The Mercury Music Prize

So yeah, an outsider won last night at the Mercury's (Speech Debelle with her Speech Therapy album if you don't already know). I've been following the prize since 2003 and whilst I was initially suprised Speech Debelle won, it makes sense in a way now.

You kinda know where you stand with the Mercury prize which is quite sad in a way. You just know that the jazz album is never going to win, same for the folk album usually too. And the really big commercially successful bands (e.g. Coldplay, Radiohead and Kasabian) will never usually win it cos the prize doesn't seem to want to follow trends. So it tends to come down to either an experimental album, the indie flavour of the month or the hip-hop/rap album. Or maybe even the dance/electronica album if one gets nominated. And even then, more often than not the judges will choose the most unexpected album to win. So when you boil it all down, it's not that surprising Speech Debelle won.

So yeah, although it's a big shock that someone the general public has barely heard of has won they should remember that the history of the mercury prize has always been odd and shocking at times. It's a major award in the UK that values the musical value of an album rather than live acts, the people or any political factors (no matter how many people want to claim it's all political) and you can at least say it's always interesting.

A problem with it though is that, when all this is over and all the plauits have been made, the winner then has the challenge of carrying on their career in the shadow of their win. This could go two ways. Firstly, they could forever be cursed and never reach the same level of success again or have a dramatic change within the band. It does happen every so often, so let's go through a few:

1993- Suede with 'Suede'- During sessions for their second album the band reached meltdown and Bernard Butler quit. 'Dogman Star' was then given a cool reception and wasn't as big as it could've been. They did achieve more success with 3rd album 'Coming Up' though (which was again nominated for the mercury).

1996- Pulp with 'Different Class': The sudden fame of Pulp with the success of 'Different Class' put a massive strain on frontman Jarvis Cocker, and guitarist Russell Senior left leaving a gaping hole in their line up. They still maintained success but chose to move out of the spotlight a bit.

1997- Roni Size/Reprazent with 'New Forms': Reprazent virtually vanished without a trace and Roni Size, whilst making plenty of albums and a few appearances on Jools Holland has never really been seen in the public consciousness again.

1999- Talvin Singh with 'OK': Got dropped by his record label after a weakly received second album and didn't seem to release music fr quite some time (he's apparently had a new release this year though).

2002- Ms Dynamite with 'A Little Deeper': When she released her second album her label did fuck all to promote it, meaning she was completely ignored and then got dropped.

And whilst a bit too early to tell yet, 2007 winners Klaxons (with 'Myths Of The Near Future') seem to be struggling to finish their second album and alledgedly haven't been playing much in the way of new material at the few gigs they've played recently.

Saying that, the secong route is they could conversely enjoy major success after the mercury, or if they don't, remain a popular cult band. Primal Scream (1992 with 'Screamadelica') are possibly bigger than they ever were now, 1994 winner's M People (with 'Elegant Slumming') became one of the biggest acts of the 90's, Portishead (95 with 'Dummy') released an equally successful second album before takign a 13 year break and returning with another very successful 3rd album and remaing cult favourites and highly respected musically. Gomez (99 with 'Bring It On') are very much a cult band nowadays and still a fairly big draw whilst Dizzee Rascal (2003 with 'Boy In Da Corner') is one of the biggest acts in the world today.

Which probably brings me to my final point, a lot is made of the winners and their merits after each award. The media and public seem to then forget that there are about 10-12 albums nominated each year and they tend to be forgotten about once the winners are announced. If you look back through all the shortlists down the years and actually go through all the albums, you will actually find a lot of quality albums.

2001 is my major case for this, here is is:

Basement Jaxx- Rooty
Elbow- Asleep In The Back
Goldfrapp- Felt Mountain
Gorillaz- Gorillaz (though the band requested the nomination be withdrawn)
Ed Harcourt- Here Be Monsters
PJ Harvey- Stories From The City, Stories From The Sea (Winner)
Tom McRae- Tom McRae
Radiohead- Amnesiac
Susheela Raman- Salt Rain
Super Furry Animals- Rings Around The World
Turin Brakes- The Optimist LP
Zero 7- Simple Things

Now then out of those 12 albums I own 7 of them, and have heard either all or the majority of another 3. I can tell you now that in my honest and earnest opinion. Everything I've heard from those 10 albums I've listened to either in part or in full has been utterly amazing. PJ Harvey was a well deserving winner (having been nominated twice before) with an extremely strong and emotional album. Elbow and Radiohead both had dark and mesmerizing albums which remain favourites of their fans, whilst Super Furry Animals and Gorillaz had an experimental pop masterpieces under their belts. Then you have Ed Harcourt, Tom McRae and Turin Brakes releasing extremely honest and compelling records. Finally, Goldfrapp and Zero 7 had 2 beautiful chilled electronic records to captivate.

To be more to the point, every album deserved to be recognised in the 2001 shortlist. If you were to listen to them all, you'd recognise that, even if they weren't to your tastes there's something special about each album. So you can say what you like about the shortlists, but you should bear in mind that the albums have all done something to get nominated, and more often than not, it probably is cos they're very very good.

I'm aware I'm rambling a lot at the moment. Lets try and wrap this up to a conclusion. The Mercury Music Prize is a prestigious award and it splits opinion. But if you look through the lists and investigate the albums that have been nominated, you will see that it is usually right about its nominations, whilst probably not always right about the overall winners.