Nicola Meighan on The SAY Award: 'One iconic record emporium owner was prompted to do the splits'
Nicola Meighan looks back over the Scottish Album Of The Year Award’s prestigious history and forward to co-hosting this year’s big night in Dundee
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Now, I realise having 700,000 unread emails in your inbox is nothing to boast about, let alone the millions you’ve opened and forgotten. But, by the same token, it allows for a fair bit of digital archaeology, so let’s just call it prudent hoarding. It’s also a useful aide-mémoire, or so I like to tell myself. I’d entirely forgotten til now, for example, that in 2010 I started contacting local bands and record labels to sound them out about their thoughts on the possibility (and potential) of a Scottish-style Mercury Prize.
My research for that article cast light on the fact that the Scottish Music Industry Association, including members of Mogwai, The Delgados and record label Chemikal Underground, were already discussing a similar idea, with a focus on engaging with artists of all genres, along with our wider music community. The notable distinction was that, unlike the Mercury, there would be no prohibitive fee to enter, so any act, signed or unsigned, and at any point in their career, could get involved.
Two years later, in 2012, the Scottish Album Of The Year (SAY) Award was launched. Now here we are, celebrating its 15th anniversary and looking forward to this year’s ceremony at Dundee’s Caird Hall on 5 November. As ever, I’ll be co-hosting with punk dreamboat Vic Galloway after well over a decade of wild times, unreal performances, incredible sounds, superlative albums and only the one pair of lost shoes along the way. Winners have, by and large, been unconfined by genre expectations, from Aidan Moffat and Bill Wells’ Everything’s Getting Older, via Fergus McCreadie’s jazz and folk perambulations on Forest Floor, visionary composer Anna Meredith’s Varmints, and incandescent three-time winners Young Fathers.
In 2014, I was on the judging panel with dancefloor trailblazer Andrew Weatherall, literary rabble-rouser Kevin Williamson and Hollywood composer Craig Armstrong, when Young Fathers won for the first time (with Tape Two), in what was a unanimous, amicable and swift decision. But in other years, so the story goes, discussions have been somewhat more heated. While I haven’t heard of any bare-knuckle brawls or chairs lobbed through windows, there has been at least one occasion where Vic and I have been hanging around in the wings, with audience, artists and press all baying for an announcement while we awaited a final verdict in that fateful golden envelope.
It bears noting that this envelope contains the promise of £20k, which previous winners (Kathryn Joseph among them) say has been life-changing and allowed them to keep making music (the other nine shortlisted acts receive £1000 each). Joseph performed live and reflected on her 2015 win at Mono a couple of weeks ago, along with last year’s winners Kai Reesu, as we announced the 2026 shortlist. Another previous winner, Mogwai’s Barry Burns, kicked off his DJ set with ‘Male Stripper’ by Man 2 Man Meets Man Parrish, prompting one iconic record emporium owner to do the splits.
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The anniversary celebrations include SAY Award sessions with headline sponsor Fettercairn, filmed at Dundee’s Mills Observatory (as depicted on Andrew Wasylyk’s gorgeous, 2022 SAY-nominated LP Balgay Hill: Morning In Magnolia). Online, you can watch live sets and conversations with magical former shortlisted stars Bemz, Theo Bleak and Lucia & The Best Boys. And then there’s the extraordinary Beldina Odenyo aka Heir Of The Cursed (nominated this year for her stunning posthumous self-titled album), whose 2021 SAY performance at Edinburgh’s Usher Hall is a beacon in blindsiding new film Bel.
As for November’s big party in Dundee, who knows what thrills will ensue. KT Tunstall (winner of last year’s Modern Scottish Classic), Corto.Alto and Brooke Combe raised the roof in 2025, and that’s the spirit we’re taking forward. What I can tell you is that Kai Reesu and Sound Of Young Scotland queen Alice Faye are playing live; that there are more announcements to follow; and that you’re invited. Even I know that much from my emails, unread and otherwise. Say you’ll be there…
The SAY Award Ceremony takes place at Caird Hall, Dundee, Thursday 5 November; Nicola Meighan presents The Saturday Social on Central FM and hosts Scottish culture and entertainment podcast A Kick Up The Arts; main picture: Grant Anderson.