The Scottish BAMS Awards 2009

The Scottish BaMS (Bloggers and Music Sites) network has announced the results of their poll for the best LP of 2009.

Bams is also a scots word for heidcase, numpty or radge - incase you're wondering, which is quite apt.

Lloyd from the excellent Peenko blog put this together, and hopefully this'll be the start of a network of blogs with a Scots bent supporting each other and providing a network to raise awareness of the amazing music that's rocking Scotland at any one time (they do already, but it could be bigger)

So, I got asked to vote (hopefully next year all 'Spillers can take part - i didn't want it to bogart our own "Overs" awards) as did:

17 Seconds, AyeTunes, Dear Scotland, Earz Mag, Elba Sessions, Glasgow Podcart, Hooligans Lament,Jim Gellatly, JocknRoll, Jockrock, Kowalskiy, Last Years Girl, Love Shack Baby, Manic Pop Thrills, My Portiswasp Says, Off the Beaten Tracks, The Pop Cop, Products of a Gaseous Brain, Song By Toad, The Blues Bunny, The Daily Growl, The Steinberg Principle, The Vinyl Villain, Under the Radar

There were 166 albums represented, which then boiled down to this top 20:

1. The Phantom Band - Checkmate Savage (61)
2. Animal Collective - Merriweather Post Pavillion (54)
3. De Rosa - Prevention (53)
4. King Creosote - Flick the V's (51)
5. Withered Hand - Good News (45)
6. The Twilight Sad - Forget The Night Ahead (43)
7. We Were Promised Jetpacks - These Four Walls (40)
8. Beerjacket - Animosity (38)
9. Mumford & Sons - Sigh No More (32)
9. Camera Obscura - My Maudlin Career (32)
11. My Latest Novel - Deaths and Entrances (28)
11. Malcolm Middleton - Waxing Gibbous (28)
13. The Pains of Being Pure at Heart - s/t (25)
14. You Already Know - s/t (24)
14. Broken Records - Until the Earth Begins to Part (24)
16. The XX - s/t (23)
17. The Antlers - Hospice (21)
18. Sufjan Stevens - The BQE (19)
18. And So I Watch You From Afar (19)
20. Wilco - The Album (18)

Andy from The Phantom Band had this to say:

"This makes us feel very honoured because the opinion of people out there
giving opinions is what matters most, rather than the financially
influenced press.
It always amazes me that people would take it upon themselves to go out and
champion a band or an album or a band for no material gain, but it gives me
faith in human nature. Blogs and reviews have been the only advertising
we've ever had. Apart from all those people who got online and promoted us,
we'd like to thank those little almost-stale doughnuts you get in big tubs
from Sainsburys for keeping us fat during the recording. We obviously also
have our Producer Paul Savage and the wonderful people at Chemikal
Underground to thank for letting us do what we want. These guys are the
quiet heroes of Scottish music for sure."

It's a good list, and there's a couple of bands on there I don't know, and will now go and check out.

Here's to the Scottish BaMS 2010!