Guitar Center Presents Your Next Record With Keith Urban: A Once-in-a-Lifetime Opportunity for Unsigned Artists to Have the Three-Time Grammy Award-Winning Singer/Songwriter Appear on Their EP

WESTLAKE VILLAGE, Calif., Oct. 4 /PRNewswire/ -- Continuing its support of aspiring artists, Guitar Center (www.guitarcenter.com), the world's largest musical instrument retailer, today announced Guitar Center's Your Next Record with Keith Urban — the second installment of a one-of-its-kind, unsigned artist competition that provides emerging artists the chance to win career-altering opportunities. The winning artist in this competition will earn the opportunity to record a 3-song EP with a top producer and have three-time Grammy Award winning singer, songwriter, guitarist, and performer Keith Urban, also a two-time 2010 CMA nominee, appear on the winning artists' single.

"I'm always ready to do whatever it takes to give aspiring musicians the chance to do what they love," said Urban.  "I think we've all heard someone whose musical talents blow us away and sometimes all that stands between their garage and an arena is a chance. Opportunity. That's what 'Guitar Center's Your Next Record' is all about."

Starting today through November 30th, unsigned artists across the United States are invited to submit their music at YourNextRecord.com for a chance to win the aforementioned prize package, which includes:

• A 3-song EP with a top producer
• Keith Urban to appear on a recording with the winning band
• $10,000 Guitar Center shopping spree
• $10,000 in new gear and endorsement deals from Gibson, D'Addario, Planet Waves, and Evans
• An Opening slot on a Keith Urban show
• A feature of the band's single on iTunes

A Guitar Center Presents Your Next Record with Keith Urban teaser can be viewed here at http://www.youtube.com/user/GuitarCenterTV?feature=mhum

The opportunity coincides with the release of Urban's new, highly anticipated CD Get Closer, which comes out on Tuesday, November 16th. It's first single, "Put You In Song" has just been released and marks one of Urban's highest debuting singles of his career.  Get Closer follows Urban's platinum selling, Billboard Top 200 and Country Album Chart #1 Defying Gravity, which produced two #1 singles including "Only You Can Love Me This Way" and "Sweet Thing", for which Urban won his third Grammy Award (Best Male Country Vocal Performance). Urban is also a two-time 2010 CMA nominee – Entertainer and Best Male Vocalist of the Year.

Guitar Center commissioned the leading online music company for unsigned bands, OurStage.com, adopting its proprietary competition management technology, to collect and present each music artist's submissions and allow music fans to rank them using OurStage.com's fan judging software, ensuring that the best artists rise to the top. In addition, all artists will be armed with digital tools to help encourage their fans to judge their submissions as well as other great, unsigned artists. After the 8-week submission and judging period, the top 20 artists will be personally evaluated by Keith Urban, with one winner selected personally by him.

Guitar Center Presents Your Next Record with Keith Urban is just one of many Guitar Center initiatives created to foster growth and success within the music community. In addition to the first edition of this competition, Your Next Record with Slash, Guitar Center also provides its annual King of the Blues, Drum-Off and On-Stage competitions to emerging musicians, among others. Guitar Center's King of the Blues is a nationwide amateur guitar skills competition with the goal of finding the next great undiscovered blues guitar player. Drum-Off is an annual drumming competition that, now in its 21st year, has been a launching pad for many drummers, including Cora Coleman-Dunham and Tony Royster Jr, two Drum-Off winners who have gone on to become highly acclaimed professional drummers (with Prince and Jay Z respectively). Guitar Center On-Stage is a musical competition judged by Motley Crue. The winning band, The Last Vegas, has since gone on to open for Motley Crue on tour and subsequently topped iTunes critics' 2009 "Rock Singles of the Year List" with their hit single "I'm Bad."

About Guitar Center

Guitar Center is the world's largest retailer of guitars, amplifiers, percussion instruments, keyboards and pro-audio and recording equipment. Our retail store subsidiary presently operates 214 Guitar Center stores across the U.S. We are also the largest direct response retailer of musical instruments in the United States through our wholly owned subsidiary, Musician's Friend, Inc., and its catalog and Web site, www.musiciansfriend.com. In addition, our Music & Arts division operates more than 100 stores specializing in band instruments for sale and rental, serving teachers, band directors, college professors and students. More information on Guitar Center can be found by visiting the Company's Web site at www.guitarcenter.com.

The Guitar Center logo is a registered trademark of Guitar Center, Inc. Other brand or product names may be trademarks of the respective companies with which they are associated.

About Keith Urban

In 2001, the Country Music Association honored Keith Urban with its Horizon Award, designating him a talented artist with a bright future and to this day Urban remains the only Horizon Award winner in history to go on to win the CMA's Top Male Vocalist of the Year, a title he's captured three times, and the coveted Entertainer of the Year.  Nine years and nearly 15 millions albums later, Keith is a three-time Grammy Award winner, who in this past year has added an American Music Award and People's Choice Award to his mantle.  He's won five Academy of Country Music Awards, had 11 #1s, including 22 Top 5 hits and two consecutive #1 CDs, including his latest Defying Gravity, which debuted atop both Billboard's Top 200 all genre and Country Album Charts.

In December 2009, Urban was named the year's Top Overall Performer for Country Aircheck/Mediabase based on his country radio airplay, thanks to his hits including "Sweet Thing," "Kiss A Girl," and "Only You Can Love Me This Way."  In addition, his 2002 smash "Somebody Like You" was named the #1 Country Song of the Decade by Nielsen BDS (based on radio airplay and audience impressions).

SOURCE Guitar Center