The Mercury Music Prize 2009

Contrary to popular belief, it's not barbeques, stifled Big Brother yawns or football transfer silly season that tells us summer is upon us, but the annual announcement of the Mercury Music Prize. This is bollocks, obviously, but it is nonetheless a handy mid-year catch-up with the state of British music. Last year saw Elbow claim the win, with Arctic Monkeys, Klaxons, Dizzee Rascal and Badly Drawn Boy all taking the prize in recent years; these albums seem to sum up a musical rotation - Klaxons = Nu Rave, the Arctic Monkeys juggernaut, Badly Drawn Boy during the acoustic wilderness - so it is perhaps unsurprising that solo female acts dominate this years list. But is the list much cop? Who's missing? And wasn't 'Glasvegas' released about the same time as 'Bohemian Rhapsody'? Let's take a look, using a handy points system...

Florence + The Machine - Lungs 3/5
Moderately irritating public school/East End slum princess Florence Welch has been on a steady rise since 'Kiss With A Fist' forced everyone to turn and take notice, but her love of end-of-sentence descents makes 'Lungs' a bit of a struggle to sit through in one go. Ladbrokes put Florence at 50/1 in January, which looks like a pretty sound flutter six months on.
Spotify: 'Dog Days Are Over'

Glasvegas - Glasvegas 4/5

The first band to sing in their own accent since The Proclaimers (according to the press) and the most hyped band since...the week before, but with good reason. A string of tidal wave singles and an awesome live show catapulted Glasvegas straight into the premier league, but there's no escaping the fact that the album ebbs away by the close. I've moved house twice since it was released; it just doesn't feel that relevant any more.
Spotify: 'Geraldine'


Lisa Hannigan - See Sew 2/5
"Charmingly idiosyncratic" - LA Times
"Exquisitely Ethereal" - New York Times
"Token Folkie" - NME







Friendly Fires - Friendly Fires 4/5
The big sleeper hit of the year so far, released fairly quietly but buoyed by re-releases galore and the fact it's really quite good. Equal parts Brazillian carnival and diamond disco, Friendly Fires have won many friends by being the perfect late night festival band, and because singer Ed Macfarlane dances exclusively with his ass.
Spotify: 'Strobe'




The Invisible - The Invisible 2/5
Blogger-friendly and just about sneaking through the cracks, dark-and-dancey The Invisible are something of an outside bet but could turn into this years Burial - from ignored to a sure-fire victor in a matter of days. Nothing too original going on here though...
Spotify: 'London Girl'





Sweet Billy Pilgrim - Twice Born Men 3/5
Pretty widely accepted as this years' (traditional) surprise addition, a record put together by three friends in a shed. Honestly - no idea. But on initial listens it's like a seabound Bon Iver which can't be bad.
Spotify: 'Truth Only Smiles'

Led Bib - Sensible Shoes 2/5 Yep, the jazz album which will sell a bilion times more albums because of the nomination, be vaguely credible in a coffee table kind of way until September, after which the band members will be chased out of jazz clubs across the land for selling out. Depressing really.

The Horrors - Primary Colours 5/5 If the eponymous debut by The Horrors was the ultimate example of all mouth, no trousers in all it's impotent shame then the follow-up is the absolute embodiment of force-fed humble pie. Gone are the sub-CBGBs goth posturings, replaced by a maelstrom of shoe-gazing muscle and super-intense timelessness. The best comeback since Lazarus etc, 'Primary Colours' sums up the gloom found in the six o'clock news and the prevailing shift towards introversion after a decade of celebrity over-expression, but proves that there's no such thing as a lost cause. Definitive, multi-layered and completely unexpected, it gets my vote.
Spotify: 'Sea Within A Sea'

Bat For Lashes - Two Suns 3/5
A casualty of the Klaxons year, Natasha Kahn's debut 'Fur & Gold' was widely belived to have been robbed by the multi-coloured Ballard obsessives, but I think 'Two Suns' is even better. Bjork vs Kate Bush in a cloud fight, this is dream music and gloriously out of step with what everyone else is producing. Well it worked for Antony and the Johnsons...
Spotify: 'Daniel'

Kasabian - West Ryder Pauper Lunatic Asylum 1/5
A slightly bizarre inclusion, coming just as the main population decide to embrace the Northern-wannabes while everyone else attempts to shrug them off as a misplaced adolescent man-crush. Oasis-lite, pints in the air and piss on the shoes, but perhaps with a flash of something more interesting hidden away. Just a flash, mind.
Spotify: 'Underdog'

La Roux - La Roux 3/5 Is this the reason Little Boots was left off this years list? Er...probably. You've probably forgotten the really bad cover she did with Franz Ferdinand at the NME Awards, but I certainly haven't - a squealing quiff didn't shout 'writer of best British album' at the time to be honest. The singles have been an adrenaline shot to the face and the lightning-fast take-up of her Warehouse Project tickets suggests I'm missing something mega...much like with the Spiderman films. Spotify: 'I'm Not Your Toy'

Speech Dabelle - Speech Therapy 4/5
...and finally the next album I'll be getting into, sounding somewhere near Portishead or something else Bristol and trippy. An album I wouldn't have tried if it wasn't for the Mercurys...which is the idea, yeah?

Pros And Cons - Episode 1 @ The Royal Festival Hall, London

So after a tiny fanfare, here it is: Episode One of Pros and Cons. The idea behind Pros and Cons is a sporadic debate on subjects the participants might not truly believe in - the Pros of stationery traffic, or the Cons of The Beatles, for example. It's hopefully going to pop up slightly more regularly than occasionally but less frequently than often, from a different location each episode. In other words, big plans which we will struggle to maintain.

Here it is...

Pros and Cons - Episode One - Royal Festival Hall, London
(YSI) https://www.yousendit.com/download/Y1RyaXRGUnJEa1ZMWEE9PQ

Talking for bus journeys.

Pros and Cons

On a 'balmy' summer evening last week myself and a certain Andrew Jackson went down to the South Bank to record a brand new podcast, provisionally titled 'Pros and Cons'. It sounded really rather good (sound quality as much as actual content...) and should be appearing here in the coming week, so keep an eye out for that. Once I work out the editing. Heads up: it's got a killer theme tune. Antiques Roadshow eat your heart out.