As summer pummels well and truly on our door, it’s time for the annual Mercury Music Prize nominations where eclecticism rules OK. Filling up the Mercury bucket this year are indie stalwarts Radiohead and Elbow, scally wagsters The Last Shadow Puppets, DIY hero Laura Marling and pop darlings Estelle and Adele. RealMusic Blog is especially looking forward to the latter two squaring up at the ceremony after Estelle said of her chart rival: “Adele ain’t soul. She sounds like she heard some Aretha records once and she’s got a deeper voice - that don’t mean she’s soul.” More champagne for table two please…
RealMusic Blog loves the controversy the Mercury list generates every year - cries of “Who!?” and “But what about…!?” can be heard in pubs up and down the country as tables get clouted and fizzy apple juice gets spilt as punters decry the injustice of it all. But really, calm down dear - the Mercury Prize makes it hard on itself, drawing its list from a wide range of musical genres and so ending up with a shortlist of 12 that are impossible to compare. As Antony Hegarty of Antony And The Johnsons’ fame acknowledged when he won it in 1995: “It’s like a crazy contest between an orange and a spaceship and a potted plant and a spoon - which one do you like better?”
The leftfield selections this year include folk diva Rachel Unthank And The Winterset, electro duo Neon Neon, dubstep pirate Burial and singer-songwriter Laura Marling. Notable absentees include Portishead, Roisin Murphy and Duffy, whose album has just passed the one million sales mark. Who do we think will win? RealMusic Blog reckons the smart money is on Burial, although it’d love either Laura Marling or Elbow to scoop the prize when the ceremony rolls around on September 4th.
Chair of Judges Simon Frith commented: “What’s most striking is the continued resilience and flexibility of the album as a way of organising music-making. It remains an unrivalled source of musical invention and imagination, a way of linking songs, exploring themes and developing sounds that is endlessly thrilling, surprising and worth celebration.” And we think he said that with a straight face…
LISTEN TO MERCURY MUSIC PRIZE RADIO ON REALMUSIC
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Here’s a full list of the runners and riders for the Mercury Music Prize 2008:
Adele - 19
British Sea Power - Do You Like Rock Music?
Burial - Untrue
Elbow - The Seldom Seen Kid
Estelle - Shine
Laura Marling - Alas I Cannot Swim
Neon Neon - Stainless Style
Portico Quartet - Knee-Deep in the North Sea
Rachel Unthank & The Winterset - The Bairns
Radiohead - In Rainbows
Robert Plant & Alison Krauss - Raising Sand
The Last Shadow Puppets - The Age of the Understatement
(Clare Lydon)
