Last year, the shortlist for the Mercury Prize was announced on the 17th of July, suggesting that in just under a month’s time, this year’s shortlist is sure to make an appearance. My interest in the Prize waxes and wanes, depending on the shortlist: all too often the judges fall back on lowest-common-denominator material such as, on last year’s shortlist, the thoroughly boring Hats off to the Buskers by The View, along with every Coldplay album ever. My experiences of the winning albums have also been something of a mixed bag: in 2006, Arctic Monkeys won with their debut, ahead of (in my opinion) more worthy albums from Muse and Guillemots; conversely, last year, Klaxons won the prize ahead of Arctic Monkeys, who had since returned with the infinitely superior Favourite Worst Nightmare.
Nevertheless, there’s no doubting the Prize’s ability to – overnight, frequently – thrust a struggling yet talented artist into the limelight, thus ensuring a short-term boost in sales. Elsewhere in its history, the nominees and winners have definitely caused me to further investigate a particular artist, as in the case of Antony and the Johnsons in 2005 (who won), and Richard Hawley in 2006 (who didn’t).
Though I have no fear in saying that British music is at an all time nadir, it is with some optimism that I would suggest the past twelve months have seen signs of a resurgence among our more experimental and esoteric, risk-taking artists, and I really hope the judges take a careful look at such albums when making their decisions this year. Though I doubt my selections will bear any relation to the real shortlist, here are some British albums that have been released since last August (the usual cut-off point) that I feel the judges would be loath to ignore: Continue reading
Interstellar Overdrive. 