John Lewis asks unsigned musicians to soundtrack Christmas advert
Your chance to replace Lily Allen on Christmas Day
Unless you happen to have gone into hibernation during the past couple of weeks, if you live in the UK you'll know that Lily Allen's cover of Keane's Somewhere Only We Know is currently being used to soundtrack department store John Lewis's latest Christmas advert: a multi-million pound animated mini epic featuring a bear and a hare.
Now the company has thrown down a festive gauntlet to unsigned musicians, asking them to submit their own 90-second versions of the song (to soundtrack the video above) via YouTube. These will then be judged by a panel that includes the members of Keane, with the winner being invited on an all-expenses paid trip to London to record the track in a professional studio. They'll then have their cover used on the ad when it airs on ITV1 on Christmas Day.
As exposure goes, that's pretty massive, so if you want to work up your own death metal, techno or brostep version of the song, head over to the John Lewis YouTube channel for all the details.
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I’m the Deputy Editor of MusicRadar, having worked on the site since its launch in 2007. I previously spent eight years working on our sister magazine, Computer Music. I’ve been playing the piano, gigging in bands and failing to finish tracks at home for more than 30 years, 24 of which I’ve also spent writing about music and the ever-changing technology used to make it.
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