mercury music prize: 2007

word

B&S is HUGE red herring here, folks.

Three seconds too much amirite?!? xpost

The Brigadier has a point, I recommend instead listen to The Mirimar Disaster from Sheffield who in 2007 released the best British complex-intense-math-metal album since Earthtone 9 - arc'tan'gent in 2000.

The Mirimar Disaster
http://www.myspace.com/themirimardisaster

the best British complex-intense-math-metal album since Earthtone 9 - arc'tan'gent in 2000

so say the flyposters

Why do people even care about this joke of a prize?

Mercury,Brits,NME,Kerrang Awards , don't need any of them. Fuck them all.

-- Brigadier Lethbridge-Pfunkboy

Haven't you been posting end of year polls from all these for months?

But yeah, hats off to DiS for getting to heart of the matter of these things; it doesn't matter whether your 'alternatives' are better or more innovative, just that they're different to the ones that actually got nominated

Damn - what a sorry list. Wouldn't this money be better spent on black magic to resurrect Freddie Mercury?

Who wants to live forever?

ha I remember reading last year on the web some wacky yank journo thought that the Mercury awards were named have Freddie Mercury ! (When they were originally sponsored by a now long gone telecommunications company.)

Some wacky Welsh based journo writing about the Mercury prize 2007 shortlist, this article is so unintentionally funny:

http://tinyurl.com/2g37ff
Does Mercury Prize leave you feeling old?

Jul 18 2007

by Sarah Miloudi, Western Mail

home is where the harp is!

Haha, Huw Stephens pretending he's only heard of 'most' of the noms aside from tokenclassicalers

I wonder if Chair of judges Simon Frith remembers writing this in 1985?

"What really drives student entrepreneurs into a premature commercial detachment is their audiences. Every new ents officer learns from first-term results; black music has no student draw; known bands are preferred to unknown bands; no one in the student union cares who the latest critical cult figures are. Students are the great, middle-class, middle-brow bastion of British rock and, after twenty years, their tastes aren't about to be shaken."

Probably not...

The weird thing about the Mercury prize is that they don't get different judges every time. This year is Lauren Laverne's 2nd go-round at least and someone else, whose name I've annoyingly forgotten, has done it FOUR times!

Edith Bowman?

I enjoyed Terry Hall at Glastonbury too. I thought it was going to be a real Specials-obsessed festival at one point, with Winehouse and Allen both doing Specials songs, but that was it, as far as I know.

the thing with that frith quote is: OK, but who *does* care about the latest critical cult figures? if students are the m-c, m-b bastion blah blah blah, who is the avant-garde? wire readers i guess. seems to be people older than students with more disposable income, in their own way just as conformist.

Frith wrote that in 1985. I guess things have changed for him since. And everyone else.

Oops, I laready said he wrote it in 1985. That's coz I use the bookmark feature and so cannot see beyond the last post marked.

Winehouse will walk it this year.

597 please will you shutfuckup

); I'm just a rascal.

I enjoyed Terry Hall at Glastonbury too. I thought it was going to be a real Specials-obsessed festival at one point, with Winehouse and Allen both doing Specials songs, but that was it, as far as I know.

Well, Amy Winehouse did two of them in a row (unless you don't count Monkey Man), and Neville Staple played a set too. So yes, I think it was quite Specials. Madness played a secret gig on The Park stage too, apparently.

I just reminded myself of all the previous Mercury winners. Amy Winehouse's Back To Black is better than all the albums that have won in the last 10 years, anyway. I hope she will win. Think she might well do, too.

597, soz: x-reading over other threads.

mercury prize: the gift that keeps giving again?

fucking hell, alba, really?

Amy Winehouse's Back To Black is better than all the albums that have won in the last 10 years, anyway

xpost
blimey, i was just about to hit the sack before i saw that cracker.
she's rubbish, but that won't stop her winning. it hasn't for the majority of previous winners.

i've quite liked her last three singles. i wouldn't buy them or anything.

