The gritted teeth behind Florence Welch’s plastered- on smile when Jools Holland announced that Speech Debelle had won the Mercury prize last Tuesday night said it all. Since the 12 nominees were revealed in July, Florence and the Machine had been the runaway favourites with pundits and bookmakers alike. But since the first Mercury Prize in 1992, the favourite has never won – as Amy Winehouse, Radiohead, Oasis, Manic Street Preachers, Van Morrison, Blur and U2 will attest.
For all its many faults (M People winning in 1994, Roni Size winning ahead of Radiohead's OK Computerin 1997, the bloody Klaxons winning two years ago), the Mercury is still the most prestigious music award out there. But while Debelle's beguiling Speech Therapyis a most welcome victor (it deserves a wider audience), the two best albums of the year were disgracefully kept off the shortlist: Jamie T's magnificent Kings and Queensand Madness's magnum opus, The Liberty of Norton Folgate.
The Mercury’s great strength is that it gets people talking and arguments going. Strops are thrown (Lily Allen’s ones are, apparently, a wonder to behold – she’s never been nominated). The shortlist throws up names you may never have heard of but are glad you did. There will always be “the Mercury is a redundant charade” faction, but for sheer bloody-minded eccentricity, it has to be applauded. And public opinion and record-label pressure don’t figure in the selections.
Before the Mercury, music awards were carved up by the record companies and operated more as marketing opportunities that frequently overlooked the merits (if any)
of the albums under discussion. As some indication of the Mercury’s influence, just look at the amount of “tribute” music awards it has prompted: the Shortlist Music Prize in the US, the Polaris in Canada, the Prix Constantin in France, the Australian Music Prize and our own Choice Music Prize.
Not just that, but due to the amount of agreeing/violently disagreeing/carping and general fuss about the Mercury, there are now two “alternative” prizes set up by people exasperated by the Mercury’s idiosyncratic choices.
The Drowned in Sound music web page (wwwdrownedinsound. com) now holds a Neptune Music Prize, which draws up a shortlist of albums that the organisers think were inexplicably ignored by the Mercury judges (it’s not quite clear whether, like the Mercury, they consider Irish albums).
As an alternative to the Mercury list, the Neptune shortlist reads well: this year's included Super Furry Animals, The Maccabees, PJ Harvey and John Parish, and Emmy The Great. The overall winner is announced the day before the Mercury and this year's winner, voted by registered users of the site, was Late of the Pier's Fantasy Black Channel(which isn't very good, but never mind).
Still, if by some clerical error the Mercury and the Neptune list of nominees were reversed, no one would really notice – which sort of calls into question the Neptune’s raison d’etre.
A lot more fun is the Twenty Quid Music Prize, which is the pop music equivalent of the Mercury. This was set up a few years ago by the good people at Popjustice (a great site at www.popjustice.com). Naturally, they’re all aghast at the high-minded nature of the Mercury so they draw up a list of the best British and Irish pop singles of the year and hold their award ceremony in a pub in London at the same time the Mercury has its bash.
The winner gets £20, but, as the Popjustice people disarmingly tell you, most of those nominated haven't a notion the award even exists. This year's nominees included Girls Aloud, Pet Shop Boys, Lily Allen and (puke) The Saturdays. The overall winner was Girls Aloud's The Promise.
Interestingly, La Roux was the only act to feature on both the Mercury and Twenty Quid lists. Perhaps next year they should merge both awards. Fists will fly, but as long as they show it live on TV that’d be OK.
