Woo-hoo! It’s that time of year again. Yes, the nominees for the Mercury Music Prize 2008 have been announced.
The 12 British records in contention for the annual award, last year won by Klaxons for “Myths Of The Near Future”, are:
Adele “19″ (8/1)
British Sea Power “Do You Like Rock Music?” (8/1)
Burial “Untrue” (6/1)
Elbow “The Seldom Seen Kid” (6/1)
Estelle “Shine” (8/1)
Last Shadow Puppets “The Age of the Understatement” (5/1)
Laura Marling “Alas I Cannot Swim” (8/1)
Neon Neon “Stainless Style” (10/1)
Portico Quartet “Knee Deep in the North Sea” (10/1)
Radiohead “In Rainbows” (5/1)
Rachel Unthank & The Winterset “The Bairns” (10/1)
Robert Plant & Alison Kraus “Raising Sand” (6/1)
(William Hill odds)
The problem with predicting the Mercury is that it operates a sort of rota system on who is allowed it. NME faves have had a successful few years, which would seem to leave the field open to other genres. Let’s rule out the ones with absolutely no chance early doors; Rachel Unthank produced a superb, unapologetically rootsy folk album but it is so uncompromising that she would scare the audience at the awards, so it is clear that she has been placed in the token folky slot, usually the reserve of Eliza Carthy. Similarly, Laura Marling’s nice wee album is simply too forgettable to fly, though it would prove popular with those who buy their hipper music in Tesco. Neon Neon also shouldn’t be expecting more than a night out with a few cans of Heineken.
On to the undeserving; Adele, we have touched on Adele before - metaphorically - and one wonders if her sub-Winehouse warbling would have got her attention if she wasn’t fat. Frankly, she isn’t any better than Duffy, so why is the tubby one there instead of the pretty one? Because it makes the organisers feel much more inclusive. It’s not. It’s patronising. She isn’t there on musical quality, more inability to leave the buffet table in under an hour. And then to The Last Shadow Puppets, nominated because of one of their members day job. Is ‘The Age of Understatement’ really one of the best British albums of the last twelve months? Really? Does anyone actually listen to it now the initial hype has been?
So to the contenders. Estelle or Elbow would be deserving winners, in different ways, but I don’t think they will get the nod. Estelle made a great pop record, and in ‘American Boy’ reminded you how great a great summer single really can be. Elbow are perennial ELM faves but just aren’t trendy enough to grab the votes. Robert Plant and Alison Krauss - despite the album clearly having many more American fingerprints on it than British - will be in with a shout, given all the Zep-mania running around at the moment (and the fact that it would let the organisers rub shoulders with Percy) but it is also a damn fine album. There would be no complaints from us if ‘Rasing Sands’ took the honours. But we are going for Radiohead. Not because they made the best album of the last year - they didn’t - but more in a ‘Lifetime Achievement’ sort of way. Radiohead have had several near misses before, notably when they were pipped in 1997 by Roni Size despite all the judges saying afterwards ‘OK Computer’ was the better album - so, if only to ensure Yorkie and his crew of merry funsters turn up in future years, I think they will nick it. But, who knows - The Mercury long has operated a ’shock value’ voting system, so maybe the world will be listening to Burial in a few weeks.
Filed under: General Stuff | Tagged: Elbow, Radiohead, adele, british sea power, neon neon, laura marling, last of the shadow puppets, mercury music prize, burial, rachel unthank, estelle, judging
Christ… the Mercury Prize never fails to depress. Any ceremony that once awarded M People several thousand pounds for their unlistenable sub-jazz dirge needs to be completely disregarded, surely?
Indeed - also, it was originally sponsored by the Mercury Telecomms company, now defunct.
BUT! Organisers say that this was simply coincedence, that it was named in tribute to Freddie Mercury, who had recently died, not three years before the first one.
Mercury sponsoring it was co-incedence.
So shouldn’t it have been the Mercury Mercury Music Prize?
I’m pretty sure (but haven’t checked) it was Roni Size who beat Radiohead in 1997. Dizzee Rascal hasn’t been about that long. I think his prize was in 2002 or thereabouts, no earlier.
The prize is Burial’s with a bullet.
Depressingly I think you might be right and the prize may go to radiohead, but I really hope not. Agree about Last Shadow Puppets, don’t get what the fuss is about there at all. Although I thought the Klaxons were deserving winners last year, the album was refreshing and 18 months on I never skip ones of their songs when it comes on at random on my iPod!
Broon, you are absolutely spot on - my bad! Have edited now. Still remember Simon Firth announcing it ‘We’d just like to say we all agree OK Computer is a stunning album, but the winner is Roni Size!’
What makes you reckon Burial - the panel trying to show how different they can be a al when Antony and the Jonsons won it?
Adrian, you really should, they are rubbish. And the drugs should have worn off in 18 months
awarding “prizes” for music , its a bit ridiculous really.
I must be slipping…….who the fuck are Burial? A death metal band? If so, I hope they win it, then they can go murder the judges and burn down a church or two.
As Dusty says, there ain’t much merit in awarding prizes for music, except to teh Hold Steady, obviously.
Burial is an anonymous dubstepper. Album came out around the end of last year. Pretty sparse and dark stuff. Won’t be too everyone’s liking.
