The 2010 Mercury Music Prize Shortlist

The xx all the way for me.

Mumford & Sons will win the real thing. I can't bring myself to vote for any of them.

I think the jury might feel Mumford are too supermarket. Nearly a million albums sold, ecstatic live crowds ... Simon Frith don't go for that. Unless he's embarrassed by the Speech Debelle affair.

I think The xx deserve to win and probably will. It's the only record on the list I really love, though there's lots to enjoy on the Dizzee and Weller records too.

i like 3.5 of these albums, that's waaaay above average for me. i prob like the xx or laura marling more but i'm voting corinne bailey rae cuz that album really surprised me this year, and it's getting v underrated in comparison.

there are some total dogs on the list though. guido and ikonika should be there! but who cares really.

Corinne Bailey Rae 'The Sea' should win

who cares about the xx

they dont need an award

dizzee shouldnt win cos if that wins then you might as well nominate fucking tinchy as well

Wild Beasts. Amazing album.

is the 0.5 Biffy Clyro, Lex?

Two Dancers is the only album I can even contemplate voting for, so I just voted for it

the rest can be blasted into space afaic

*pending a listen to Kit Downes Trio

love this song, so insouciant. best use of the word "nonchalance" since mariah's "breakdown"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J2OLBhVua5c

xps the 0.5 is dizz

i didn't even know biffy clyro were still going. or paul weller, for that matter. i swear i thought paul weller died last year. wishful thinking i guess.

what a lot of shit that list is

good luck uk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hO7KrgALE2k

you were unnervingly delicate
and i had a weakness for etiquette

^^among my favourite couplets of the year

Lex is really selling the Corinne record to me considering that I discarded it as a snooze after one listen.

Would like to win: Laura Marling
(Laura Marling - I Speak Because I Can)

Probably will win: Corinne Bailey Rae

Will win this poll: xx

(I really like the bonus CD that came with the deluxe edition of the Dizzee album btw, more than the original CD in lots of ways)

'closer' on the CBR album is seriously amazing.

i was totally going to dismiss CBR unheard based on finding her first album a bit dull, but some +ve reviews at the jukebox made me check out the singles, and for a while a couple of months ago they were all i could play. i think what i love about that couplet, that kind of encapsulates corinne for me, is that...she is EXACTLY the kind of girl for whom etiquette makes her go weak at the knees!

jeff what makes you think she'll win? i don't see that AT ALL. if it's not the xx it'll be marling (and i'm not complaining, love both of those too).

This is probably the most worthy-but-dull shortlist in Mercury history. I Am Kloot? Really?

Laura Marling album the best there by a long chalk.

Lex what exactly is so good about that Corinne couplet?

I listened to CBR quite a bit when it came out, and liked it - not as much as Lex, but it was much more engaging than I imagined it would be. Can't say I've revisited, though.

loooooooooooooool at this list. its even worse than usual. biffy fucking clyro?

I think The xx will win, but I voted for Laura Marling because I can.

it really isn't worse than usual. last year's had kasabian, glasvegas and la cunting roux on the shortlist. the previous year had british sea power and bloody radiohead, and ELBOW ended up winning lololololol

Even you lex should understand that radiohead shouldn't be seen in the same hell as glasvegas and biffy clyro.

they're worse

voted laura marling and i haven't even listened to the record yet but it is in my 'new albums i should listen to' spotify playlist.

really?

I JUST NOTICED SADE IS MISSING

OK NOW I'M ANGRY

they're worse

*high five*

you wags

lex getting angry about the mercury music prize shortlist in 2010 is p fucking lol.

you were unnervingly delicate
and i had a weakness for etiquette

Isn't this a bit... twee?

I don't like any of the records on this list, which is probably a good thing as the years that I do like something on it I forget just how meaningless and industry back-slapping it is.

jeff what makes you think she'll win?
Sympathy vote? Mumford & Marling will cancel each other out? The xx will be bookies' favourites, so the panel will look elsewhere? All mere speculation obv.

The biggest thing counting against CBR *might* be Speech Debelle's win last year => "it's time for another band". But Some Foals v Biffy v I Am Kloot? Hardly inspiring.

if the sade album was produced like the CBR album it would have been a 100 times better

that actually is a nice little erykah-ish couplet that lex quoted

its not twee cos its amusing

mercury shortlist misses great album for four sweaty boys with guitars who once were on the cover of nme 8 months ago, news at 10. stay tuned for news of daniel sturridge's departure from city.

I couldn't even get through one CRB song. Inoffensive indie-lite of the worst sort. Those string arrangements! Make it stop, they hurt my ears with their syrup. Lex, you know I'm usually with you, but not on this one. Emil.y is right - this is just twee, no two ways about it. Feh.

I don't like any of the records on this list, which is probably a good thing as the years that I do like something on it I forget just how meaningless and industry back-slapping it is.

this

except as I say Two Dancers is pretty good, although Wild Beasts are much better live (one of the best live bands going, in fact)

i'm actually way more interested in how/whether laura marling will place in the ILM EOY poll.

cbr is better when she brings in a bit of R&B influence imo (eg - closer, like a star). otherwise her records can sound a bit politely flattened and like theyve been custom made to soundtrack a faux indie rom com.

