Mercury Music Prize 2015

Short list announced tomorrow...

Some Spotify article 'predicts' that these have had the biggest boost in streaming, so maybe these will be on that list.

http://www.gigwise.com/news/103247/mercury-prize-streaming-statistics-bring-me-the-horizon

I don't think that's a good indicator/predictor, but:

Bring Me The Horizon - That’s The Spirit - 24.16%
Jess Glynne - I Cry When I Laugh - 17.95%
Foals - What Went Down - 11.33%
Years & Years - Communion - 10.32%
James Bay - Chaos & The Calm - 8.62%
The Libertines - Anthems For Doomed Youth - 5.29%
Krept & Konan - The Long Way Home - 5.02%
Catfish & The Bottlemen - The Balcony - 4.69%
Mumford & Sons - Wilder Mind - 4.16%
Florence & The Machine - How Big, How Beautiful, How Blue - 3.28%
Jamie xx - In Colour - 2.63%
Everything Everything - Get To Heaven - 2.56%

Pick any five from this list, I would guess, then add some 'unknowns' and off we go....

Not that I usually care, but an album I completely and utterly worship has a non-negligible chance of winning this (Richard Dawson - Nothing Important obv)

"Mercury prize 2015: follow the nominations as they are announced" - http://www.theguardian.com/music/live/2015/oct/16/mercury-prize-2015-liveblog

Pleased to see the Roisin Murphy and C Duncan albums get some recognition.

Aphex, Wolf, Roisin, Duncan..

Everything Everything – Get To Heaven (4/1)
Jamie xx – ‘n Colour (7/1)
The Maccabees – Marks to Prove It (8/1)
Sleaford Mods – Key Markets (10/1)
Richard Dawson – Nothing Important (10/1)
Wolf Alice – My Love Is Cool (12/1)
Nadine Shah – Fast Food (12/1)
Ghostpoet – Shedding Skin (12/1)
Jane Weaver – The Silver Globe (12/1)
LoneLady – Hinterland (16/1)
Foals – ‘What Went Down’ (16/1)
Florence + The Machine – ‘How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful’ (20/1)
Young Fathers – ‘White Men Are Black Men Too’ (20/1)
Soak – ‘Before We Forgot To Dream’ (20/1)
Slaves – ‘Are You Satisfied?’ (20/1)
Dutch Uncles – ‘O Shudder’ (20/1)
LA Priest – ‘Inji’ (20/1)
Richard Hawley – ‘Hollow Meadows’ (20/1)
Alt-J – ‘This Is All Yours’ (20/1)

Sleaford Mods? don't be silly...

(I mean, 10/1 - if it's nommed (which it might be), it'll be 30/1 if that.

lol why are they drip-feeding this shite so slowly

róisín murphy's first nomination (solo or moloko) for her most boring album, slow handclap, if this sack of shit was anywhere close to being on it they'd have recognised statues or overpowered

I haven't thought about Statues in (checks release date) 12 years. I remember it being pretty great. I can see why it didn't get nominated though - stiff competition from Athlete and The Thrills that year.

Hollow lols

Well, with one to go:

The Spotify list has got two correct, Florence and Jamiexx.

The Betting one has the same two, plus Wolf Alice, GhostPoet and Soak.

and Slaves

this is so so so dire

Final List:

The full list of nominees:
Aphex Twin - Syro
Benjamin Clementine - At Least For Now
Gaz Coombes - Matador
C Duncan - Architect
Eska - Eska
Florence + The Machine - How Big How Blue How Beautiful (pictured)
Ghost Poet - Shedding Skin
Jamie xx - In Colour
Roisin Murphy - Hairless Toys
Slaves - Are You Satisfied
Soak - Before We Forgot How To Dream
Wolf Alice - My Love Is Cool

Imagine enjoying a Slaves album more than Sucker

fancy a bet on RDJ's lifetime achievement award if the price is right, guessing the price won't be right

can you save me some time and effort and just imagine about 3 screens' worth of "lol" typed after "Gaz Coombes"?

lol Gaz Coombes

good for Wolf Alice.

There's not even any jazz. Rubbish.

going to listen to some of these

what the fuck is this benjamin clementine shit

popular CBeebies character iirc

oh absolutely fuck off with this, this is dreadful, a con, a pandering mess of dullard's nonsense

okay that's one on my "worth a listen" list then

:O

there's a bit more to C Duncan but it hasn't won me over just yet

róisín!

hmm, am quite enjoying C Duncan, so that's one Noodle won't have to listen to AMIRITE *wounded look*

mere banter, sir

it just needs to be that tiny bit more melodically inventive (not your banter)

ok bored of this now

Eska has something there but not really, next

Gaz Coombes

Ghostpoet sounds like some Kate Tempest shit but with better musical backing

http://img12.deviantart.net/790b/i/2010/162/e/e/supergrass_8_by_mazzi294.jpg

i've had time for ghostpoet's previous work but this album was somehow both treading water and hella clunky by his standards

i don't even have a token album i care about in this shortlist, lol

my favourite british albums of this year were by years & years, flava d, laura marling, jam city, estelle and darkstar (if september 2014 releases are eligible then gazelle twin and call super, as well)

Wow that Gaz Coombes album must be great to get a nomination this late in the day.

gazelle twin? there's always something we overlap on, weirdly

'slaves' are fucking awful cunts, ban them

omg i just googled gaz coombes

THE TWAT FROM SUPERGRASS??????