Those who (a) are sad enough to give a stuff about the Mercury and (b) want to always tip the left-of-centre nomination, have been tipping this one to win.
They could be right.
Yawn…
Yup, ‘look how left-field we are!’
I’m tipping it to win, and not to demonstrate how left-field I am. For me it’s the favourite because it’s dubstep’s Boy In Da Corner - just like Dizzee Rascal became the first superstar (relatively speaking) of grime, he took grime from the underground into HMV, most people who have ever heard any grime - what they’ve heard is Dizzee Rascal. Burial is the same with dubstep - Untrue broke dubstep overground, it was for many people (myself included) the first dubstep they ever heard, it’s a gateway album into the entire sub-genre. Dubstep’s popularity has rocketed since Untrue came out.
So from that perspective it’s an ‘important’ album for British music, far moreso than any of the others, representing things like “innovation” that Mercury always claim to look for. It’s fairly left-field, and the Mercury always wants to look like it’s an alternative-kinda prize (hence why Adele or Estelle won’t win).
generally, it’s a fucking incredible album. listen to it, in headphones, loud.
the only thing acting against him is that he’s still anonymous, so he won’t go to collect his award, which might put off the sponsors.
“Raising sands ” would get my vote , if I believed in voting for these kind of things obviously.
Broon, a good and sincere defence of the album. For what it is worth, I was not dumping on the album itself. Archangel, Ghost Hardware, and Untrue are all cracking tunes.
I was writing more about the insincere poseur bullshit that I have seen written in the past few days.
Anyway, its a joke award given what gets through and what does not. For example, PJ Harvey’s White Chalk was an amazing and deeply challenging concept album, Foals surely did something bright and innovative enough to make the shortlist ahead of most of what did, MIA’s second album was a real cracker, not to mention Fuck Buttons, Portishead, Frightened Rabbit, The Kills, and These New Puritans.
My like-I-care tip - Radiohead to get a “lifetime recognition” award. A bit like when they gave Scorsese the Oscar for the so-so The Departed!
I agree Broon, not having a go at the album, more the judges - we all know that the Mercury bosses do enjoy being a bit controversial.
What I have heard from it i have liked.
but d’you know what (i’m now ready for a rant), all I ever read about the MMP is about how predictable and tokenistic it is, and how crap the nominations are, when actually the sum of the criticisms I see are “they didn’t nominate all 12 albums I would have nominated = they is crap”. Besides, ‘predictable’ and ‘tokenistic’ overlap to an extent in a contradictory way. I tell you what’s not predictable - Neon Neon, Rachel Unthank, Portico Quartet, the absense of Portishead and Duffy (among others). And a ‘token x of y’ argument can be made for just about anyone - there’s no Scots on that list but I bet if there was they would be dismissed (by some) as ‘token Scottish’ - well it works all ways. The fact that there IS always at least one act that nobody’s ever heard of - Portico in this case - is dismissed as tokenism, but the specific choice of which record that is is never celebrated as unpredictability. Isn’t it good that there’s a record no-one was aware of before? Doesn’t that mean we might give it a listen now? Isn’t that exactly what we WOULDN’T get if the list exactly matched with any individual’s 12 predictions?
hey, I’m just playing devil’s advocate here. The criticisms of the MMP are the same everywhere I look and I’m not convinced by them. Rip that to bits if you will, I’m going out.
Fair point Broon. Though I would say that the MMP is accused of being gtokenistic because they give the air of appearing tokenistic. I’m just bitter because they didn’t give it to Big Country for the Buffalom Skinners - fucking Suede
I still say Radiohead are nailed on this year.
Simon Frith, who is on the panel, used to be my lecturer when I was at Uni. And does he call for my opinion? Does he fuck. Sometimes I wonder why I bother.
In the end, I’m with Nick Cave - you can’t award musicians prizes, they ain’t cattle.
since we mentioned death metal bands earlier , is anyone interested in joining my Cradle of Filth tribute band - Cot of Dirtiness ?
Broon, of course anything that relies entirely on qualitative assessment will always be prone to huge disagreements. It is the nature of the thing. Hence, as you say, the arguments for and against such things get repeated everywhere, so I will not rehash them anymore here.
If you want to talk about something a bit different though, I would love it if the notes of the judges were made available afterwards. Even anonymously. Be it the Oscars, the Mercury Music Prize, the PFA Footballer of the Year, the Yorkshire Building Society Mortgage Salesman of the Year, etc. At least with that degree of transparency, you could understand the logic that gets applied. With that, maybe you could show them some respect.
Instead, what you get is a list and then a winner and no one really knows why X won and why Y was never even in contention. Anything that opaque has to be treated with a large degree of cynicism.
Here endeth the sermon!
I’ll join a Corrosion of Conformity tribute band called Rust of Normailty.
And LO - kudos on the phrase “the Yorkshire Building Society Mortgage Salesman of the Year”.
My opinion is that you music is tough to judge. It hits you so viscerally, you can have 100 different reactions from 100 different people.
I can think of 20,000 reasons for jsutice to come and collect the prize. Or send his mum.
Bet he’s a middle aged white guy. That’ll f*ck them up good and proper.