Buss with the BBC

Are you a MUSICAL PIONEER? Want millions of people AROUND THE WORLD to hear your song? Dream of performing YOUR MUSIC alongside some of the biggest names in the industry to an AUDIENCE OF MIILIONS around the globe?

The BBC World Service is launching a massive global music contest to find the best new sounds from around the world.

JUST TWO RULES: YOU MUST BE UNSIGNED AND YOU MUST PERFORM YOUR OWN ORIGINAL MUSIC.

Anyone can apply and it's totally free from big labels and the mainstream music industry - we want to find the bold and brilliant.

If you think this is you or you know someone who might fit the bill - GET INVOLVED and SPREAD THE WORD.


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PRESS RELEASE

29 October 2007

BBC global music talent search competition comes to Jamaica

BBC World Service and BBC World Television are looking for the future of music in a major global music talent search - THE NEXT BIG THING 2007. We are scouring the world looking for exciting new music, bands and performers who will shape the future.

The Next Big Thing 2007 touches down in Kingston Jamaica on Saturday 3 November, inviting all bands and artists to come down and meet the Next Big Thing team and to hand over a CD or DVD of their music. This is not an audition and there will be no performances but there is a chance to be interviewed for the BBC. Musicians can also enter online at www.bbcworldservice.com/nextbigthing2007

The Next Big Thing 2007 in Jamaica - in association with Radio Jamaica and Television Jamaica - takes place between 10am and 6pm at:

The Gazebo at the Ashanti Oasis Restaurant
Hope Gardens
Hope Road
Kingston

Anyone can enter The Next Big Thing 2007 and it is completely free and unmediated. Forget the big labels and mainstream music business, we're looking for boldness and brilliance - musical pioneers who really deserve attention.

Entries last year came from thousands of musicians from over 40 countries and with BBC World Service, the biggest international broadcaster in the world with an audience of 183 million listeners in 33 languages worldwide, the 2007 competition will be the biggest yet.

This year BBC World Service will be joined by BBC World Television in the search for the Next Big Thing to expose the new and establish a platform for musicians to create and perform original music.

Last year's winner, Silva, went on to have a number one hit in her home country Armenia and played the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles.

Geoff Travis founder of Rough Trade who signed The Smiths, Travis, The Strokes and many more, said on behalf of last year's judges, "We are very glad to have been asked by the BBC to be a part of this. We are astonished at the standard of the entries, we are very very pleasantly surprised." Head of the jury, music producer William Orbit, enjoyed the competition so much that he is returning in 2007.

As well as taking entries via our online site, BBC World Service will be out on the road, with local events in Mumbai - India, Kingston – Jamaica, Dar es Salaam - Tanzania and Istanbul – Turkey.

The BBC have selected a panel of international music experts including Caspar Llewellyn-Smith, editor of the Observer Music Monthly; Will Hodgkinson, music journalist for Mojo and the Guardian; and Paul Stokes, Features Editor, NME to help choose 5 finalists.

There are just two rules: artists must be unsigned and perform their own original material.
Entries close on 18 November 2007, and finalists will perform for an all-star jury in London in December. One act will be crowned THE NEXT BIG THING 2007 and perform to a live audience of 3000 people at London's O2 stadium to celebrate BBC World Service's 75th Anniversary in December, alongside some of the most exciting names in