Hearitfirst.com

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hearitfirst.com

URL	www.hearitfirst.com
Commercial?	Yes
Type of site	Online artist interviews, promotion, community, sales, competitions
Registration	None
Available language(s)	English
Owner	EMI Christian Music Group
Created by	EMI Christian Music Group
Launched	December 1998
Current status	Active

hearitfirst.com is an online listening post for Christian music. The site is divided into five broad sections:

Users must create profiles in order to receive newsletters, enter competitions and participate in forums.

1 History
2 Battle of the Bands Competitions
- 2.1 Creation East
- 2.2 Creation West
3 WAY-FM Partnership
4 Trivia
5 References
6 External links

[edit] History

Based in Brentwood, Tennessee, hearitfirst.com was launched by EMI Christian Music Group in 1998 to promote the Grammy Award winning artists dc talk on the release of their album Supernatural ^[1]. Over a period of 4 weeks, 2 tracks were streamed from the site for preview. After Supernatural, hearitfirst.com evolved into a listening post for contemporary Christian music, focusing on the rock, pop, worship and indie genres.

The current site was relaunched in December 2005 and has focused on becoming a nexus for fans, spectators and industry partners of contemporary Christian music. Although owned and operated by EMI Christian Music Group, artists on all labels are hosted and promoted. The database of artists ranges from Jars of Clay, Switchfoot, tobyMac, Newsboys, Third Day, Casting Crowns to BarlowGirl, Family Force Five, High Flight Society, Aaron Shust, Dizmas and independent artists/bands. Artist promotion includes album reviews, biographies, video clips, full length song audio clips, photos, tour dates and Six degrees, a Flash application that positions a chosen artist with six other related artists by genre.

Exclusive video content, including behind-the-scenes coverage of the 2007 Gospel Music Association Dove Awards ^[2], frequent contests ^[3] and free legal music downloads via newsletter subscriptions ^[4], have become a major promotional tool for the site.

[edit] Battle of the Bands Competitions

In 2006 Creation Festival and hearitfirst.com partnered to host their first Battle of the Bands competition ^[5]. The winners were -

[edit] Creation East

The John Reilly Band
Koo Chung
Vigilant

[edit] Creation West

Candlefuse
Daydreamer
Noel McLeary

This was followed by a partnership with the Gospel Music Association for their 2007 Battle of the Bands competition ^[6]. As of writing, submissions have been closed and voting has begun for the first round of the competition ^[7].

[edit] WAY-FM Partnership

In May 2007 hearitfirst.com partnered with WAY-FM to begin the "2 minute challenge" ^[8] over a 12 week period. The competition began on June 19, 2007. According to the rules of the competition listeners of WAY-FM are directed to http://www.hearitfirst.com/wayfm where they listen to a 2 minute audio clip. After the completion of the audio clip, participants are offered free music downloads from artists including Chris Tomlin, Casting Crowns, Third Day, Jeremy Camp, Mercy Me, Sanctus Real, Hawk Nelson, Kutless, Chris Rice and others. Each week participants can share the promotion with up to five friends and receive an additional bonus download. New downloads are made available each week.

[edit] Trivia

Trivia sections are discouraged under Wikipedia guidelines.
The article could be improved by integrating relevant items and removing inappropriate ones.

Artists are often invited to write articles on a "Featured Artist Blog" page ^[9]. Notable artists include –

Michael W. Smith

Mandisa Hundley – posted a series of blogs about the 2007 American Idol Competition as it progressed.

In the lead up to the release of Mandisa Hundley’s first single, "Only the world" ^[10], from her debut album “True Beauty” ^[11] a video series called “Where in the world is Mandisa?” ^[12] was featured on the site. The series followed Mandisa as she promoted her then upcoming album.