STOP PRESS (12/4/12) – SMIA announce the 20 musician Longlist for the Scottish Album of Year Award which has a £20,000 first prize – full details on the MUSIC NEWS Scotland ‘Latest News’ blog – link: http://wp.me/p12d6v-wN
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The Scottish Music Industry Association have announced the inauguration of The Scottish Album of the Year Award. The SAY Award will place its focus on artistic merit rather than sales history, genre or label affiliation, offering £20,000 to the winning album and £1,000 to each of the nine runners-up.
Eighteen months in development, the award is the product of a comprehensive and ambitious consultation process which has involved sectors and genres from throughout the music industry. SMIA has said that they’ve strived to deliver a qualitative arts prize for music which is discerning without being elitist and is worthy of the exceptional music it aims to celebrate.
The Scottish Album of the Year Award is an ambitious new national prize established to reward and promote the diversity and creativity of music and art in Scotland. Developed by the Scottish Music Industry Association, in partnership with Creative Scotland, the award recognises the most outstanding albums released by Scottish artists in 2011. With an initiative of this scale, scope and ambition, the SMIA hopes to reassure its members (both current and prospective) that we have a vision for the music industry in Scotland that is bold and progressive.
Employing a progressive format and a clear commitment to engage with all sectors of the music industry, the award will provide a unique platform from which Scotland’s finest albums can be championed. The relationship between music and art is recognised too, with a £20,000 art commission offered to graduates from Scotland’s four principal art schools. The successful graduate will produce a unique artwork for each of the shortlisted finalists.
Determining which albums constitute The SAY Award Long List is the responsibility of 100 impartial ‘Nominators’, invited by the SMIA to participate and drawn from genres and sectors across the music industry and the arts.
Nominators are asked to consider eligible releases from 2011 and nominate their five favourite albums, ranking them in order of preference (1st = 10 pts; 2nd = 8pts etc.) before sending their ‘Top 5′ to the SMIA for collation and scoring.
After all of the Nominators’ submissions have been calculated and verified by an independent auditor, the 20 highest-scoring albums will be announced as The SAY Award Long List.
Courtesy of the SAY Award App you can instantly access this Long List. Over the course of four weeks from April 16th, you’ll have the opportunity of listening to all twenty albums, sharing your preferred short lists on Facebook and what you think of the albums via Twitter.
Every weekday from April 16th one album from the long list will become the Album of the Day: available to stream in its entirety (and free of charge) for 24 hours.
If you miss an album during the week, don’t worry: you can catch up on all five of that week’s featured titles over the weekend when they become available to stream throughout Saturday and Sunday.
While you’re delving into the twenty titles, so will the eleven-strong Judging Panel (10 judges plus a Chairperson). Based solely on musical and artistic merit it will be their task to vote on which ten albums from the long list go forward as The SAY Award Short List.
PUBLIC VOTE
Crucially, you can vote too once you’ve listened to all twenty albums: for 24 hours on May 14th you can vote for your favourite album from the Long List with the album receiving the most public votes securing a place on the Short List. If the Judging Panel’s Short List does not include the public’s choice then they’ll have to demote one of their choices in order to make way for the public’s favourite.
The judging panel will then be asked to reconvene for the award ceremony on June 19th, when they will choose a winner of the inaugural Scottish Album of the Year Award.
GET THE SAY APP. IT’S FREE
You can acquaint yourself with every one of the albums on the twenty-strong long list by downloading the SAY App from April 12th. Available on iPhone and Android formats, these rather natty gizmos will allow you to stream an Album of the Day, in full and for free, over the four week long list promotion period. Arrange the albums to form your preferred Short List and share that list on Facebook. Tweet your thoughts on each and every one of the long listed albums and vote for your favourite on May 14th. Use the apps to purchase the albums from iTunes or find your nearest record shop and support high street retail.
The Scottish Music Industry Association is a trade body led by a board of voluntary 
industry professionals. In October last year, the SMIA published a strategy document articulating an ambitious five year plan with an even more ambitious goal: “to unite Scotland’s music industry and see it recognised as one of the most vibrant, influential and respected in the world.”
In The Year of Creative Scotland 2012, the inaugural Scottish Album of the Year Award represents a significant milestone in the development of Scotland’s music industry and a bold step towards achieving our goal. If you would like to become a member of the SMIA, then please visit our website for more details.
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