Barclaycard Mercury Music Prize 2012 - thread.

i mean "listen to" obv

There's something about the discourse around Richard Hawley that I find irritating, reviewers tend to act like his name is such an obvious signifier of quality that it has this deadening artisanal farmers market effect on me. The whole list is pretty artisnal farmers market but none of them are treated with quite the same sense of worthiness.

None of this is really his fault but still it would be nice if he was at least occasionally greeted with the pisstaking that befits a former member of the Longpigs.

farmers market has caught the mood of the ilx nation i see

r|t|c would you mind sending me an email through the webform? i.e. click on my username and then send email. i tried sending you a couple that way but maybe the pipes weren't plumbed in

Seriously it's like a Swansea home game up in here.

Some of the list is merely Waitrose organic range I suppose.

guaranteed Quality.

tbf the former member of the Longpigs regularly takes the piss out of himself.

Roller Trio album is pretty decent. It's totally 'jazz for Radiohead fans' and is a bit too muso-y for my fire music damaged taste, but it's got a bit more edge than the usual token jazz nominee. There's even a bit of free blowing. Like a lot of the F-IRE Collective acts, they're obviously excellent musicians, but I wish they'd stop trying to be clever (look at our tricksy time changes!) and just freak out a bit more. Like Polar Bear, they tend to pull back just when they're getting excitingly skronky and loud. Some nice tunes on there though: they're good at making pretty ballads with Radiohead-y guitar figures.

They sound a bit like Troyka, then? If so, then I'll probably like them. I have a soft spot for tricksy time changes and reined-in skronk.

I was kind of okay with The Maccabees until the horns kicked in on "Child"

like, if they'd done the exact same thing but drowned the guitars in reverb this would be one of my favorite songs of the year, but instead it's kind of wimpy, overly tasteful nothing that wastes the arrangement (also doesn't help this song that the bits I've heard off of the new Mountain Goats album completely destroy this in the "indie band plays with horn section" game)

"Feel To Follow" is much better

there's something very "indie band apes Pet Shop Boys" about these guys

okay I cannot abide "Ayla"

this one song is obliterating the tentative good will built up by the previous two

Troyka? A wee bit. Less funk-based, but it has that itchy modern day fusion thing going on. I'm more of a sax man than a keyboard man, so I prefer em to Troyka. Trio VD is probably a good reference point, although they're less math-y and heavy.

Jessie Ware is 10x more boring than I was expecting, given the frothing hyperbole on release. The Kimbra album sounds how I expected Jessie Ware's to sound (although not British obv).

She's a good shot at winning though, as have The Maccabees (srsly do *not* rule it out), the Djangos, Alt-J and Plan B.

Pretty tedious year though. Where the hell is all the electronica?

I suspect I will like Roller Trio from that little exchange.

I like the Hawley, although not massively; I think it's comfort-blanket, though - I've not listened to anyone play guitars like that for a long time, and it was a nice sensation, especially given that I like his songwriting and the way he records things. It didn't sound like a big ego rock record in terms of production sheen, it properly sounds like a psyche-music record, which I really liked

Obviously I love and rep for the Field Music. It IS artisanal farmers market, but fuck it, I live in Exeter and shop and eat in places like the all the time. I think it's a really wonderful record lyrically, too, which isn't something I normally pick up on or find myself becoming attached to. It feels very (and there's no way to say this without sounding wanky and boring) moral and wholesome. It actually reminds me of Fugazi in terms of ethos, if not sound, obviously.

Macabbees I bought on the insistence of a couple of mates and because it was early-year and I was desperate for a record, but I just found it unfatnomably predictable, like a big bag of obvious "indie band gets mature" signifiers. Also hated the mixing / sound balance, feels really trebly and insubstantial to me.

Young guy at work who is a lovely chap and great at football always pick him first for my team at five a side etc etc loves Ben Howard and played some at me in the car when we had to drive to Cornwall back in February. Made me want to cut my own fucking hands off.

Alt-J I bought recently on, again, a friend's insistence (same friend as Macabbees, why do I not learn, etc etc), and it's interesting but I've not connected with it apart from Mathilda, which I think is lovely. Django Django I bought cos of the Beta Band comparisons but, again, I've not connected with it.

Psyche-muso was what I meant to put.

driving to Cornwall having to listen to Ben Howard sounds like the sort of banal experience which would nevertheless keep you awake in a fug of gloom 20 years later

Where the hell is all the electronica?

