The polls are closed, all the votes are counted and the winner of the 2013 Scottish BAMS (Bloggers and Music Sites) can now be revealed. Voted for by 40 writers from 29 different blogs and music sites. your top 10 albums for 2013 looks a little like this...
1. CHVRCHES - The Bones Of What You Believe (Virgin)
2. Frightened Rabbit - Pedestrian Verse (Atlantic)
3. Adam Stafford - Imaginary Walls Collapse (Sony, By Toad)
4. Rick Redbeard - No Selfish Heart (Chemikal Underground)
5. Boards Of Canada - Tomorrow's Harvest (Warp)
6. The Pastels - Slow Summits (Domino)
7. The National - Trouble Will Find Me (4AD)
8. Steve Mason - Monkey Minds In The Devil's Time (Domino)
9. Kid Canaveral - Now That You Are A Dancer (Fence)
10. Fuck Buttons - Slow Focus (ATP Recordings)
Congratulations to Lauren, Iain and Doc for scooping the now legendary BAMS Buckfast trophy (intact with Buckfast Tonic Wine for celebration purposes!). Also tip of the hat to Adam Stafford and Song, By Toad for the highest placed 'indie' release.
Head BAMS Mike (Manic Pop Thrills), Lloyd (Peenko) and Stuart (Is This Music?) managed to track the band down to Australia to get a few words:
Congratulations , you are this years' winners of the Scottish BAMS award, how does it feel?
Thanks, guys. We are not normally ones for prizes / shiny things, but it's dead nice to know the bloggers enjoyed the record. You can all get a blast of the buckie.
2013 seems to have been a pretty exciting year for the band, what's been your personal highlights of the year?
It was a busy year for us but we were really lucky to get the amount of support we did from people, and to play as many different gigs in as many different places as we did. Supporting Depeche Mode and releasing the record were probably the pinnacles.
When you'd finished recording the album, how did it match up to your expectations?
Since we self-record and self-produce everything, we didn't sign off on anything until we were 100% happy with it, so I guess that means the album meets our expectations completely.
How important do you feel that the support of music blogs has been to the band?
Without blogs and social networks, it is really unlikely that people would have heard of our band so quickly, and that is definitely one of the reasons we have been able to play so many different shows so early on in our career. Thanks, bloggers - see you for Album Two.
Each BAM is asked to nominate their 10 favorite albums from 2013. The lists are then compiled and ranked to produce the final top 10. For a looksie at who Scottish Fiction nominated, check out our Top 20 Scottish Albums of 2013 post. You might notice some similarity...
We at BAMS HQ like to think that the BAMS is to the Scottish Album of the Year Award as the Golden Globes is to the Oscars. A casual glance at this year's Top 10 is enough to indicate that the creativity of the Scottish music scene will ensure that the SAY judges have a tough time in picking a final winner this year. But few will bet against CHVRCHES repeating the success of Bill Wells and Aidan Moffat who won first the BAMS in 2011 then the inaugural SAY Award. Will history repeat itself? Only time will tell...
BAMS 2013 Facts
- 66 of those LPs received 2 or more votes.
- The CHVRCHES LP featured in the Top 10 of 14 voters, compared to 12 for the runners-up Frightened Rabbit.
- 28 different LPs were given 1st preference votes.
- Only 5 LPs received more than 1 first preference - Frightened Rabbit, Adam Stafford, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Waxahatchee and Jason Isbell.
- The highest number of first preferences was 3 - for both Frightened Rabbit and Adam Stafford.
- 8 of the LPs which received first preference votes received no other votes!
Previous BAMS winners:
2009 - The Phantom Band – The Wants
2010 - The National – High Violet
2012 - Meursault - Something for the Weakened
The 2013 BAMS:
Almost Predictable, Almost, Avalanche Records, Detour, Elba Sessions, Everything Flows, For Malcontents, Vic Galloway, Jim Gellatly, Podcart, The Herald (Alan Morrison), Houdi, Is This Music?, Jock'n'roll, Jockrock, La Terrasse, Last Year's Girl, Manic Pop Thrills, Net Sounds Unsigned, The Pop Cop, Radar, Rave Child, Marion Scott, Scottish Fiction, The Skinny, Song, By Toad, The Spill, Tenement TV, The Tidal Wave of Indifference, TYCI