How to vote for the Scottish Album of the Year

This year a total of 362 album submissions were narrowed down by 100 impartial nominators representing a variety of genres including jazz, classical, hip-hop, pop, trad folk, rock, electronic and indie.

The newly announced longlist will now be whittled down to a final 10 albums to make up this year’s shortlist, one of which can be chosen by music fans in a 72-hour public vote.

From tomorrow until October 7, fans have the chance to ensure their favourite album from the longlist makes it on to the shortlist by voting at www.sayaward.com. The winner of the SAY Award will collect £20,000, one of the most lucrative prize funds in the UK, while all nine runners-up are each awarded £1000 and their own bespoke award.

To date, the SAY Award has distributed more than £232,000 in prize money across eight previous campaigns, with 2020 predicted to be another stellar year in showcasing the best of Scotland’s music industry.

Going into the ninth year of the SAY Award, general manager Robert Kilpatrick said it was particularly important as a result of the challenges caused by the coronavirus crisis.

“As we all continue to navigate the personal and professional challenges we face, celebrating may feel unnatural for many of us,” he said.

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“For our music community especially, which heavily relies on physical spaces and people coming together, 2020 has presented a vast array of challenges that last year were

unimaginable. But as we celebrate our culture, we help further articulate its value and we draw more eyes and ears to some of the best new music Scotland has to offer.”

He said this year’s longlist was arguably the most diverse range of albums of any SAY Award longlist to date.

“Never have we been prouder to announce the longlist, and never more than now has it felt truly special and important to do so. A huge congratulations to each of this year’s nominees, and a heartfelt thank you to our partners’ incredible commitment to championing Scottish music at a time it’s never been more needed,” said Kilpatrick.

Alan Morrison, head of music at Creative Scotland said there was a “glorious thread” running through all the albums on the longlist.

“In this year like no other, music has given us the strength to get through whatever life has thrown at us,” he said.

“Scotland’s musicians have shown us, time and time again, that their creativity can thrive in the most difficult circumstances.

“These 20 albums were recorded when Covid-19 wasn’t even a blip on the horizon but there’s a glorious thread of that same creativity running through them all.

“This thread pulls together different genres, binds debut artists and seasoned stars and makes the SAY Award such a wonderful expression of Scotland’s world-class musical talent.”

Developed and produced by the Scottish Music Industry Association (SMIA), the 2020 campaign is being delivered in partnership with Creative Scotland, City of Edinburgh Council, YouTube Music, 54EP, Sweetdram, Culture & Business Fund Scotland via Arts & Business Scotland, PPL, Summerhall, Ticketmaster and new charity partner Music Declares Emergency.

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Previous winners of the SAY Award include Auntie Flo – Radio Highlife (2019), Young Fathers – Cocoa Sugar (2018), Sacred Paws – Strike A Match (2017), Anna Meredith – Varmints (2016), Kathryn Joseph – Bones You Have Thrown Me And Blood I Have Spilled (2013) and the inaugural winner Bill Wells and Aidan Moffat’s Everything’s Getting Older (2012).

DEBUTS IN THIS YEAR’S LONGLIST

The fastest-selling album of 2019 (which outsold all of the top 10 combined in both the UK and Ireland). Certified gold in the UK a week after its release. Nominated for Song of The Year at the Grammys 2020. Won Song of the Year and Best New artist at the Brits 2020

Declan Welsh and the Decadent West – Cheaply Bought, Expensively Sold

This charted at number 10 in the Scottish Albums Chart and played sold-out shows in Palestine (as part of a Glaswegian cultural exchange), The Great Escape, London Fashion Week and the Billy Bragg-curated stage at Glastonbury.

Vistas – Everything Changes In The End

Charted at number 21 in the official album charts, number 1 in the official independent charts. Edinburgh band formed at high school.

The Ninth Wave – Infancy

Album released in two parts, one in April and the other in November 2019 to contest with the immediacy of music just now and give the songs more time to be enjoyed. Alternative/indie/post-punk.

Cloth – Cloth

Alternative rock/electronic outfit. Band comprises of twins, Rachael and Paul, with their friend Clare on drums. Featured on soundtrack for Irish drama television series Normal People.

Comfort – Not Passing

Brother/sister duo.

Bossy Love – Me + U

The album is “about the cycle of life and death in relationships”. The second single from ME + U, Foreign Lover, is a self-proclaimed anti-Brexit anthem

Callum Easter – Here Or Nowhere

Alternative/indie otherworldly rhythm and blues. The whole album was entirely written, performed, recorded and mastered by Easter himself between his flat and studio, bar backing vocals.

SHHE – SHHE

Scottish-Portuguese artist and producer, records in home studio in Dundee. Signed to same label as Bjork (One Little Indian). Born in Wick, lives in Fife.

Nova – RE-UP

Edinburgh-based DJ, producer and rapper. Featured in Mixmag best new artists, Red Bull Music, Time Out London.

Mezcla – Shoot the Moon

Soulful jazz and energetic grooves are the order of the day from this band, led by bass player David Bowden (BBC Young Scottish Jazz Musician of the Year 2017) and featuring guest spots from some of Scotland’s brightest stars.

THE REST OF THE LONGLIST:

Anna Meredith FIBS; Blanck Mass Animated Violence Mild; Elephant Sessions What Makes You; Erland Cooper Sule Skerry; Fat-Suit Waifs & Strays; Free Love Extreme Dance Anthems; Honeyblood In Plain Sight; Karine Polwart Karine Polwart’s Scottish Songbook and Sacred Paws Run Around The Sun.

BEST SCOTTISH DEBUT ALBUMS:

The Twilight Sad Fourteen Autumns and Fifteen Winters;

Aztec Camera High Land, Hard Rain;

Glasvegas Glasvegas;

Biffy Clyro Blackened Sky;

The View Hats Off to the Busker;

The Fratellis Costello Music;

The Proclaimers This is the Story;

Kathryn Joseph Bones You Have Thrown Me and Blood I’ve Spilled;

The Jesus & the Mary Chain Psychocandy;

Franz Ferdinand Franz Ferdinand;

Emeli Sandé Our Version of Events;

Young Fathers Dead;

CHVRCHES The Bones of What You Believe;

Anna Meredith Varmints;

KT Tunstall Eye to the Telescope;

Paolo Nutini These Streets;

Gerry Cinnamon

Erratic Cinematic.