Pop stars rarely emerge fully formed, more often they are stage-schooled kids bred for stardom or young hopefuls auditioned to create a money-making machine.
Sometimes they are parachuted into the charts as a ready-made American teenage dream or catapulted to the heights of fame as talent-show alumni.
But every now and again someone comes along to buck the trend; a genuine new talent discovered doing their own thing, spotted making waves and building their own undeniable fanbase before being given the platform to burst forth and show the world just what they’re capable of.
Nineteen-year old, Brighton-born Conor Maynard is the real deal. Little more than a year ago he was uploading videos of himself to the internet singing his favourite songs and getting positive comments from fans of the originals. Soon even the artists themselves started to take notice.
With a variety of stars tweeting about him and Ne-Yo phoning his house and offering to produce him, it was inevitable that record companies would want his signature and in a whirlwind few weeks Parlophone struck a deal to bring Conor to the world stage.
Over the past few months Conor has been working with some of the most exciting songwriters and producers on his own material and during that time he’s seen his online fanbase grow exponentially.
With 50 million YouTube views he now has the 7th most subscribed music channel in the UK, his Facebook fans now stand at 175,000 and he has more than 60,000 Twitter followers - all without releasing a single piece of music officially yet.
So it’s no wonder that Conor Maynard has just been announced as the runaway winner of MTV’s Brand New For 2012, beating some very high-profile competition.
Conor’s fanbase - who dub themselves ‘Mayniacs’ - voted for him in their thousands. In fact, Conor polled an incredible 45% of the 150,000 votes cast.
And these fans who discovered Conor for themselves without any media buzz are about to see their very own homegrown pop star spread his wings with the release of his debut single ‘Can’t Say No’ on April 30th.
Co-written by Conor and produced by The Invisible Men it’s an edgy, electronic slice of prime R&B-styled pop that’s destined to send Conor into the stratosphere.
As Matt Cook, director of talent and music programming at MTV UK & Ireland says: "At only 19 years old, Conor not only demonstrates incredible talent, but with 45% of the total vote and the phenomenal recognition he has already garnered on-air and online, it’s clear that he really connects with MTV audiences."
Conor Maynard comments; "It’s such an amazing feeling winning MTV's Brand New 2012, I can't thank the fans and viewers enough for voting, and MTV for selecting me in the first place. I hope this is the first success of many to come!"
The single ‘Can’t Say No’ precedes his debut album which Conor has been working on with the likes of Jermaine Dupri (Usher, Mariah Carey), Midi Mafia (50 Cent, Frank Ocean), Kevin Rudolf (Jay Sean, Lil’ Wayne), Sandy Vee (Rhianna, Pitbull), Crada (Drake, Kid Kudi) and the legendary Dianne Warren. The album will be released in the summer.
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