It seems that brands are literally all at it. It’s now Intel’s turn to go down the unsigned route with their ‘Intel studio‘ initiative. But unlike the myriad of other ‘battle of the bands’ competitions around at the minute does it offer anything new or different? Our intrepid citizen reports…

Intel is the latest brand tempted to follow down the well-worn route of the ‘battle of the bands’ style contest. And the starting point for each artist is another tried and tested facsimile of Myspace, with the bands having a place to post up their music and provide a bit of information about themselves. Then the sites users (hereafter known as the ‘fans’) get to vote on who gets through to the next round, but just in case ‘the fans’ don’t pick anyone who’s any good the judges also get to pick a ‘wild card’. The sites users (the fans) and the judges both get to pick artists who will go through to the preliminary finals.  If you are lucky you get to play the preliminaries in Camden (no regional heats for this competition, so don’t bother unless you are prepared to make your own way to the capital, and bring your fans along with you) alongside another 13 acts. However, you do get a ’signed’ act to play alongside, no-doubt ensuring that you at least have an audience to play to!

Currently over a thousand bands have entered the competition, although very few ‘fans’ seem to be interested enough to cast their vote widely (well that’s a surprise then). Winners of the first round Killing Cupid have amassed almost 500 votes, but they are in a distinct minority. Most of the artists on the site are lucky to have got one vote (no-doubt their mother’s love them), while a large number have received no votes at all (no-one loves them!). Let’s get this straight. Success has nothing to do with music ‘fans’ like you and me. I’m not sure that there will too how many music ‘fans’ visiting the site and checking out the talent. For most of us hardened music nuts there’s just too much signed music around to listen to. And with tens of thousands of unsigned acts already on Myspace, why make the effort? As our very own Paul Martin has pointed out previously, even the professionals tend to stay well away from these things. So who is doing the voting? Well I suspect this is about the power of marketing, and the ability of a few of the entrants to mobilise each and every last Myspace friend (Killing Cupid have almost 900), as well as getting everyone you know with a computer (including workmates and college buddies) to cast their votes for you. So maybe this should be an award for marketing prowess, but talent? Well let’s leave that to the judges shall we…

The grand finals will take place Proud Galleries in Camden in December, and each band will get to play for a total of six (yes 6) minutes. The judges on the night include:

• an NME scribe
• the Dirty Pretty Thing’s Carl Barat
• a one time producer of the Manic Street Preachers and Ocean Colour Scene
• a former NME scribe who used to manage Razorlight
• and the boss of the KIDS label (home to The Wombats, The Whip and iLiKETRAiNS), who will also have the delight of putting out the first single by the lucky winners.

All of which suggest that unless you are a ‘generic’ indie guitar band, your chances of winning could be somewhat limited, even though a few brave Hip Hop, RnB and Pop acts have entered.

And for the lucky overall winner, the prize is…

• A six-month record contract i.e. one single release (long-term commitment then!)
• The chance to work with a top industry producer and manager for ONE day each (that’s generous!)
• The promotion to give you a real shot at making it - full club promotion, radio promotion and PR for your first single (well you are hardly going to put out a record and not promote it, heavens above you might lose money…oh I forgot singles don’t make money these day, oh well).

citizensound says:

So as ever what’s the likelihood of brand, artists and fans getting something out of this? I’m not if Intel will engender itself to too many young artists who once again get nothing of any real value to show for taking part. While these sort of competitions seem to have little impact on the music-buying public (or should that be music file-sharing public?) for the brand to see any real return on investment. When it comes to the artists, well at least one band will get their chance to win 30 seconds of fame and have a single to show for it (shame that Woolies don’t sell them anymore)…and as always with these sort of Battle Of The Bands events, music fans will no-doubt left feeling a bit nonplussed by the whole event…