When I want to listen to R&B I actually - you know - listen to R&B. Not some polite, over polished, over produced indie tweefest with R&B affectations. Is this how Pitchfork indie kids brownwash their music collections?

It's really not worth getting arsey about what's missing but this list is VERY broadsheety indeed. The Mumford & Sons is the only actively terrible thing in there, truly they are the O'Neill's of folk.

Villagers 'Becoming a Jackal'
Kit Downes Trio 'Golden'

No knowledge of these at all. Presumably one of them is the jazz one?

One of them has the word Trio in it, guess it's them? Villagers sounds like they'd be folky?

When I want to listen to R&B I actually - you know - listen to R&B. Not some polite, over polished, over produced indie tweefest with R&B affectations. Is this how Pitchfork indie kids brownwash their music collections?

― The Black Knight! Huzzah, My Lord! (Masonic Boom), Tuesday, 20 July 2010 12:39 (1 minute ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

seriously, can we stop with this shit? As a Pitchfork indie kid (formerly a Stylus indie kid I guess) I would like to point out that Pitchfork's last Best New Music label was given to the fucking dream (a review written by ilx's own d4vid dr4ke) and is actually a p decent place to read about hip-hop, r&b and the fucking rest.

its not pitchfork indie kids this is for, they know their badus from the bailey raes, its nme indie kids that need hunting.

CBR is more radio 2 than pfork

pfork kids brownwash their music collections with dirty projectors lol

and yeah CBR is totally polite and not very ~exciting~ but the tunes, arrangements, lyrics, character is all there on this album

plus as rev's pointed out elsewhere the structure of the album's lead single, "i'd do it all again", is pretty fucking audacious - if xenomania did it a few years ago everyone would be wetting themselves

what would make an ilm shortlist?

xx,
soldier of love,
some sort of funky album i'm not privy to,
two dancers,
i speak because i can,
...
...
...

My annual "may as well throw it straight in the bin" tenner will go on Wild Beasts, whom I dutifully just voted for on here as well. I called The Xx to win the day the album came out (NB many other people did this, also), and it may ell do, although as mentioned they don't really need the publicity. I'd love to see Villagers win.

(Surprised not to see Frightened Rabbit, Marina & The Diamonds or These New Puritans on there fwiw. )

These New Puritans record I still need to hear but the single was very good.

Villagers and KDT - please can someone illuminate!

"When I want to listen to R&B I actually - you know - listen to R&B. Not some polite, over polished, over produced indie tweefest with R&B affectations. Is this how Pitchfork indie kids brownwash their music collections?"

how silly. theres R&B like beyonce, and then there's stuff that kinda flirts with R&B like CBR (on a few songs) which works just fine too. CBR has decent R&B credentials anyway.

What I'd love to see: them giving it to their token jazz or folk album for once, just for lols.

These New Puritans should *definitely* have made it ahead of Wild Beasts or Foals or whatever is supposedly the cutting edge indie option.

Villagers = so dull as to be almost indescribable. 'Proper music'. Strummy, sensitive, song-driven.

Corinne Bailey Rae is Jools Holland-friendly rnb, not Pitchfork-friendly rnb, but really my life is too short to be talking about Pitchfork and the Mercury Music Prize at once.

Villagers = so dull as to be almost indescribable. 'Proper music'. Strummy, sensitive, song-driven.

ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww

Ha ha, I really thought, this being ILX, I'd get more shit for the "brownwashing" comment than the "pitchfork" one. But I underestimated the strawman pecking order.

TNP ahead of Foals, certainly.

And everything else here that isn't Wild Beasts.

Also, srsly where am Fuck Buttons?

mumford sooooo not the worst on this list, not when it includes paul sodding weller

mumford are terrible obv but they associate with laura marling, which is more of a positive than i can think of for weller/clyro/some foalzzzz

Kate: Oh see I understand the 'brownwash'-ing happens, I just think you took the wrong target to aim at. Other than that, I am with you.

mumford sooooo not the worst on this list, not when it includes paul sodding weller

Mumfords = worst thing in the universe

I have heard that that Paul Weller album is totally not what you'd expect from Paul Weller but I'm not willing to listen to it to find out.

exciting britisher music of the past year because lol what mercury shmoosic shortlist think

i am going for a nap now but when i wake up i will give a full report on the albums nobody's heard

i have not even heard of mumford. paul weller is a twonk and lol. only actually listened to one album on the list and it was fine (xx).

i fully support the exclusion of fuck buttons btw

i can't even believe the weller album title. it makes me cringe in shame at his senility

the xx are such craven dullards for fucking out loud RIGHT NAP

lex IS right about fuck buttons, though - they're even more boring than the xx!

Also, no Tom Jones?

(Closer inspection of my taste in the past 12 months reveals a definite skew towards non-UK acts anyway, so maybe this just isn't the thread for me...)

Fuck Buttons refused to put their album forward for nomination apparently.

would that they had refused to put it forward for release at all

actual lol

actually this is what happened to Fuck Buttons (allegedly): http://twitter.com/hxng/status/18985433714

:D

They should be flattered tho coz Fucked Up are a much better band - who managed to win their country's far-superior Mercury equivalent

When I want to listen to R&B I actually - you know - listen to R&B. Not some polite, over polished, over produced indie tweefest with R&B affectations. Is this how Pitchfork indie kids brownwash their music collections?

