SAMMA 2020: Public Polls, open until Monday 02 November

By
M4A
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SAMMA 2020 South African Metal Music Awards

Johannesburg, South Africa: 2020 has been a tough year for everybody. And yet we find some unfinished business relating to 2019 which the unfolding horror-show of this year brought to a crawl. The 2020 South African Metal Music Awards: celebrating the achievements of South African Metal creative people and groups within the year of 2019.

Whilst things are moving slowly, they are moving. The SAMMA organizer released nominations offered up by the eight members of the Panel, and is now open to public scrutiny.

The Public Poll

Furthermore, you, the public, are invited to assist the Panel in narrowing down the selection to include only the five most appropriate candidates for each category. The public poll has proven to be a very useful and important part of the SAMMA each year.

Register to cast your vote in all categories here, and you will be sent an email which provides the link to the poll. You are not required to vote in every category. You may choose only those which are relevant to your interests and knowledge.

Once the lists are narrowed down to five in each category, remaining candidates are subjected to further, more detailed scrutiny by each panelist for a final evaluation.

Transparency and Authenticity

At this time we’d like to remind readers that our duty (metal4africa) in this process is purely related to transparency and authenticity. We work towards this by, each year, publishing the updated Operations Manual. If you are interested in it, you can find it here. It is also our task to ensure that the organizer as well as the panelists follow it accurately. Any member of the public may contact us (preferably via our Facebook page inbox)if they feel strongly that an aspect of the SAMMA has not been followed correctly and would like it investigated.

We also recognize that the SAMMA is an exercise to determine popular opinion. Popular opinion does not exclude an acknowledgement of talent and extraordinary accomplishment for all of the candidates nominated. In fact, it recognizes this very broadly through the process of nomination and public polls.

In the end, however, the title is awarded to whoever is most widely perceived as having made the strongest impact within the year in question. It is not the be-all and end-all of local heavy metal sub-culture, and certainly not the ultimate barometer of artistic and expressive creativity in metal music and art.

Categories include:

First, we’d like to introduce changes in new inclusions for 2020 (recognizing 2019).

Brand new, the SAMMA wishes to grow inclusive of the visual aesthetic which has previously only been celebrated through music videos. The current Panel voted in favour of including a category for Best Photograph and Best Design. The title will be shared between the Band featured, and the Photographer/Designer responsible for the final result.

Best Photograph (A-Z)

Best Design (A-Z)

Like with many new categories the criteria and definition can be a little vague, but these do get refined from year to year. To see the current criteria, please refer to the Operations Manual.

Furthermore, the category for Best Metal Event has been voted by the current Panel to be split into two categories: Best Festival and Best Club Event. The key distinction between the two has less to do with the entertainment offered, but more to do with infrastructure which defines one being in a different league from the other. For example, even if a club is used as the venue, if a promoter has made substantial infrastructure arrangements to modify the venue to include more features than is typical of a standard club/concert night, with varying activities in addition to live music, it is deemed to be more “festival” in character. This notion is supported by advertising material.

Best Festival (chronological)

Best Club Event (chronological)

Further to this, the remaining categories from the previous year remain unchanged. They are listed as follows:

Best Music Video (A-Z)

Best Album (A-Z)

Best EP (A-Z)

Best Single (A-Z)

Best Newcomer (A-Z)

  • Colour of Insanity
  • Days Without Incident
  • Human Nebula
  • Last of the Daggers
  • Soms Wen Die Wolf
  • Sunken State
  • Woltemade
  • Khoja

Best Live Act (A-Z)

  • Bleeding Spawn
  • Deadline
  • Deity’s Muse
  • Facing the Gallows
  • Hiraeth
  • Human Nebula
  • L.A. COBRA
  • Ohgod
  • Riddlebreak
  • Ruff Majik
  • The Color Blew
  • Truth And Its Burden
  • Vulvodynia

Best Alternative Band (A-Z)

  • All This for Nothing
  • All We’ve Known
  • Bulletscript
  • CMR
  • Deity’s Muse
  • Dirty Moonshine
  • Facing The Gallows
  • Far From Who We Are
  • Goat Throne
  • Riddlebreak
  • Ruff Majik
  • Treehouse Burning
  • The Color Blew

Best Old School Metal Band (A-Z)

  • Deadline
  • Disarmageddon
  • L.A. COBRA
  • MARENE
  • Pink Lippz
  • Ruff Majik
  • Soms Wen Die Wolf
  • Sunken State
  • The Burning

Best Extreme Metal Band (A-Z)

  • Bleeding Spawn
  • Facing the Gallows
  • Forsaking Fate
  • Imperious Vision
  • Rhakshah
  • The Drift
  • The Fallen Prophets
  • Thread of Omen
  • Treehouse Burning
  • Truth And Its Burden
  • Vulvodynia

Best Progressive Band (A-Z)

  • Constellatia
  • Deitys Muse
  • Hiraeth
  • Human Nebula
  • Ohgod
  • Riddlebreak
  • Robyn Ferguson

Register to join the SAMMA Poll on Google forms
Connect with the SAMMA on Facebook
Connect with the organizer Emalyth on Facebook

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