Our 2002/2003 Female Singer-Songwriter won with a song literally recorded in the bathroom at college. But her performance was emotional and moving and the song was great. She was up against some of the top names in the Singer-Songwriter community all with polished pro recordings. Even her song demo collection got nominated even though it wasn't even a full commercial release. So can it happen? Sure. But human nature is that if you have 2 great songs and one is recorded and performed well, that's going to win the tie breaker. You don't need a fancy recording. You need a clean vocal and instrument recording with the levels appropriately mixed and a solid or better vocal performance on a great song. That's within anyone's budget. But it's not within anyone's talent level. So that part is up to you.

I will say that honestly, a bad vocal performance will nearly always eliminate a song from any shot at moving far. The bar is just too high. Could there be an exception? There are ALWAYS exceptions.. but I haven't heard the submission that met that criteria (i.e. horrible vocal, but still good enough to win).

Brian