The Coca Cola American Music Award In 2002.

All across America, music artists and bands are waiting for their big break. Soon, the wait will be over for the winner of the first-ever New Music Award as the American Music Awards presents the debut of the “Coca-Cola New Music Award” competition.

The competition will commence in the spring and culminate with a performance by the winner on next year’s AMA telecast on ABC.

The selection, to be made by judges from the music industry — including AMA creator and executive producer Dick Clark and CMJ Founder and Publisher Robert Haber — will be made from a field of musicians representing a variety of genres.

“This new award category joins together two icons, the AMAs and Coca-Cola, to recognize the importance of emerging artists,” said Dick Clark. “The competition created by our communications division along with Coca-Cola and CMJ will bring new music to the forefront like never before. This is a major milestone in AMA’s 28-year history.”

“This new partnership with Dick Clark Communications and CMJ is an ideal extension to our long standing relationship with ABC, and the AMA’s,” said Karen Gough, vice president of marketing solutions, Coca-Cola North America. “The Coca-Cola New Music Award offers us an opportunity to further connect with teenagers and young adults by offering them a program that taps into their passion for music. Teens will have a chance to listen to new artists that they currently do not have access to, and new artists will have the opportunity to showcase their talent to major players in the music industry.”

To be eligible to enter the “Coca-Cola New Music Award” competition, artists and bands must submit two songs plus lyrics and their biography. Submissions will be accepted either digitally or on CD. From that field, ten artists will be selected to perform at a special concert at the CMJ Music Marathon, MusicFest & FilmFest in New York City in October. There, five semi-finalists will be chosen to compete for the Coca-Cola New Music Award and the chance to perform on the American Music Awards in 2002. To keep up on details of the competition and Coca-Cola promotions, log onto www.cocacola.cmj.com .

“For more than twenty years, CMJ has been proud to discover and champion the world’s best new artists,” said Robert Haber, CMJ founder and publisher. “The Coca-Cola New Music Award competition will provide the ultimate platform from which to catapult dynamic new talent from unknown to star. It’s an incredible opportunity to deserving musicians worldwide.”

Skip to content