The Mercury Prize 2011: Nominees
The Barclaycard Mercury Prize is a prestigious prize awarded to up and coming bands in the UK and the nominees for this year were released yesterday (Tuesday 19th July 2011); their fantastic range in sound is a testament to the Mercury Prize’s ever changing outlook on its music.
Adele, the English songstress making waves in the current chart with hit single Someone Like You is nominated, having also held the number one spot in the charts for four consecutive weeks.
It seems that this year’s Mercury Prize nominees are quite different from those chosen before, with a quarter of them being female singer songwriters. Perhaps this is just a reflection of the Prize itself, mirroring the public in its nominations; for example, last year, Laura Marling and Mumford & Sons were nominated when the re-emergence of folk was brought to light in the charts. PJ Harvey is nominated for her ground breaking album Let England Shake and also won the award ten years ago for her Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea.
However, while she’s been nominated before, the other artists are newcomers to the prize. Pop-infused dubstep artist Katy B is nominated for her début album On a Mission, having entered in the charts at an impressive number two, whereas Anna Calvi’s self-titled atmospheric pop album débuted at 40 but was given 9 out of 10 by the NME.
Elbow, an English rock group, most famous for Grounds For Divorce who have previously won the Mercury Prize for their album Seldom Seen Kid with folk and country charms and anthemic choruses. The experimental electronic Ghostpoet is nominated, with his stripped down introspective and electronic sounds of Cash and Carry Me Home one of the stand-out tracks found on Peanut Butter and Melancholy Blues. Ghostpoet’s new on the scene and unlike many of the other nominees, hasn’t had a traditional “hit single” or album and is by default, not a household name.
Everything Everything, a group from Manchester are nominated for Man Alive and whose songs bring to the mind sounds of 2004’s Mercury Prize winner Franz Ferdinand. Similar sounding to Everything Everything are Metronomy with a modern yet 80’s twinged electro pop sound on The English Riviera.
Tinie Tempah, artist of Pass Out is nominated for Disc-Overy; like Katy B, Tinie Tempa marks a move by the award to move towards a more urban sound.
In polar opposite to Tinie Tempah is James Blake, a dubstep artist relying on minimalistic sounds to get his layered and depthed work, perhaps most famous for hisThere’s a Limit To Your Love, found on his self-titled album. King Creosote, unlike Blake, has released forty albums, yet his most recent Diamond Mine, a collaboration with Jon Hopkins is in the short-list, a gem of an album, released by Domino Records with an alternative folk feel to it. A must-have for fans of Devendra Banhart, Cat Power, The Waves etc.
Last, but not least, is Gwilym Simcock, one of the most surprising nominees for the 2011 Mercury Music Prize, a jazz musician. Jazz rarely wins the Mercury Music Prize, but often featured, and this year it’s Simcock’s Good Days At Schloss Elmau.
Traditionally speaking, the Mercury Prize Award has been won by alternative rock bands, but there have been a few years where newcomers sneak in and manage to win; Speech Debelle, Dizzee Rascal and Ms Dynamite, all British urban artists who have all won this prize in 2009, 2003 and 2002 respectively. However, compare this to Elbow, Portishead, Antony and the Johnsons and Franz Ferdinand. With this in mind, the hotly tipped favourites are either PJ Harvey, following in this tradition or perhaps Ghostpoet, as the prize is often known for picking highly talented and experimental yet little known artists to win.
Whoever wins it this year (the award ceremony being held on September 6th on is live on BBC2) will be following in the footsteps of 2010’s winners The XX, and boy that is a lot to live up to.
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Related Articles:
- Review: Adele: 21
- Review: James Blake @ The Globe
- BBC Sound of 2010: Longlist Revealed
- Review: Metronomy + Ghostpoet@ Clwb
2 Comments – Post a comment
CeefaxOfLife
Commented 10 months ago - 20th July 2011 - 13:29pm
Metronomy FTW!
Or anybody but Elbow.
neilramsden
Commented 10 months ago - 20th July 2011 - 18:59pm
My music tastes are so firmly rooted in the mainstream that I hope Adele wins, purely because I would never have listened to somebody like her if she wasn't so good. One of those cases where an example of a genre is so good that it grabs in everybody. It bugs me though that the version of 'someone like you' above, and the one she famously did on the Brits, is different to the album version. Not hugely, but on the album she does the chorus high-pitched, and whenever I hear it I think 'I prefer the live one'.
However, judging on previous Mercury form the winner will be the most pretentious :p