Who’s up for the Mercury Music Prize?
Our expert nominates the albums that should be in the running for the major music prize
Emily Jupp marks your card on the brightest talent deserving of a nomination
ORIGINALLY SET UP in 1992 as a rival to the Brit Awards, the Mercury Prize is not linked to the commercial success of the albums it nominates. This often results in a very mixed bag of artists, from total unknowns to very established acts, making it a bit more exciting than other similar and more predictable prizes. A heavy-metal group has never been on the shortlist but there’s often a token jazz or classically-influenced choice. Lianne La Havas might tick that box this year. She has been listed in the past and her new album
Blood brings jazz and blues to the fore. This year’s judges, picked from different areas of the music industry, include our own music editor, Elisa Bray, the editor of NME.com, Greg Cochrane, and the long-standing prize chairman, Simon Frith, also professor of music at Edinburgh University. The new judges this year are musi- cians; Corinne Bailey Rae, Nick Mulvey, Anna Calvi and MistaJam.
They will deliberate on around 250 albums, and the only criteria for the awards is that the artists must be British and that the albums have to have been released between 9 September 2014 and 25 September 2015. The shortlist will be announced on 16 October but here are the 12 albums that should be on it.
Laura Marling Short Movie
Written during a trip to LA, after a “gap year” of sorts spent touring the States, Marling’s fifth album is a tongue-in-cheek, Americana-inspired romp, plunging headfirst into her self-doubt and anxiety. There’s humour and bluesy cowgirl narration on “Strange” that wittily smacks down any potential suitors while revealing the not-so-nice side to Marling’s character. On the title track she attacks her own self-image: “Who do you think you are? Just a girl who can play guitar?” Her nerves were unjustified as, although her sound takes a distinctly different direction here, she brought her fans and the critics along with her.
Everything Everything Get to Heaven
The former Mercury nominees created one of the most interesting albums of the year with their third album, which includes the unsettling and unforgettable line: “It’s alright to feel like a fat child in a pushchair, old enough to run, old enough to fire a gun” in “No Reptiles”, which simultaneously calls to mind Ralph Steadman’s grotesque pen-and-ink cartoons and American mass shootings. They also tackle issues as broad as jihad and modern tech, all with a devastatingly catchy electro-rock beat.
James Bay Chaos and the Calm
After an early nod from The Brits’ Critics’ Choice award, the Hitchin-born singer’s debut album has rarely been out of the Top 20. He’s nothing if not popular, but will the judges eschew him in favour of a more eclectic choice? It wouldn’t be the first time an obvious contender was passed over. In 1994, M People controversially won over Blur’s Parklife and, in 2013, Speech Debelle, who had sold just 3,000 copies of her debut album, scooped the prize.
Florence and the Machine
How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful
Florence Welch is having a very good year. She topped the US Billboard chart for the first time, her album went to No 1 in the UK, and she became the first female artist this century to
headline Glastonbury. Her album, produced by Markus Dravs and Paul Epworth, surely deserves a nod after such an epic showing.
Jamie xx In Colour
This solo debut was a work of poised craftmanship that was seven years in the making, painstakingly put together in spare hours grabbed between work for Jamie xx’s band the xx, producing projects, and composing the score for a ballet. While most critics praised the sparse arrangements and wide range of influences, a few thought it was rather insubstantial, rarely achieving its profound aspirations.
Sleaford Mods Key Markets
If Jamie xx’s sound can be accused of being too neatly academic, then this angry duo are the very opposite. This post-punk hip-hop album consists of Jason Williamson’s unhinged shouts accompanied by a minimal computer-generated backing track by his partner in crime Andrew Robert Lindsay Fearn. The rawness only adds to the power.
Mumford & Sons Wilder Mind
Everyone got a bit worked up when Mumford & Sons dropped the banjos and picked up some electric guitars earlier this year, then their fans got over it and bought their album anyway, sending it straight to No 1 in seven countries.
Chvrches Every Open Eye
Lauren Mayberry is perhaps better known for her outspoken views on feminism and for defending herself against misogynistic online trolls on 4Chan than for her musical output, but her band Chvrches have been quietly gaining momentum since they ranked fifth on the BBC’s Sound Of list in 2013. The group’s second album is a Eighties electropop gem.
Krept and Konan The Long Way Home
The urban music duo’s addictive brand of grime broke records this year after they achieved the highest-charting UK album by an unsigned act. You’ll have heard “Freak of the Week”, their chart-topping single, but the rest of their debut album is consistently good, incorporating floor-filling bounce-along tracks, earworm pop tunes and achingly honest, heartwrenching rap-ballads.
Dutch Uncles O Shudder
With songs names like “Upsilon” and “Tidal Weight”, Dutch Uncles were never aiming for big-time commercial success, but their faintly whimsical, subtly humorous brand of moody pop is a balm to the soul for anyone overdosed on the homogeneity of the Sam Smith/George Ezra/Ed Sheeran/James Bay lexicon.
Public Service Broadcasting The Race for Space
Critics of the alt-rock duo said they couldn’t make their formula of combining clips from old news broadcasts with electronic music last beyond a novelty first album, but here they are with astrologically-themed album number two.
SOAK Before We Forgot How to Dream
Bridie Monds-Watson has been writing for this prodigious and impressive debut for four years, since she was 14. The result is a portrait of the trials of growing up, mixed with a mature dissection of her thoughts and feelings. Her delicately expressive voice adds depth to lyrical naivety, and wistful finger-picked guitars are mixed with twinkling pianos and cymbals.