You, too, can belt out the next big hit

If the monopoly of Bollywood music, outrageous rents for live gigs and commerce-driven radio and TV stations have thwarted your ambitions for popularising your brand of music, then Next Top Hit (NTH), an online global music platform, bears good tidings, reports Purva Mehra.

If the monopoly of Bollywood music, outrageous rents for live gigs and commerce-driven radio and TV stations have thwarted your ambitions for popularising your brand of music, then Next Top Hit (NTH), an online global music platform, bears good tidings.

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Artists from all genres can submit their music for public viewing to the website www.nexttophit.com, for free.

The artist with the maximum number of votes will be awarded a five-nation world tour worth $200,000 (Rs 1 crore) and the title of the next music superstar.

“The competition is a catalyst to drive content,” said Nathan Battle, founder, NTH, from Brisbane, Australia, who’s in Mumbai looking for content. “Since the music industry is riding the digital wave, we conceived of this mobile and online platform for jumpstarting careers in music.”

The website has started accepting content and will be officially launched on July 1.

While websites such as MySpace.com and YouTube.com also host artist content, NTH has a provision for artists to monetise their work. “While previews are free, there is a fee for downloading songs,” said John Burgess, NTH’s chief technology officer. “The fee is set by the artists while uploading their music and the revenue is shared by the website and the artist in real time, which is far better than waiting months for a royalty cheque.”