Scottish Album of the Year

The Scottish Album of the Year (SAY) Award is a bold and ambitious new prize for music and art in Scotland. Developed by The Scottish Music Industry Association, in partnership with Creative Scotland, this prestigious new arts prize will celebrate, promote and reward the most outstanding albums released by Scottish artists in 2012. Recognising the need for a credible and unifying platform from which albums of all genres can be championed (regardless of sales history or label affiliation), The SAY Award will offer a first prize of £20,000 and nine runners-up prizes of £1,000 each. The award will also celebrate the enduring links that exist between music and art in Scotland through the provision of a further £20,000, this time as an art commission offered to graduating art students and funded by Creative Scotland. The winning graduate will produce ten works to be given as prizes for the short-listed finalists.

Determining which titles are considered for the Scottish Album of the Year Award will be the responsibility of 100 individuals and organisations, specially invited by the SMIA. ‘Nominators’ will be impartial and chosen from sectors throughout the industry including: journalists, bloggers, radio presenters and producers, promoters, retailers, venues, club DJs, festival organisers, academics and music fans from elsewhere in the arts. Nominators will be asked to consider eligible releases from 2012 and nominate their five favourite albums, ranking them in order of preference. Once complete, the Nominator will send their ‘Top 5’ to the SMIA where all of the Nominators’ submissions will be collated, tabulated and assigned a total score. The 20 highest-scoring albums will be announced as The Scottish Album of the Year Long List.

The promotion of the Long List
The twenty SAY Award Long List titles are then handed over to an esteemed panel of judges who will, based solely on the albums' artistic and musical merit, decide which of the titles should go forward as The SAY Award Short List. You have a say in this too, voting for your favourite long listed album via this App and The SAY Award website. The long listed title with the most public votes will automatically be placed onto The SAY Award Short List, with the judging panel being asked to demote one of their choices if the public's favourite was not one of the judges' original short list of 10.

The judging panel will reconvene at an award ceremony scheduled for Glasgow in June 2013, where they will decide upon the winner of The Scottish Album of the Year Award.