Reverend is a big fan of CBR and this particular album, and he doesn't fit the Pitchfork indie kid profile you describe. (I tried a couple songs and wasn't into it myself, but I'm just saying that's kind of too easy and sweeping.)

I'm finding Lex's stanning for Laura Marling very strange. Apparently even Mumford & Sons are acceptable just because they're friends Laura M.

Corinne Bailey Rae 'The Sea' should win

who cares about the xx

they dont need an award

But Grammy winner Corinne Bailey Rae does?

(In the U.S. at least, I wouldn't be surprised if CBR had sold more albums than all the other nominees put together. Except for Paul Weller, maybe, who's had 30 years to accumulate sales.)

Apparently even Mumford & Sons are acceptable just because they're friends Laura M.

Somewhat more than friends apparently.

I'm finding Lex's stanning for Laura Marling very strange. Apparently even Mumford & Sons are acceptable just because they're friends Laura M.

not acceptable, just more acceptable than weller

laura m herself is amazing

In the U.S. at least, I wouldn't be surprised if CBR had sold more albums than all the other nominees put together.

Suspect in the UK that Mumford & Sons are running her close

mumford album was actually kinda fun iirc but i think it's one of those trashy things that i listen to for a month and then never again

voting xx i guess

The xx will win both this poll and the actual award, Laura Marling may be in with a shot but I think they will play it safe after last year and The xx has been hugely popular with critics and fans.

I voted for Wild Beasts, it's a wonderful record and if it did win it would be the first time since Antony & the Johnsons that I actually agree with the results.

I assume Damon opted to keep Blurillaz out of the running, as he did with TGTB&TQ a couple of years ago?

(I've really liked Mumford & Sons since seeing them being amazing at Secret Garden Party in '08, and can't quite fathom the hate - apart from the tedious knee-jerk "young middle class London types STEALING 'our' folk music" stuff and bloody nonsense argument, which I can't abide because if you fancied it you could also thus discount 98.7% of all recorded popular music since 1954.)

Because they're entire aesthetic is awful and their songs are cloyingly sentimental. As said upthread they are to folk music what O'Neill's are to Irish pubs.

My friend, whose taste is reliable, says that Marcus Mumford was an electrifying solo performer a couple of years ago but has completely watered it down for reasons of mass appeal

STEALING 'our' folk music

Who says this? Not sure what is meant by folk music, in this case.

Songs sometimes played on acoustic instruments?

I feel strongly that the young person's indie bands should not be dressing like they're in a Hovis ad.

Pompous, wordy, his voice gets on my tits, music is dull. O'Neill's line otm.

I think Mumford & Sons look pretty good. (NB I am 35 and think the whole "trousers that show your pants" thing is horrid, so maybe it's precisely me they're trying to appeal to fashion-wise. Imagine if they looked like N-Dubz! The hilarity.)

I must say, their lyrics don't appeal to me as much as their music, which unashamedly does. And yeah, Marcus Mumford was pretty overwrought (seemingly genuinely so) when I saw 'em back when, and nowadays that seems to have abated somewhat, but I just put it down to growing up a bit in two years rather than A Big Music Industry Conspiracy. They're only like 21.

Shouldn't N-Dubz be on this shortlist btw?

also my friend is a girl with a weakness for delicate indie boys

Silly tart

^joke

I rather expected to like Mumford. Imagine my surprise when their songs turned out to be slightly dull, ruthlessly efficient simulations of ecstasy, rather than being actually ecstatic. And they're too close to the Levellers for comfort. And I don't care if finding something too close to the Levellers for comfort is shallow. They are the Snow Patrol of this indie-folk thing. Would take Stornoway over them any and every day of the week. But I think calling them the O'Neills of folk is unfair: they're a pop band who steal folk idioms aren't they? I don't think they claim to be the Watersons or anything.

BTW A friend tells me that their manager is predicting arena gigs in the wake of their second album. I say! Arena hoedowns!

see, i didn't even know they got popular at all ! i guess it makes sense though, their songs are a bit obvious in how they build+release but there aren't really that many rock or pop or folk bands using Big Dynamics like that in their music while simultaneously sounding restrained and pleasant enough to be digestible for the masses

of course all of my non-excitement here masks the fact that i was digging the album for a couple months last year when it came out. haven't touched it since, and i doubt it holds up especially since i had already begun to avoid paying attention to the hamfisted lyrics the first time around.

Platinum selling album. Not sure what that actually means, I admit.

I assume Damon opted to keep Blurillaz out of the running, as he did with TGTB&TQ a couple of years ago?

would that damon had opted to keep gorillaz out of the running of existing at all

Lots of Interesting Questions and Discussions about Mumford & Suns' religious persuasion all over the interweb, because that's what some people like to talk about. They've been v cagey about "coming out" as Christians, for sure, maybe for fear of being suddenly pigeonholed, but their lyrics make many references to "grace" and "faith" and so on and it's hard to ignore completely without, well, just ignoring them altogether, which of course you're welcome to do.

I voted for the Kit Downes Trio.

Haven't got a fucking clue what that is.