IN 2015?????????????

my goddddddd, screaming w laughter

Aphex Twin is the only one I've heard. I love it. I want it to win.

From the brief blurbs I've seen, C Duncan is the only other one I'm vaguely interested in.

NO JAZZ. ASSHOLES.

Soak is exactly what you'd expect from the name, it's like she wants you to know how dull she is

lux aeterna

before we forgot how to dream is a spectacularly annoying album title

the florence, róisín, and wolf alice records are great, hope they all win over jamie xx

of one of the previous lists posted i think lonelady's hinterland rules and it would've been real welcome on this list

lex otm there

florence, roisin, wolf alice and jamie xx are the ones i haven't commented on coz they're patently not my thing but i don't feel as comfortable criticising them as i do some of the mortally boring shit on this list

insofar as i'm taking sides i'll just go for Not Jamie ZZ

yeah anti-jamie xx club assemble

i still haven't heard the aphex twin album but i'm probably going to have to end up siding with it. what a bad list this is, really

Time to give thanks and praise for all the ones that didn't get nominated even though they were marked as favourites:

Everything Everything – Get To Heaven (4/1)
The Maccabees – Marks to Prove It (8/1)
Sleaford Mods – Key Markets (10/1)
Richard Dawson – Nothing Important (10/1)
Nadine Shah – Fast Food (12/1)
Jane Weaver – The Silver Globe (12/1)
LoneLady – Hinterland (16/1)
Foals – ‘What Went Down’ (16/1)
Young Fathers – ‘White Men Are Black Men Too’ (20/1)
Dutch Uncles – ‘O Shudder’ (20/1)
LA Priest – ‘Inji’ (20/1)
Richard Hawley – ‘Hollow Meadows’ (20/1)
Alt-J – ‘This Is All Yours’ (20/1)

So, did those bookies actually accept bets on these? And now they get to keep the stake money, right?

listening to 'swallowtail' off the wolf alice coz i like butterflies, it's nice, got a 90s alt-rock vibe to it, like an ambient version of Hum or something. brad you can have this one just about even if this seems like it was made specifically with you in mind

A couple albums there I actually like, but boy did I feel that "Everything" album start off OK, but as it went on oh - please stop woh.....

https://www.facebook.com/jocelyn.dawson.315/posts/10153682595025645

:(

Did bookies just randomly list people who'd been nommed in previous years?

oh dear

it's ok jocelyn, you can still be proud of him, maybe

it's not like he didn't release arguably the best british album of the last 10 years

Richard Dawson James

Welp, maybe Gaz Coombs' solo record really is an interesting and worthy piece of mu-HAHAHAHAHAHAnopecan'tdoit, come on now.

Also, I'm assuming it's not *this* Eska, right?

http://www.gringorecords.com/artist.php?artistid=6

*Coombes, sorry, terribly terribl-HAHAHAHHAAHHAAAjesusreally

I haven't heard it but I'm guess everyone complaining about it hasn't either? I doubt its any worse than anything on the list. What do you expect with this meaningless shit prize? Would rather it all would just go away.

a lot of the writeups for the Gaz Coombes album make it sound partway interesting if you don't have any prior knowledge of him. even then I think this likely has much to do with the broadsheet music writers' malaise

don't really care if it exists or not at this point as long as otherwise intelligent ppl refrain from handwringing about their pet band/genre not being represented. as this is not currently happening itt I say keep on truckin

where's the metalcore

a friend of mine is a judge for this thing and I still can't bring myself to care

Gaz Coombes

more like gas fumes amirite

A+

I can't begin to grasp the logic behind shortlisting Ghostpoet's weaker, duller second album.

Gaz Coombes was robbed

:(

http://nme.assets.ipccdn.co.uk/images/2012GazCoombesPR100212.article_x4.jpg

taking it philosophically

did you follow thru with your promise and listen to ben-clem, NV?

quite like him tbh but not had a proper listen

however this is irrelevant since he robbed the rightful winner

He reminds me of a younger version of my cousin who is in a wedding band. His idea of adversity is time spent fretting about male pattern baldness and wondering which of his self-portraits makes him look most "interesting". Just to keep it on topic my cous actually won the mercury prize of wedding bands last year!

http://www.examiner.co.uk/news/west-yorkshire-news/huddersfield-band-rock-reception-wins-6535825

C. Duncan's album is fantastic.

sad the mandarins of the judging committee made the wrong choice RIP Gaz

David Byrne is a fan of Benjamin Clementine. Clementine is on the cover of the New York Times T Style magazine with a story on him by Byrne

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/06/t-magazine/benjamin-clementine-musican-poet.html?_r=0

About that voice. I was introduced to Clementine’s music through a friend who insisted I check him out. I was floored, and immediately asked him to perform at a music festival that I curated in London last year. He took the stage in a long coat, no shirt or shoes on, and played the piano perched on a high stool, almost standing. It was as if he were singing directly to each person in that room, a far cry from rush hour in a station of the Métro.

His voice is a tad pompous and stiff