NEWS: Mercury Music Prize 2007

9 out of this year's 12 nominees are new musical express lovies

2007's Mercury Music Prize shortlist was published this week. In past mercury award ceremonies the selection resembles a puddle of vomit, the result of excessive musical taste mixing, spat from the HMV database. This year, however, the chosen few look like they've been enthusiastically plucked from the pages of the popular music press by a swaggering floppy haired Topman shopper.

This, of course isn't such a bad thing for all those who thought the Mercury Music Prize was nothing more than an excuse for head honchos at sony bmg to lavishly stroke the fat cat's at time warner. an event where praise is thrown hithe and tithe between label bosses before the head back to their offices the next day to plot each others demise. at least this year a large section of the audience will actually know who the acts are. however, this is not so good for smaller acts who, once nominated, received a spike in album sales thanks to massive publicity and those tiny branded stickers splashed all over their album covers.

although smaller acts may have been tossed to the wayside this year, a quarter of the nominations remain harvested from some of the most flamboyently off-kilter musical landscapes, stretching for acres and acres across every genre. according to the bbc these are;

fionn regan, the token irishman who writes, sings and plays folk akin to bob dylan;

maps, or james chapman. probably the most impressive undiscovered artist working off a 16-track recorder in his northampton home before having his ambient and euphoric ode to spiritualized polished by bjork's producer valgeir sigurdsson and arranged by sigur ros mixer ken yhomas in iceland, and;

basquiat strings, a collection of classically trained, jazz mmersed musicians who play as session instrumentalists on top of recording their own material.

excluding arctic monkeys, basquiat strings are the only group to receive a second nomination in the mercury music prize's history, but unlike the snowy apes they didn't actually win it last time around.

and so it seems that as long as the majority of genres are catered for and some of the little people are getting a piece of the greater-record-sales-pie pie, those clever people at the mercury music prize can throw into the hat any tom dick or alex whom has appeared on a nme awards tour/show. still we might be on for a bit of drama in that if the yorkshire quartet do manage to bag a second consecutive award it will be the first time in the near pointless awards history.

pointless? surely not you say? the people behind the prize state it exists solely to champion UK music by promoting the 12 albums of the year by british and irish artists. this is all very well and good but who decides what are 'the 12 albums of the year' across every musical niche imaginable? a bunch of number crunching accountants at the event's sponsor, nationwide? i doubt it. who are the people behind the prize anyway? how do we know their opinion is valid? after all in 1997 when roni size reprazent won the gong they had also listed the spice girls debut album.

then there's the prize. not a record deal as 99.9% of the artists are already signed. Or anything of any real worth for that matter. the artists recieve a sum of money in the region of 70,000 squid. that's £70,000 that won't even touch the sides of the band's by now vast trouser pockets as they jingle already fat with brass. for this reason it's even more pleasing when a relative unkown wins the accolade.

so here's to hoping that the mercury won't become the music industry's booker prize anytime soon but that it does become a little more transparent in it's workings. let's also hope that the view's happy go lucky underdog anthem, 'a song for the buskers', will motivate the judges to vote away from the nme centrefolds and divert the prize money elsewhere rather than toward the spitting amy winehouse.

A suggestion: Make the mercury music prize an award to champion brand new leftfield acts taking their first baby steps in the lion pit that is the music business.

the 12 acts and albums nominated to recieve the mercury music prize 2007 are:

Arctic Monkeys - Favourite Worst Nightmare
Basquiat Strings with Seb Rochford - Basquiat Strings
Bat For Lashes - Fur and Gold
Dizzee Rascal - Maths and English
Klaxons - Myths Of The Near Future
Maps - We Can Create
New Young Pony Club - Fantastic Playroom
Fionn Regan - The End of History
Jamie T - Panic Prevention
The View - Hats Off to the Buskers
Amy Winehouse - Back To Black
The Young Knives - Voices of Animals and Men

Words: Dean Samways
Images: Google