Man, I thought you were about to out them as Sc1ent0l0g1sts or sumthin'! (xp)

if it has the word trio or quartet its the token jazz i think

tedious knee-jerk "young middle class London types STEALING 'our' folk music" stuff and bloody nonsense argument

Have you been arguing with the ghost of Ewan MacColl? Have never heard the purist objection. Matt DC OTM. Also enjoyed one Twitterer's description of them as "the Royal Cornwall Show's Young Farmers choir".

Almost as bad as being Xtian in the UK's (broadly) indie-rock world! (xp)

trying to work out why being xtian is a bad thing? is the indie rock world really that narrow minded? oh wait.

Oh, it would take some doing to unpack the smug, self righteous Skeptic rage of the British chattering classes should one of them dare to identify as "not atheist" or even worse - CHRISTIAN.

no beef w/ religious artists here - for a start one's faith is often a pretty compelling lyrical subject

obviously some people are bigoted :(

Villagers = so dull as to be almost indescribable. 'Proper music'. Strummy, sensitive, song-driven.

Oh come now what does "proper music" even mean.
I like Villagers enough to take issue.
I voted for Wild Beasts, but based on this thread I'm going to listen for the first time to a Corinne Bailey-Rae record

wild beasts > xx > laura marling

mumford is just laughably bad, and they are legit catching on in the states.

It's not about the chattering classes or the rise in vocal atheism - it's much more complicated than that. If anything, I think it matters less now. It hasn't hurt Belle & Sebastian, Sufjan Stevens or Arcade Fire. It would only matter to people who already found Mumford annoying.

thread now even better with religion introduced

the weller album really is the best out of that (shitty) lot. xx,biffy clyro nominated = my idea of hell

may i shed a tear for V.V. Brown? Girl just can't get a break. At least "Shark in the Water" is a minor hit in the US.

Oh come now what does "proper music" even mean.
I like Villagers enough to take issue.

'proper music' there in quotes meant as repurposed-cliché shorthand for a kind of guitar-based, traditionally melodic soft-ish rock - usually vocalist with a slightly raw emotive-sincere tone. Some acoustic elements. Solid songwriting, literate lyrics. Elbow, Shack, Mumford, Weller in the 90s. Stuff sends me to sleep. Maybe a British thing? Radio 2 & 6 playlist music.

Don't know that much about them - heard a few songs on Irish radio when I was last over & thought them forgettable, checked my memories against youtube, posted. But respect your judgement (good records!), so I could have been hasty.

Listening on Spotify. I'm still finding it a bit dull.

A pertinent question: in what way are Mumford & Sons even vaguely indie-rock?

They're not really - I was just clumsily trying to make a broad comment about the critical consensus/attitudes to mainstream religion in the UK, and they're covered by exactly the same media who cover indie rock, by and large, ie. they do not exist in a Folk & Roots ghetto of their or anybody else's making. They are undeniably now a mainstream guitar band, at any rate...

Didn't even know they were religious. Not that it matters.

The thing about Mumford & Sons is that they are so obviously this decade's Travis/Starsailor - hyped by the NME now, astonishingly unfashionable in a year, and in 10 years time they'll be the punchline for "lol 2010 what were we thinking?" articles.

Feels weird this list, for some reason. Not necessarily any worse than usual, just half-hearted, like even the people behind it are getting pretty bored with having to keep doing this every year.

I'm trying to think who are this year's Portishead big baffling omission. Gorrilaz I suppose. Yeah, and Sade. LCD Soundsystem? Goldfrapp? The Fall? Delphic? Erm, Los Campesinos!??

Laura Marling was an easy pick though.

LCD Soundsystem?

Was James Murphy born in England or something, a la Antony Hegarty?

You could've had Tim Goldsworthy I guess, or the guitarist from Hot Chip. Neither of which are on the new record iirc.

Laura Marling kind of runs away with this for me, and I didn't even like her first album all that much. Something about the new one is transcendent tho.

Elbow, Shack, Mumford, Weller in the 90s

Elbow's first three records are leagues above the rest of this company. Their most successful record was by far their least interesting.

xp No, James Murphy isn't a Brit. My mistake.

obv not a fan of the actual record but m.i.a. is a pretty big omission. and i'd have thought that a token nod to the currently-hyped dance scene du jour in guido or ikonika would've been right up the panel's alley.

i still don't believe that gorillaz are a big deal at all, in any way.

Voted Laura Marling.

The xx by default. That list is, eh.

The xx by default.

hilarious

MIA would have been outside the eligibility period, Lex ... They probably cut off a couple of months ago, I would have thought. It will be eligible for next year's round.

Also, Guido and Ikonika, I think, are way further underground than any of the previous urban/dance nominees (let's treat Speech Debelle as an aberration, and also remember it was - for all its grittiness - not representative of street level trends) and therefore unlikely ever to get a nomination - we all know this isn't just about "best". I think it's easy for people like you who are right up to speed with them and with dance to assume they are known at a wider level, and I really don't think they are. I suspect most people who don't know about the scene they come from have never heard of either of them. It's not like Dizzee, who was all over everything from pretty early on.

Re; eligibility, when Dizzee won his album came out THE DAY BEFORE nominationsnwere announced.

The thing about Mumford & Sons is that they are so obviously this decade's Travis/Starsailor - hyped by the NME now, astonishingly unfashionable in a year, and in 10 years time they'll be the punchline for "lol 2010 what were we thinking?" articles.

