THE MERCURY PRIZE 2011
The Mercury Prize, formerly called the Mercury Music Prize and currently known as the Barclaycard Mercury Prize for sponsorship reasons, is an annual music prize awarded for the best album from the United Kingdom and Ireland.
Nominations are chosen by a selected panel of musicians, music executives, journalists and other figures in the music industry.
The Mercury Prize has a reputation for being awarded to outside chances rather than the favourites, so with that being said we have a look though this years nominees.
Mega-selling Adele and Tinie Tempah share a place on this year’s shortlist with Ghost Poet & hot favourite PJ Harvey. But who on earth is Ghostpoet? I hear you cry, Below we weigh up the contenders for UK music’s top award.
PJ Harvey
PJ Harvey – Let England Shake
Genre-bending, multi-instrumentalist & bookies favourite Polly Jean Harvey turned in a career-best performance with eighth album Let England Shake this year – some achievement considering her back-catalogue which includes 2001’s Mercury Prize winner, Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea..
Anna Calvi
Anna Calvi – Anna Calvi
Anna Calvi’s debut album was released in January 2011 on Domino Records. Recorded in France and Worcestershire, it features a guest appearance from Brian Eno. The album was produced by Rob Ellis and Anna Calvi and includes the singles ‘Blackout’ and ‘Desire’. While everyone from the NME to the BBC went mental for her debut album, this, ultimately, is music for edgy Daily Mail readers.
Elbow
Elbow deservedly took the Mercury Prize home to Bury in 2008, reward for two decades of dedication and criminally underrated albums. After the runaway success of The Seldom Seen Kid – propelled by One Day Like This – fans feared a delayed onset of second album syndrome:
No such problems for the Elboys. Build A Rocket Boys! is the musical equivalent of one long, life-affirming cuddle – with a pithy word of encouragement in your ear for good measure. While they’re unlikely to win again this year, they’re still more than worthy of a nomination for one of the albums of the year.
James Blake – James Blake
James Blake – James Blake
Ah, the BBC Sound of… Is there any greater yardstick for failure than this poll by music critics and industry Halfwits. Jessie J took the crown this year, pipping the likes of The Vaccines and Claire Maguire to the post. James Blake was the only remotely credible artist to emerge from the list; a bedroom knob-twiddler, versed in sequencers, samplers and drum machines, but with a haunting voice far beyond his 21 years.
Future pop, post-dubstep or popstep: whatever you want to call it, his sparse beats and skewed operatic delivery sets him apart from his BBC Sound of… counterparts, but he won’t be strong enough to beat the field at the Mercury Prize.
Katy B – On A Mission
Katy B – On A Mission
‘On a Mission’ is the debut album by 22-year-old Katy B from Peckham. Katy studied music at Goldsmiths and her album, recorded in London, was released in April 2011 on Rinse/Columbia. It features the top five singles ‘Lights On’, featuring Ms Dynamite, and ‘Katy on a Mission’, produced by Benga.
Metronomy – The English Riviera
Metronomy – The English Riviera
Metronomy – heralded by much of the music press as the great left-field British popstars – ‘The English Riviera’, Metronomy’s third album, was released by Because Music in April 2011. It was written and produced by the band’s Joseph Mount, originally from Totnes, Devon. The album, recorded in London and Paris, includes the singles ‘She Wants’, ‘The Look’ and ‘The Bay’
Tinie Tempah – Disc-overy
Tinie Tempah – Disc-overy
If the most credible award in British music goes to Tinie, the artist responsible for lyrics of this magnitude: “I got so many clothes I keeps ‘em in my aunt’s house”, “I been Southampton but I’ve never been to Scunthorpe” and “I got more hits than a disciplined child”; then we, collectively, for allowing it to happen, should bow our heads in shame…
Adele – 21
Adele – 21
Adele Adkins is a singer-songwriter from South London. Someone Like You, one of the stand-out tracks on her nominated album, 21, has proved to be incredibly popular with weeping, wine-soaked hen parties up & down the country.
Will she win? Her brand of soulful pop is probably too much for most, but few could begrudge the £20,000 prize money being awarded to Adele.
King Creosote and Jon Hopkins – Diamond Mine
King Creosote and Jon Hopkins – Diamond Mine
Representing this year’s token folk entry is Fife journeyman King Creosote – the man responsible for the greatest version of Nothing Compares To You ever recorded – and producer Jon Hopkins.
It’s clearly a labour of love, taking seven years to make, depicting a romanticised oil painting image of Scotland.
It’s never going to win, of course it’s not, but it’s a charming, album nonetheless.
Gwilym Simcock – Good Days at Schloss Elmau
Representing this year’s token jazz entry is Bangor-born composer Gwilym Simcock – a proper musician who can read music and has all the exams and everything. Good Days at Schloss Elmau is Simcock unaccompanied on piano, rattling his way through classical, jazz and blues.
While the 30-year-old’s chance of winning is non-existent, his nomination should afford him a hefty bump in album sales and the opportunity to soundtrack middle-class dinner parties all over Britain for the next few years.
Everything Everything – Man Alive
Everything Everything – Man Alive
‘Man Alive’, Manchester based Everything Everything’s debut album, was produced by David Kosten. Formed in 2007, the four-piece band features members from Northumberland, Kent and Guernsey. ‘Man Alive’ was released on Geffen in August 2010 and includes the singles ‘MY KZ, UR BF’ and ‘Photoshop Handsome’.
Can they win it? Well, as one of the most interesting and unique bands to emerge from the past 12 months, Everything Everything do have an air of the Mercury Prize winner about them…
Ghostpoet – Peanut Butter Blues & Melancholy Jam
Ghostpoet – Peanut Butter Blues & Melancholy Jam
It’s almost disappointing to see rapper and producer Ghostpoet nominated for the Mercury Prize, as the judges notoriously shortlist only the blandest of broadsheet-friendly hip-hop such as Speech Debelle & Dizzee’s more recent work, to a certain extent.
But in Peanut Butter Blues & Melancholy Jam – by far the best album title in this list – Obaro Ejimiwe has stepped forward as the natural heir to the throne; tackling the intricacies of modern life with his devastating flair for wordplay, lazy, almost drunken drawl and dark, brooding, often impossible to categorise electronic beats.
Ghospoet is the Avant-Garde outside tip to take home the Mercury Music Prize 2011.
