speaking, if you spend nearly an hour each day just voting, you can actually rack up a ton of votes already simply on your own. I'm not really sure how that can be a fair judge of who becomes the top in the public voting process because I've seen first-hand how online voters can find ways to dupe the system.

But I'm not complaining because our band has only around 100+ votes. I'm just saying that not everyone who has talent can get another chance like this, and it would be a crying shame if they were brought down on a technicality (though in fairness to the screenshot I took above, the band that was playing was, indeed, pretty damn good)!

So, yes, this is my call to the site developers, the same guys who put together that fabulous Awesome Philippines campaign. If they can fix the voting and make it fair, then little guys like us--the real players in the independent music scene--may just have a shot at that one-year recording deal. Who knows? ^_^

I guess I'd like to end my little post by quoting Chazz (Brendan Fraser) on that silly rock satire movie Airheads: "Do you know what it's like to be on the bill and to play for 15 minutes and the only people there to see you are the other bands and their girlfriends? Don't talk to me about Rock 'n' Roll! I'm out there in the clubs and on the streets and I'm living it! I AM Rock and Roll!"

Rawk awn! ^_^

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