I've never thought of them in those terms tbh, but humouring your line for a second, I think there's a lot more to them than you suggest. Leaving aside whether or not this is necessarily a good thing, I don't think their music can/could be tied to any particular decade (the album could've been made at any time since Marrakech Express). Mind you, Carter USM headlined Glastonbury 1992 etcetc-till-we-all-die...

Although xx probably deserves this more, I voted for Wild Beasts since I've been infatuated with them more recently. Also really like that Foals album.

are guido and ikonika really that much more underground than, say, your roni sizes and talvin singhs and 4heros of yore?

Not nuts about any of these really. Voted Wild Beasts, but I think it's only halfway to being a great album - too much padding in the second half, not enough tunes. Love this song though...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4sxh5zMbNAo

I think the Foals record fails for me in the same sort of way that the Wild Beats one does: too much of the echoey atmospherics that go nowhere.

are guido and ikonika really that much more underground than, say, your roni sizes and talvin singhs and 4heros of yore?

I would think so, I mean back in the day that one Roni Size video was all over MTV, even in America. Not so sure about Talvin Singh's rep though.

Talvin Singh was almost as omnipresent as Roni Size, who was really as close to a crossover star as D&B got in the US

Don't know how it worked out in the States but I don't think Roni got much mainstream media over here until after he'd won the Mercury. My memory could be iffy tho. New Forms - as an album - was definitely reaching out of its genre towards music criticland tho.

I guess I'm not sure of the timing, since I knew nothing about the Mercury prize back in those days, but Roni Size seemed pretty well-known even in my midwest college town. It wasn't like HUGE, but it also wasn't unusual to hear "Brown Paper Bag" out at the bars.

are guido and ikonika really that much more underground than, say, your roni sizes and talvin singhs and 4heros of yore?

They are WAY more underground. Roni Size and Talvin Singh had decent sized marketing budgets and a reasonable amount of (relatively) mainstream media exposure. Essentially, you'd have seen both acts on terrestrial TV from time to time, can't see that happening with either Guido or Ikonika for now. I think your proximity to the whole post-dubstep thing is making you think it's bigger than it is. They're not even at Burial levels of profile.

I doubt either are significantly less prominant than the Villagers or Kit Downes though.

Essentially, you'd have seen both acts on terrestrial TV from time to time

Not before the Mercury wins I don't think? Maybe Talvin Singh.

I think possibly on specialist music shows? Anyway I definitely had them down as being about as prominent as Dizzee was when Boy In Da Corner was released - ie not massively, but decent amount of press behind them, still more prominent than Ikonika and Guido.

My memory is hardly the most reliable. I can say definitively tho that the pointless vocal version of "Brown Paper Bag" didn't come out until after he'd won the Mercury.

Also drum and bass was slightly further into its critical maturity by 1997 than dubstep is now. Although Burial and (I think) The Bug have made the list it doesn't yet feel that dubstep has had its own Timeless (or its Blue Lines for that matter).

the mass popularity of Mumford & Sons I've learned about here is a revelation. Since when do middling indie-folk dullards have appeal beyond their friends and 1% of the NME readership? Srsly baffled.

I like The xx most but would rather L. Marling won. Something about Biffy Clyro strikes me as even more lol than yr usual awful choices.

Mumford and sons fill that niche that if you're drinking at the pub the whole evening the only piece of music you'll remember is the last minute of little lion man.

Ellie Goulding's quite a surprising omission, now I think about it.

I dunno - despite the BBC Poll win, the reviews were lukewarm, and she hasn't busrst through. Marina a more surprising and disappointing omission, I think.

No room for Marina. Had to squeeze in the corpse of Paul Weller to appease the oldniks.

its the best album there

I haven't heard it, true, but are you telling me that after nearly two decades of phoning it in that Weller decided to finally make something worthy of receiving a prize again? Like, instead of people who haven't had time yet to become jaded and lazy?

out of that list, yes. Its by far his best solo album.

Kerr, you have actually lost your mind. Back to the metal threads with you.

Not a fan, but tbf Weller hasn't been phoning it in for a bit now - 22 Songs was a lot odder than you'd expect from him.

Biffy Clyro - not heard.
I Am Kloot - heard once, majorly disappointed.
Dizzee Rascal - not heard, but love Dizzee-as-pop-star.
Paul Weller - even better than 22 Dreams. SRTF #2!
Corinne Bailey Rae - heard once, will try again; there's something immensely likeable about her as a person & as a performer, even though I've never quite clicked with the records.
The xx - my favourite on this list, easy favourite to win.
Villagers - played once, hated it.
Kit Downes Trio - not heard.
Foals - not heard.
Laura Marling - love it, love her.
Wild Beasts - liked it a lot six-to-eight months ago; time I dug it out again.
Mumford & Sons - the whole Mumfords thing has passed me by; nothing about them has made me want to investigate further.

after nearly two decadesan entire career of phoning it in

^fixed

weller is incapable of a return to form b/c that would imply there was any worthwhile form to start with

Not a fan, but tbf Weller hasn't been phoning it in for a bit now - 22 Dreams was a lot odder than you'd expect from him.

yes. My mate is a huge fan and i never really cared much for weller after wild wood, but the last 2 are very different, so much that I even like them. He left that blues rock stuff behind long ago. He even made a nick drake type album with Robert Kirby called Heliocentric which was pretty good.

