A Different Planet (Mercury Music Prize)

Name: stoffy

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Product:	Mercury Music Prize
Date:	11/09/03 (76 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: a chance for struggling bands to sell more albums

Disadvantages: shortlists too tokenistic, matching the artist to the genre they want to win

This week saw the 12th edition of the Mercury Music Prize, still named so despite the original sponsors having been defunct for many years and are now sponsored by
Panasonic.

The prize is awarded annually to the most deserving British or Irish album released in previous 12 months according to a panel of judges taken from the industry. A shortlist of 12 albums is arrived at and a winner is announced during a swanky televised do in London.

There is something undeniably irritating about the Mercurys. Whether it’s the show on the night having pundits waxing lyrical about how the music industry needs to support new artists or the meed-dya types on tables downing bottles of champers on their two grand tables in between visiting the toilets to powder their noses.

However, possibly the most annoying thing about the prize is knowing full well that thirty-somethings desperately trying to have their finger on the pulse will buy the winning album as part of their twice-yearly trip to the music shop, and leave it untouched on their coffee table to try and improve their social status (“ya, I’m glad that won, such a rich tapestry of sounds ya”).

This year, there was the usual smorgasbord of critically acclaimed bestsellers (Coldplay, Radiohead), indie wallpaper (Athlete), R&B (Floetry, Terri Walker), Urban, just to show that these meed-dya types are down with ‘tha kids’ (Dizzie Rascal) and token who-the-hell-are-theys from the ‘niche’ sectors (Soweto Kinch, Eliza Carthy). The current number 1 album by The Darkness was also nominated but stood out like a sore thumb thanks to its epic-rock pastiching playfulness, although was inexplicably the bookies’ hot favourite – I mean, can you imagine giving the credibility-conscious Mercury prize to a long-haired man wearing chestless Spandex? Methinks not.

To their credit, the prize hasn’t always plucked the most likely o
r most well-known album. Gomez, Roni Size and Badly Drawn Boy all triumphed over more lauded contemporaries. Other albums, such as M People’s ‘Elegant Slumming’ won the prize despite being regarded in retrospect as a bit of a turkey. Portishead and Pulp were two of the few bands to be received as deserving winners and go on to sell shedloads of copies of their albums, although admittedly they had done so before they won the prize.

Last year, the award went to Ms Dynamite’s debut album, beating hot favourite The Streets. This was despite reviews of her album in the press being lukewarm at best. The prize was a great platform for her, and she soon became a household name thanks to the MOBOs and Brits she was to receive in the future months, and her outspoken opinions.

However, Ms Dynamite’s win seemed very much a case of fitting the album to the genre they want to win. It seemed necessary at the time to pick an Urban winner, as there had been criticism that black music had never won the prize before. Just as the judges appear to go out of their way not to give the prize to a big commercial seller like Radiohead or Coldplay, they appear to stick out their witch-hazel every year and let it guide them to type of music that people in the press think is cool and hip.

This year’s accolade was won by the 19 year old MC Dizzie Rascal for his debut album which was only released the day the nominations were announced. The sound of the streets (which every media whore in Hoxton can obviously relate to), it’s different and more inventive than UK Garage stalwarts like So Solid Crew, but the singles from it so far are very aggressive and pretty unlistenable. Even so, it received excellent reviews across the board, and on this basis, is arguably a deserved winner. He also gave one of the more interesting acceptance speeches in Mercury history (second only to Portishead’s Beth Gibbons’ drunken
groping of her embarrassed bandmates) on the basis that he looked doped up to the eyeballs and could barely string a sentence together.

It’s possibly its electicness that draws people to the Mercury award ceremony. The fact that not every nominated artist is a household name and the potential for unknown acts to become overnight stars does have its appeal. However, it is too self-knowing and self-conscious to allow itself to be taken as a true reflection of what really is the best music to come out of this country.

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