So eclectic and mercurial - Losing the point? (Mercury Music Prize)

Name: Randyolph

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Product:	Mercury Music Prize
Date:	13/05/01 (26 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Interesting, New music

Disadvantages: Overpolite at times

The mercury music awards are often viewed as the most prestigous, anti-corporate, uninfluenced award ceremony in Britain.

It's just one award, ONE, for the best album released in the past year. They assemble a panel of top music people, and they listen to every British album, of the past year, and they all construct their own shortlist of the best albums. From these lists, the nominees appear.

Fine. Great, it sounds, but of course, there are problems with the mercury prize.. It seems to have got so big, and important, that an album from each section of the musical spectrum, HAS to get nominated, like out of politeness, every section of musical diversity, has to be represented, Accomodated, or at least tried to.

So there's a shortlist of a dozen or so albums... But they don't all have a chance of winning.

3 albums are always by big mainstream bands, and they never ever win (cos the mercury supports the underdogs).

1 classical album. Never wins.

The folk album is always heavily tipped, but doesn't win either.

And so on and so on.

There is a reason for all of this of course, The big bands get nominated, so people get interested and watch the show, and buy the compilation album... no-one would care if it was just a shortlist of obscurity.

The other albums seem to be there, like, to raise their profile, to bring them to a wider audience, consequently, the point of the mercury music award isn't so much the winning, as the limelight it provides. A refreshing alternative to other award shows... so much so it doesn't really feel like an award show at all

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