Dude. In 2010, getting Kevin Shields to play on a song and referencing Nick Drake is evocative of nothing but the sound of the bottom of the barrel being scraped. UGH.

Since changing my display name, I am now hearing *everything* in the snarky slightly dismissive tone of that girl.

"Paul Weller, making a record with Kevin Shields is NOT my idea of a comeback! ESPECIALLY right now."

Fuck's sake Lex. I'm no Weller fan, but the last thing you can accuse him of his phoning an entire career in. No one in the 80s, for example, made greater efforts not to be pinned down to one place musically, and he engaged more seriously with house than any of his British rock contemporaries. Sure, he got bogged down in conservatism later, but don't judge a whole career by that.

I don't really get the sense of barrel-scraping or cred-chasing from recent Weller. Seems like an ageing man making the stuff that interests him - I mean I'm not cynical about his working with Robert Wyatt, or Shields. fwiw, his voice irritates me a bit, but I thought a couple of the instrumentals from 22 Dreams were lovely. Haven't listened to the new one.

Seems like an ageing man making the stuff that interests him
Seems like an ageing man making the stuff that interests him
Seems like an ageing man making the stuff that interests him
Seems like an ageing man making the stuff that interests him
Seems like an ageing man making the stuff that interests him
Seems like an ageing man making the stuff that interests him
Seems like an ageing man making the stuff that interests him

^^^^^^^everything that's wrong with Weller in one sentance. Thank fuck I'm not an ageing man, and this stuff doesn't interest me at all.

So is, ay, Norma Waterson worthy of contempt for being an ageing woman making the stuff that interests her?

"say" rather than "ay". Though "ay" adds to the folkiness of a post about Norma Waterson.

Seems like an ageing man making the stuff that interests him

Who are we talking about here, Paul Weller or Kevin Shields?

If ageing women were quite as dime-a-dozen on the landscape of rock music as ageing men, you might have a point. But the fact that you had to reach out to the genre of folk to even find an example of an ageing woman suggests that they're not.

"Ageing", tsk. We're all doing that.

Don't know about Weller's new album, but I thought he did well steering Holland to the final of the World Cup this year

But that's not the point, is it? The point is your insistence that an ageing man is necessarily dull, which is just fucking bollocks, whether or not Weller is an arse or not. Otherwise yours is a straw man/woman argument: there aren't many ageing women in rock, therefore ageing men are dull.

I listened to like the first half of the Weller album and it wasn't terrible but I wasn't particularly captivated, the end

Seems like an ageing man making the stuff that interests him

Hmm, pretty much Pete Kember in a nutshell iirc

Lucky he hasn't worked with Kevin Shields recently oh wait

Has anyone actually heard this Weller album or are we just talking about something hardly anyone's bothered to listen to? In which case it's STFU time really.

Paul Weller was boring when he was young - why on earth would his aging process interest me in the slightest? The documentation of the Aging Man Experience has already been done before, by every fucking aging rock star from Bob Dylan forwards. Paul Weller had little enough to say to interest me when he was 20 - why on earth should he interest me now?

If you insist on bringing gender into it - well, yes, I am going to counter with the serious dearth of older women being allowed the same creative freedom. Women within rock are marginalised to start with, they're written off the cultural map as soon as they age. So yeah, the experiences of an aging woman withing the rock idiom WOULD be interesting, even if just through the novelty value of how rare it is.

Paul Weller, on the other hand, can go eat a bag of dicks.

and yes, Kerr insisted on making me listen to the damn Paul Weller album and it was boring as fuck. But I would say that as I don't fucking like Paul Weller to start with.

[i]No room for Marina. Had to squeeze in the corpse of Paul Weller to appease the oldniks.[/]

This is a serious misreading of how the Mercury panel has worked in recent years. Most years there's nobody over 35 let alone over 50 so Weller's on there because enough judges rated it (and it is probably his best solo record) rather than any old-guy tokenism. Look at the past decade's shortlists - Robert Plant (2008), Scritti (2006), Robert Wyatt (2004) and David Bowie (2002) are very much the exceptions. One of my beefs with the Mercury is that it ignores stuff like Kate Bush's Aerial in favour of yet more ephemeral NME faves.

How old is Guy Garvey?

36. Would've been 34 when Elbow won.

I say keep the oldies out and devote the shortlists to those acts overflowing with energy and zest and youthful exuberance like The XX and Mumford & Sons.

I mean I'm not cynical about his working with Robert Wyatt

Weller worked with him years ago didn't he? They have been mates since the red wedge days afaik.

and matt otm, at least Kate has listened to it, so can say why she dislikes it. But I'd rather weller takes risks with his music than peddle the OCS type shite he was making.

Mercury to be renamed?

http://www.metro.co.uk/music/835836-dizzee-rascal-im-going-to-win-the-mercury-prize-again

Sort of tempted to vote for Dizzee in this poll as a) that album has higher highs than anything else here and b) it's at least got a bit of spark among all the tastefulness (Biffy Clyro notwithstanding).

The XX are quite good but very samey.

^^^ Mercury winner's manifesto

It's true. There haven't been that many (any?) winners that you could call eclectic.

