CBC Music's Toyota Searchlight 2022: first round voting has closed

Toyota Searchlight 2022 voting has closed as of 2:59pm ET Monday May 30th. The Top 100 artists will be announced on Wednesday June 8.

Earlier this spring, we announced the return of CBC Music's Toyota Searchlight 2022, inviting musicians of any genre to submit an original song and compete for incredible prizes courtesy of Toyota Canada, the National Music Centre, Play MPE, Long & McQuade and CBC Music. And you responded in a big, big way: thousands of Canadian musicians from every province and territory entered this year. 

That's right, this year we will only allow voting in the first round.  Listeners and fans can do exactly what we've been doing behind the scenes at Searchlight: listening for Canada's next great undiscovered talent. You can show your love by voting for your favourite song once a day, every day.

Here's how it's going to work:

The top three vote-getters from our opening round will win our new Fan Choice awards:

• An automatic placement in our Top 100.
• A $1,000 gift certificate from Long & McQuade, Canada's music store, for anything including instruments, equipment rentals, repairs, lessons.
• Play MPE distribution deal for your single.
• A one-hour meeting with a mentor from Canada's Music Incubator (CMI) to help address your immediate music business challenges or questions. CMI is a Toronto-based, national, not-for-profit organization specializing in professional development, ongoing mentorship and live events for artists, managers and music companies.

Also new this year, you can vote for up to five different artists a day to help you discover more great new Canadian talent. You have until Monday May 30 at 3pm ET to cast your votes.

Everything you need to know about Toyota Searchlight 2021 can be found here.

Here's how the rest of CBC Music's Toyota Searchlight 2022 will roll out:

• The Top 100 will be revealed on Wednesday, June 8, at 3 p.m. ET. Three artists will make it through by popular vote, and the other 97 will make it through by internal judging by a team of music industry experts. 
• The Top 10 will be revealed on Tuesday, June 21, at 8 a.m. ET. All 10 artists will be chosen by our judges.
• Winners: our judges will reveal one grand prize winner and four runners-up on Tuesday, June 28, at 8 a.m. ET.
• Toyota Searchlight 2022's winners will be decided by a panel made up of our producers and celebrity judges: a cross-section of the best that the Canadian music industry has to offer. This year's judges will be announced soon.

Good luck to all of the Toyota Searchlight 2022 participants. And if you want to let the world know who you're voting for, be sure to use #ToyotaSearchlight2022 and tag @CBCMusic in your posts!

Questions? Email searchlight@cbc.ca.