"DESTINATION" and "DIGITAL EARTH" win the LET'S GET A GENUINE UNSIGNED BAND INTO THE CHARTS Contest

Contact for "Let's Get a Genuine Unsigned Band into the Charts”:
Oliver Tooley
(0)20 8926 0857
oliver.tooley@ntlworld.com
http://www.facebook.com/unsigned
Excerpts of songs from all entrants: http://www.french4tots.co.uk/unsignedbands/
Complete songs of the semi-finalists:
http://www.french4tots.co.uk/unsignedbands/index3.html


Two artists hope Facebook group members will buy MP3 singles--Destination's "If I Ruled The World" and Digital Earth's "Charlatan Old Boy."

There are two bands that won the LET'S GET A GENUINE UNSIGNED BAND INTO THE CHARTS contest, and therefore the contest's organizers are spreading the word to have its Facebook group members buy the group's digital singles. Both are, broadly speaking, pop/dance acts: Destination and Digital Earth.

As both Destination and Digital Earth were very close with votes--even swamping the lead throughout finals week, they checked with their fans to see how they felt about both being the winning acts. It was agreed to try and get two unsigned bands into the chart instead of one. Group members and the extended social network will all be buying the singles from Sunday 28th Feb to Saturday 6th March, in the hope of entering the top 40 singles charts on the 7th of March.

Organizer Oliver Tooley started the group on 1st January this year thinking that by summer he might have enough members to achieve the 4,000 - 5,000 sales needed to get a top 40 hit in an average week. In four weeks he had over 5,000 members and over three hours of song samples to consider from six different countries and every possible genre. A series of stages reduced over 100 bands down to just ten of which Destination and Digital Earth were clear leaders from start to finish.

Synthpop duo "Destination" are singer, Bridget Gray, from Aberdeen Scotland and synth maestro, Glynn Jaine, from Huddersfield who collaborate over the internet on songwriting. Despite having less than 300 fans on Facebook they managed nearly 1,000 votes in the contest, which strongly suggests people were listening to the music and voting for the song "If I Ruled The World" and not giving a partisan vote for a particular band.

Digital Earth combine many genres seamlessly, touching on jazz, soul, funk and hip hop. They also polled more than twice their Facebook fanbase for their song "Charlatan Old Boy" once again proving that people were voting for the music and not their mates.

The group has already started taking nominations for the next competition but Oliver says, "Everyone was asked when they joined the group to promise to buy the winning single. If they keep that promise then we will succeed. If they don't then the group will die, I will have to give up on the next contest, and big business will retain total control over what you listen to."