I don't really know what eclectic would be but there haven't been many/any winners with spiky edges, have there? Dizzee, arguably. Can't think of owt else.

the xx came to my club night last night so if i hadn't voted already i'd vote for them

Screamadelica was the dictionary definition of eclectic back when it won the first Mercury. Not at all spiky though.

this thing just gets more dire by the year

"spiky edges" is kinda hard to really nail down but you could argue for

- portishead - i was always surprised to see dummy dismissed as coffee table music given that it's a pretty difficult album emotionally (throughout) and sonically (in places), and obv they got a lot spikier on their 2nd and 3rd albums
- pj harvey - yeah she won for her least spiky album but she's a pretty spiky artist overall
- ms dynamite - again the spikiness isn't on the album she won the prize for, but there's a lot of it in her career -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OmOqxSqrybo

and the astonishing "don't stop", which isn't on youtube

- klaxons, maybe? a very shit sort of spikiness. maybe i'm confusing that with just being a noisy mess.

By eclectic, I just meant albums that jump all over the shop stylistically. They obviously favour stuff that can be easily reduced to a single strong sonic identity.

Have to say I've never listened to Screamadelica though.

Small mercies! No Ellie Goulding!

I like about six of these, more than usual. I even like the I am Kloot record, though I've not heard their previous stuff.

Just on merit it's gotta be the xx though.

As far as jumping all over the shop stylistically is concerned, I guess the critical orthodoxy with albums is that they've got to feel coherent, the same way that novels are treated. Think this is bollocks re: albums and novels but I guess it explains why you don't tend to get eclectic stuff winning.

Agree with most of those acts lex listed, Portishead's album especially is full of noise moments and, as you say, emotional viciousness. Love Polly Harvey but I think you could argue that nothing she's done would be inaccessible for a Dylan-loving rock crit. Looking at people's music outside of the Mercury album is a bit of a cheat really - Roni Size would be another example of somebody who's made very "spiky" music but New Forms is a lot less confrontational than his strictly for the hardcore stuff.

i think a lot of pj harvey's stuff would code too much as female hysteria for most classic rock crits - at least growing up in the 90s that's how i felt she and tori amos were perceived. critics seemed scared of them, and this was manifest in snarky dismissiveness. this is why i've never really read any rock crit, because at the age when i was most "ready" for it, i just found critics mocking my favourite artists for the exact traits that i loved in them.

i do think albums should be "coherent" but this doesn't necessarily mean stylistically limited, it's more to do w/nebulous things like how the album flows, whether the underlying spirit of the thing ties the songs together - but eclecticism is a much tougher look to pull off. most of the stylistically eclectic albums i love are still underpinned by a definite aesthetic. throwing any old shit at the wall just to see what sticks isn't a worthwhile enterprise in and of itself, and much of the time indicates a LACK of ideas.

The Arctic Monkeys and the Klaxons are pretty spikey.

i think a lot of pj harvey's stuff would code too much as female hysteria for most classic rock crits - at least growing up in the 90s that's how i felt she and tori amos were perceived. critics seemed scared of them

PJ Harvey got pretty much blanket praise up until Is This Desire came out, the critics loved her (and still do, she's proved a very durable artist).

I find it difficult to get into bands or artists who are wildly eclectic on the same album cos yeah it usually ends up feeling wacky or dismissive of the styles they're playing. Can't think of a counter-example at the moment; artists that I love that have varied their sound a lot tend to do it album to album rather than all at once.

xxpost

I suppose they both are, speaking as an old man I just tend to think of them as Dad Rock for teenagers but they probably sound spikier if you're coming at them as part of a contemporary scene.

I dunno, I'm looking at both from a "tsk, the shit the kids listen to" perspective and neither strike me as being tastefully boring enough to be dadrock. Both bands are too noisy and oikish to get away with that. ]

Stories From The City (which I love) is more dadrocky than either, assuming your dad is into Patti Smith.

I can't listen to the Klaxons because of that horrible fucking over of Grace's "Not Over Yet" so uh maybe. Arctic Monkeys definitely have become Dad-er and Dad-er over time, even "Until the Sun Goes Down" on that first album has got a "Streets of London" vibe to it. Neither of them are Starsailor yeah but it's a pretty polite easy-listening version of rock imo. Maybe any edge they both had/have is cos the records are pretty compressed/trebly/noisy?

Yeah that makes sense, but both pass the "sound like x classic rock band falling down a flight of stairs" test for me, whereas the PJ Harvey album feels very crafted to me.

Obviously the first Dizzee album is harsher and spikier and more abraisive then virtually anything else that's ever been nominated.

If I was feeling skittish I'd argue that M People were well spiky just cos of the hilarious reaction their win got from the indie-only boneheads I knew at the time. Those kids were spitting blood for weeks.

arctic monkeys just sound like dreary northern britpop redux. when i finally heard them i was surprised at how conservative and safe it was.

re: harvey's reviews - she and amos got good reviews for most of the 90s b/c i guess most publications had one writer who really loved them, but it was the offhand remarks you'd see everywhere, using them as examples of women being embarrassing or whatever, that entrenched the consensus. though yeah harvey is pretty solidly rock canon at this point.

m people still in the better half of mercury winners tbh

I think the stuff in PJ Harvey that separates her from the canon (and makes her good and interesting imo) is quite ignorable if you're that way inclined. A trad critic can enjoy most of her stuff without having to sully his hands with icky girl politics.

xpost

Definitely, I love most of M People's classic stuff.

money is now coming out.
saw prime time tv advert for the xx last night.
having avoided their album up until now, from the clips it sounded like it could be something i may like on a grey autum day.
my 13 year old was very unimpressed.
still plenty of time for his moods to swing and make this a perfect album for him.
have they pressed up normal jewel boxes editions of the album yet, or, is it only available in "limited edition" cardboard packaging ?

