The 24-Hour Song Challenge – Philly Anthems Edition Launches June 6
We’ll announce this year’s theme at noon on June 6. You’ll then have until 11:59 a.m. June 7 to submit your song based on the theme for a chance to win our biggest prize yet.
We’re thrilled to announce our 24-Hour Song Challenge – Philly Anthems Edition, tasking musicians with crafting an original song in just a day’s time based on our to-be-announced prompt. So ready your keyboards, guitars, ukes, drum machines, and whatever else you might make music with for a chance to win our biggest prize package yet.
To participate, sign up online here by 11:59 p.m. May 29. We’ll announce this year’s prompt at noon on June 6.
You’ll have until 11:59 a.m. June 7 to write your song and upload a live performance of it to YouTube, and submit it online here. Videos must be embeddable, publicly viewable, and less than five minutes long. And you must live in WXPN’s terrestrial broadcast listening areas to participate in the challenge.
Our team of judges will review the submissions, whittling them down to 12 semifinalists. Then, listeners will vote for their favorite finalists June 15 through June 19 online here. From there four finalists and one grand prize winner will take home cash and prizes.
The grand prize winner will receive $5,000, a spot to perform their winning song live at the XPoNential Music Festival and Philly Music Fest, inclusion on WXPN’s Philly Anthems vinyl album, studio time, and more.
The four remaining finalists will each get $500 cash, $100 gift cards to Russo Music, and a year membership to WXPN.
Click here to see full details on prizes, rules, submission guidelines, and more.
Check out past winners Sadie Gust (2025) and Khalil Amaru (2024) — as well as the runners up from 2024 and 2025 — below to get inspired!
The WXPN 24-Hour Song Challenge – Philly Anthems Edition has been supported by The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage.