That’s right, it’s almost RPM time again. Now entering its fourth year, the 2009 RPM Challenge will again inspire hundreds of musicians around the world to set aside the 28 days of February as Record Production Month. Not for a cash prize or a record contract or a gig opening for Coldplay—but just because they can.

For those not familiar with the month-long event, RPM is not a contest. It is, as its title implies, simply a challenge: Write and record 10 songs or 35 minutes of original material during the shortest, darkest, coldest month of the year. Your only reward will be the satisfaction of knowing that you put your entire heart and soul into a tangible, recorded product. It’s a chance to indulge your inner artist, who all too often hides behind the various burdens and conventions of daily life as an excuse to remain artistically idle.

If you accept the challenge and complete your RPM album, you’ll forever have a glistening disc of original music to show for it. Plus, your songs will appear on the universal online RPM Jukebox.

The RPM saga began in 2006, when the challenge opened to artists in the New Hampshire area only. Altogether, 220 participants signed up, producing 165 full-length albums. The following year, RPM went global, drawing more than 2,400 bands from all seven continents and tallying more than 850 new CDs. Last year saw a near replication of that success, complete with a global listening party at venues around North America.

As of noon on Jan. 12—a full three weeks before the actual start of this year’s challenge—534 participants had already signed up at www.rpmchallenge.com. The artists come from countries like Scotland, Russia, Sweden, Afghanistan, Japan, New Zealand, Peru, Panama, Ireland, Spain, Australia, Norway, England, the Netherlands, Finland, Wales, Canada, Portugal and Germany, not to mention just about every state in the U.S. It’s a global union of independent minds with a common goal, all based out of our humble RPM headquarters at The Wire office in Portsmouth.

The RPM possibilities are virtually boundless. What if every living being who could pick up an instrument spent February exploring their music? What if you recorded the best song of your life? What if you put aside traditional expectations—that your record has to be a product that can be sold, that it has to be recorded in a studio with all the bells and whistles? What if you could do whatever you wanted? What if you recorded a solo record for the first time? What if you tried a new genre? What if you collaborated with someone you’d never met?

The RPM Challenge celebrates everything pure and incorruptible about music. It’s about making art without the motivation of financial profit or fame. It’s about pushing yourself to unleash your wildest creative impulses and working feverishly to perfect them. It’s about joining fellow musicians near and far and sharing your work in a noncompetitive, mutually admiring spirit of creation.

Learn more at www.rpmchallenge.com and check back with The Wire for weekly updates.

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