I find it difficult to get into bands or artists who are wildly eclectic on the same album cos yeah it usually ends up feeling wacky or dismissive of the styles they're playing. Can't think of a counter-example at the moment; artists that I love that have varied their sound a lot tend to do it album to album rather than all at once.

Massive Attack maybe?

^ not wildly eclectic obviously, but their albums lack a homogeneity where you could easily say 'this record sounds like this one thing'.

Maybe. I feel like they're sonically coherent? Could say the same of somebody like Black Eyed Peas where on The E.N.D. there's a bunch of styles but the production ties it all together.

I say keep the oldies out and devote the shortlists to those acts overflowing with energy and zest and youthful exuberance like The XX and Mumford & Sons.

ha!

Mumford & Sons are full of an exuberance that could easily be classed as youthful though! They just choose as their medium a type of music that's been around a looong time, and is thus (stereo)typically usually expected to be played by older people.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

has anyone here heard that I Am Kloot Sky At Night? i forgot about them and didn't know they were still together.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

a single not even stifled yawn

Foals sure don't get much love

Respect to the seven people who voted for the fourth best Dizzee album over everything else here, because although only about 2/3rds of it is any good, that 2/3rds still blows everything else here out of the water.

Gonna assume the Biffy Clyro and I Am Kloot votes were jokes unless somebody wants to put their hand up for an SB.

has anyone here heard that I Am Kloot Sky At Night? i forgot about them and didn't know they were still together.

Yeah. Having increasingly lost any sense of direction on the last couple they've recovered it by roping in Guy Garvey and Craig Potter and turning themselves into a low rent Elbow. With accompanying 'They've been working away in the wilderness on great music for years and now they'll finally get noticed - just like Elbow!' press narrative, which is almost as stupid as when it got applied to Doves last year.

It is actually the best since their debut, but a looong way off that one.

hey this is on TV now. Someone's about to win. Thrilling!

I've got 5 grand on the jazz group, fingers crossed.

oh they just looked at our poll, hows about that.

RIP your knees, NV.

's alright, I'm gonna double or quits on Scotland winning Euro 2012

Hoping that Mumford and Sons will throw themselves in the millstream in despair.

hipster shite winning shite prize shocker

lock thread

if only there existed some music to help me sleep this result off

if only all british music was as good as the xx, louis?

the shortlist just shows what a healthy state british music is in

'the zz morelike' is the best bandname zing of our times

These are truly bad times.

Cheer up, Everything Everything might win the next one

(I actually like Everything Everything, so ban me)

I was gonna say even ILX could come up with a better shortlist then I look at this polls results.

I suppose it is funny that the winner is a band NME & Pitchfork have hyped up and is also loved by certain ilm posters who hate said publications.

u r upset that the xx, laura marling & dizzee beat paul weller

nope

i just dont get why something so bland as the xx gets so much praise lavished on it

I suppose it is funny that the winner is a band NME & Pitchfork have hyped up and is also loved by certain ilm posters who hate said publications.

― pfunkboy (Herman G. Neuname), Tuesday, September 7, 2010 6:12 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark

i suppose you could also say that this speaks to why so many people like the xx

idk man... you've been on like this year long crusade against the xx & they haven't even put out any new material or anything... i guess i would just chalk it up to the idea that other people are hearing things that you're not, or maybe you don't dig the type of music that the xx makes idk

Come back DJ Martian all is forgiven.

not everyone has to understand why everything is the way it is

i can't fathom for the life of me why people think 'merriweather post pavilion' is a landmark album but i've just accepted it

i would love to hear what others do, I just don't. Usually i can see what people like in a band even if i dislike it, but I'm just baffled by the xx love. But you're right, I'm not gonna get it now. I would gladly forget about them but then this damn award means theyre gonna be everywhere for a couple of weeks then again when their new album comes out.
xps

and yes, come back dj martian!

lets talk about the glory days of his posts instead

i didn't realize that the mercury prize was an actual thing that impacted peoples irls

i think u win money

it doesnt really, but you cant escape it in newspapers n stuff for a week or so

i checked the bbc website for the latest headlines and there it was. Turn on tv news and there it is.
anyway

wheres dj martian?

herman did u like any of the albums on this list

xp - You win money and your album sales drop I think.

i've only heard the xx but i'm willing to believe that laura marling & wild beasts are worthy

i dont own any of them

Stop now.

The weller album was his best solo album, but not an album that id say was the best album of the year or anything.

just saw this, still love that XX albums so i think the right band won, congrats.

UK 'blind' to British black female artists says Simon Frith
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-11251653

it's true

I'm just confused about what I'm meant to be feeling when I hear the XX, other than a bit gloomy that is.

Youth is overrated.

The Review Show was talking about the Mercury Prize and the future of the music industry on BBC2 last night. It's on the iPlayer if anyone's interested.