EPs

though i would have thought Actress might have got a look in

Actress, Blue Daisy, The 2 Bears, Emika, TEED... Orbital even!

actually Hot Chip should have made the list

Pleasantly surprised by the Alt-J album - genuinely different and strong from start to finish. That'll teach me not to be put off by bad press shots and boring interviews.

I left Hot Chip off cos I don't think they're really "electronic" in the same way as the above

If I could vote one album onto the shortlist, it would be Actress.

Rustie. Dean Blunt & Inga Copeland.

Hot Chip are Elton John's favourite "electronic band" so leaving them off is understandable, if only by that principle.

Could probably make a good case for Beak> and Liz Green as well

Who?

(actually I know who Beak> are and like them/him a lot but Radio 2 listeners don't and that appears to have been the governing force behind this list.)

Someone told me that one of the pointers that Frith gives the judges is that this should be an album you can confidently "recommend" to people, which might explain the timidity, although I suspect most of the judges aren't into Rustie or Actress in the first place. It would be an enormous help if Frith publicly communicated some of the principles behind the process - by comparison the Booker Prize is a model of transparency.

Every time the Booker judges talk about their rationale they come across as complete idiots though.

the Mercury Prize is an award for the best album that the sort of people who care about the Mercury Prize would like to win the Mercury Prize.

pretty straightforward.

sorry, maybe "the most Mercury Prizey album that the sort of people who care about Mercury Prizey albums would like to win the Mercury Prize".

xp Maybe they do, but they feel in some way accountable to people whereas Frith's lack of transparency just seems arrogant and unhelpful means that nothing ever changes and I'm still no nearer (notwithstanding NV's helpful summary) understanding the criteria either for the selection of judges or the decision process. In the absence of any other "credible" music prizes, it bothers me. I keep wishing someone else will take it over but I suspect they'll have to pry it from Frith's cold dead fingers.

Yes, the thing is which people does he have in mind to which one could confidently "recommend" records? SF has always been supremely useless as a critic and judge (I can't speak for his skills as a lecturer and tutor) because his "challops" have always badly misfired and are usually based on misleading or partial premises (see Sound Effects for instance). Britpop? Hey, let's give it to M People just to MAKE SOME NME STAFFERS FROWN and prove I AM MY OWN MAN.

It's a bit like Jann Wenner and the R&R Hall of Fame apropos cold dead fingers.

Who does Frith want the albums recommended to? I wouldn't recommend any of them to anyone and neither it seems would any of you lot.
The sad thing is people will now buy a lot of these albums because of this list when it could be spent on much better albums.

Didn't he turn up on an ILM MMP thread once? Did he give any answers then?

Radio 2 listeners. They don't want anything too far from their comfort zone (I understand there was a bit of a NEVER AGAIN-type tizzy in certain quarters when Antony & the Johnsons won) and Mercury want the exposure and ratings so that's why the list looks like a Jo Whiley Show running order.

That Antony & The Johnsons album is hardly difficult music even by Radio 2 standards. I thought most of the tizzy was around nationality and whether or not he should have been on the list in the first place?

There were mutters about "difficult music."

I reckon Speech Debelle was a "never again" moment for different reasons.

Former colleague of mine worked for whichever bank sponsored the Mercury when Anthony won; apparently the bank were NOT happy.

Oh man I have a good memory - it was 9 years ago he posted mercury music prize 2003

This is much the best discussion of the mmp I've read (and i certainly agree about all those journalists slagging us off--we (the judges) can write their comments in advice). This year's award for silliest response goes to maddy costa in the guardian.

― simon frith, Tuesday, 29 July 2003 20:45 (9 years ago)

That's probably always going to be the Mercury's problem behind closed doors though, isn't it? They need a sponsor who can afford top dollar to promote the prize, pay for all the session gigs, offer the prize pot etc, but anyone prepared to pay that much is likely to be after big-ass mainstream exposure for the money, and that's not (really) what the Mercurys are (supposed to be) about.

What would happen if the prize money was scrapped and it just became about perceived kudos, I wonder? You'd have to scrap the entry fee too, of course.

(Sorry, xpost to Nick)

I mean, surely nobody actually enters *for the money*?

I got really confused when you guys were talking about 'Frith' upthread. Like, FRED FRITH has something to do with this shambles? *smdh*

Algerian Goalkeeper you didn't seriously believe that was the real Simon Frith did you?

I always had in my head that it was the 'done thing' to donate yr winnings to charity but this stems from the 90s, you know when all popular music artists were millionaires

ned said it was as did sinkah

so i figured they would know (unless youre admitting it was you?)