Amy Winehouse's Back To Black is better than all the albums that have won in the last 10 years, anyway

before you laugh, look at what's won :/

(winehouse is better than all but...one or two of the past decade's winners? dizzee definitely, pj...maaaaaybe but that's pj's worst album. ms dynamite is better at her best but that album is not great.)

dizzee, pj, roni size are better.

it's true there's been a lot of shit winning... she'll only add to the pile though. being better than gomez and arctic monkeys is not a great achievement.

(winehouse is better than all but...one or two of the past decade's winners?

noooo

she just so booorrring

i think her only problem is she's TOO retro/tribute musically and they should be rewarding something more "modern sounding". i'd say the same about the AMs tho.

I really liked the Klaxons singles but the album got old. I'm guessing their popularity peaked already. Winehouse has talent but material on album is spotty. Aside from Milanese, the UK stuff I've been enjoying is pretty poppy. Just saw Maxïmo Park on Monday, and it was far, far more enjoyable than my Pitchfork experience. Very high energy, everyone singing along.

Milanese - Extend
Maxïmo Park - Our Earthly Pleasures
The Rakes - Ten New Messages
Field Music - Tones Of Town
Good Shoes - Think Before You Speak
Noisettes - What's The Time Mr. Wolf?
The Twilight Sad - Fourteen Autumns & Fifteen Winters

Judges, nicked from elsewhere:

Simon Frith - music author/Professor of Music at University of Edinburgh
Charles Hazlewood - conductor and broadcaster on Radio 2, Radio 3 and BBC 4
Lauren Laverne - broadcaster, The Culture Show and Channel 4’s Transmission
Conor McNicholas - Editor of NME
George Ergatoudis - Head of Music, Radio 1
Dean Jackson – Presenter The Beat BBC Nottingham
Arwa Haider - Music Editor, Metro/Front Row contributor
Zoe Rahman - jazz musician
Mark Findlay - Head of Music, GCAP’s The One Network
Jude Rogers - Reviews Editor, Word Magazine/New Statesman/The Guardian

Not that anyone here might have any vested interests... No sir, Conor and George.

anyone had a flutter? do you usually?

like most people on here i guess, i've been right about half the time with the winners over the years, and in the talvin singh / pj harvey years could have won a flippin fortune! but i've never bet on it.

how's about you guys?

I'm currently thinking Bat For Lashes, but 5/2 (joint favourite with Amy Winehouse) isn't really worth it*. If Winehouse can pull off a massive recovery she might win, maybe all her gig-cancelling is to try and lengthen her odds?

current odds from Bet365:
Amy Winehouse - Back to Black 5/2
Bat For Lashes - Fur and Gold 5/2
Jamie T - Panic Prevention 3/1
Klaxons - Myths of the Near Future 9/1
Arctic Monkeys - Favourite Worst Nightmare 9/1
Fionn Regan - The End of History 10/1
Maps - We Can Create 14/1
The View - Hats off to the Buskers 22/1
New Young Pony Club - Fantastic Playroom 25/1
The Young Knives - Voices of Animals and Men 28/1
Dizzee Rascal - Maths and English 40/1
Basquiat Strings with Seb Rochford - Basquiat Strings 40/1

*I know nothing about betting.

Maps is a good bet.

That Bat for Lashes album is terrible.

It's better than the Maps album.

they're both very bad albums

Not heard the Maps. That NYPC album is so unbelievably boring. And how did they pick the wrong Seb Rochford record? I bet Skinny Grin wasn't even entered bcz of V2 meltdown.

Who is Fionn Regan?

I quite like the Bat For Lashes song with the video with the bikes. I don't actually like any of these albums, (although I haven't heard Regan, Young Knives or Basquiat - and that's the only one I'd like to hear, I think).

Who is Fionn Regan?

Irishy singer-songwriter type.

The Basquiat is nice, aye, a good record, but Skinny Grin is some other-level evenmt stuff, there. If they'd picked that and had the guts to make it win they'd have saved the world from nuclear holocaust.

9/1 for the arctic monkeys?! that's nuts surely?

klaxons down to £3 in sainsburys. woolworths not stocking mia's kala.

same band winning two years in a row damaging credibility further is the fear there (xp)

Nothing says credibility like Bat for fucking Lashes

Whinehouse to win shurely.