Mercury shortlist

The nominees are unveiled and the Mercury director reveals all

22 July 2008 - At a London ceremony today (22 July), the Mercury Prize nominations were announced.

Adele, Laura Marling, The Last Shadow Puppets, Radiohead, Estelle and Robert Plant and Alison Krauss are among those shortlisted.

Klaxons were the victors last year with their debut album Myths Of The Near Future .

Set up in 1992, the award celebrates the last twelve months of music, with 12 albums battling out to be crowned winner of the respected prize – which is to be announced on 9 September.

2008 Shorlisted Mercury Prize nominations

Adele
British Sea Power
Burial
Elbow
Estelle
Laura Marling
Neon Neon
Portico Quartet
Rachel Unthank & The Winterset
Radiohead
Robert Plant & Alison Krauss
The Last Shadow Puppets

About the awards

Prior to the nominations, the director of the Mercury’s, Kevin Milburn, explained to 6 Music the criteria for the award.

The albums need to have been released between July 2007-2008 by UK or Irish artists.

He explained who makes up the panel: “Basically people have to listen to music every day as part of what they do but have no direct involvement with any of the records.”

And this year the panel is made up of some key industry people, as Kilburn explained: “We’ve got Charles Hazlewood - the conductor, we’ve got Kitty Empire - Music Editor of The Observer, we’ve got Janis Long from Radio 2, George Ergatoudis – Head of Music from Radio 1, Conor McNicholas from NME. It’s basically people who have a broad range of musical tastes.”

In terms of getting down to the hard part of deciding the shortlist, Kilburn said that the record companies decide who they are putting forward and send the Mercury team the artists’ albums.

These are then sent out to the judges and the process is as follows: “We ask the panel to draw up their own favourite list and then they have a big discussion where they talk through a lot of the albums that have tended to pull clear. From that there’s usually 12 that have some consensus between them all.”

This year there were approximately 240 albums entered for the award and Kilburn went on to say that the number of albums submitted is on the rise.

“The last couple of years has seen a substantial increase in what it was before and I think the cost of recording, releasing, distributing and promoting an album has come down just because of the advances in recording technology,” he said. “The ability to get your music out there is easier than say five or ten years ago when studio costs were so high.”

The Mercury director also said accusations that the inclusion of genres like folk, classical and jazz are token, are unfair.

He said: “Obviously we are going to be accused of this until one of those kind of albums wins - so us involved in the Nationwide Music Prize always want one of those records to win so we don’t get asked the same question every year.

“Certainly they have got very close in the past. I remember last year we were accused of having various token indie bands – I mean you can’t win. All I can say is that the nominations are argued on there very fairly.”

“I think it would be a joy if we were nominated, if we were to have a mercury nomination it really would be the icing on a love cake.”
Elbow's Guy Garvey

Elbow’s reaction

The band’s latest record The Seldom Seen Kid  was one of this year’s records tipped for nomination.

They have made the shortlist and leading up to the announcement, frontman Guy Garvey told 6 Music he wasn't getting his hopes up.

He said: “You can’t really think about things like that, I think it would be a joy if we were nominated. We’d all be over the moon, especially as for two and half years making this record we didn’t have a label, and we didn’t know if it was coming out. If we were to have a mercury nomination it really would be the icing on a love cake.”

Guillemots dismiss a double

The Guillemots were nominated for their debut Through The Windowpane but frontman Fyfe Dangerfield wasn't exactly confident that they will make it again.

He told us: “I thinks there’s a pretty good chance that Red by the Guillemots won’t be nominated.”

Past Winner – Franz Ferdinand

The Scottish rockers were another group that won the Mercury Prize for their self-titled debut album, Franz Ferdinand .

Vocalist Alex Kapranos said: “It’s funny, we won it and I think at the time we didn’t really realise how significant it was. I’d never really paid attention to prizes and awards’ ceremonies in the past.

“It was only afterwards that I realised it was actually quite a big deal. I liked it because the way the panel and nominations work, they tend not to be that influenced by commercial success.”

Previous nominees

2007

Amy Winehouse
Arctic Monkeys
Basquiat Strings
Bat For Lashes
Dizzee Rascal
Fionn Regan
Jamie T
Klaxons
Maps
New Young Pony Club
The View
The Young Knives

2006

Arctic Monkeys
Editors
Guillemots
Hot Chip
Isobel Campbell and Mark Lanegan
Lou Rhodes
Muse
Richard Hawley
Scritti Politti
Sway
Thom Yorke
Zoe Rahman

2005

Anthony And The Johnsons
Bloc Party
Coldplay
Hard Fi
Kaiser Cheifs
KT Tunstall
Maximo Park
MIA
Polar Bear
Seth Lakeman
The Go! Team
Magic Numbers


Georgie Rogers