Well here they are (that time already?). This year's nominations. Any thoughts.

Adele - 19
British Sea Power - Do You Like Rock Music?
Burial - Untrue
Elbow - The Seldom Seen Kid
Estelle - Shine
Laura Marling - Alas I Cannot Swim
Neon Neon - Stainless Style
Portico Quartet - Knee-Deep in the North Sea
Rachel Unthank & The Winterset - The Bairns
Radiohead - In Rainbows
Robert Plant & Alison Krauss - Raising Sand
The Last Shadow Puppets - The Age of the Understatement

lol how did M-People ever win this? it was over Blur's Parklife as well wasn't it.

to be fair I haven't heard any of the albums in that list. Elbow had a really good single out recently. not grounds for divorce, the next one after that.

Elbow's album is pretty good, although similar to the previous one I thought. Still a very good listen.

British Sea Power's is also ok, but again, I liked their earlier stuff.

Haven't heard much from the others, but Laura Marling produces quite a nice sound, the Last Shadow Puppets are ok but don't rev my engine and I really dislike Adele.

The only one on there with any interest for me is Plant/Krauss!

Alison Kraus is a fine musician, and what more needs to be said about Mr. Plant?

Exactly... It's a really nice album!

makes me realise how little I keep up these days.

Adele annoys me; I really like BSP but didn't really think much to the last album; Estelle's great, though she seems to have lost the sparkle from her first album; Laura Marling is just lovely, I'd like to see her get a bit of exposure from this; In Rainbows is a terrific album and I'm quite taken with The Last Shadow Puppets album.

However, out of all of them, it'd have to be Elbow for me. I absolutely love them and, even though I don't think it quite lives up to their previous work, it's a damn fine album.

Just what I was thinking.

And me.





And then I think 'I'll live'.

It's all just a lot of noise...

I've got to say it's not an especially inspiring list.

Neon Neon are good.

I reckon Elbow.

No reason. It's just came to me in a flash.

Did you duck out of the way?

I didn't even think how that sounded.

So, Elbow won, which is fine by me as it's a fantastic album.

Told ye.

I took part in a music quiz earlier tonight and named the team ''Seldom Seen Kids.'' I'd like to think that it was that that swayed the result, or that Elbow's victory sent a sort of reverse echo through time that allowed us to win.

I like the Elbow album (well, the majority of it), but it isn't all that innovative or different (but then, neither was the rest of the list), which I always thought the Mercurys tried to celebrate. Discuss.

The music industry is terrified, with this it is unlikely any will take risks with new acts & therefore reducing the number of new & interesting acts appearing on the ordinary Joe's radar, it also reduces the number of actual recording opportunities for bands.
Couple that with the Mercury Music prize being televised means it would demand ratings & has to interest the ordinary Joe (who will only be aware of whats being plugged or groomed to soon be plugged in his/her general direction) leading to the lack of any great innovative acts on show.

That's what I reckon anyway.

edit: although Grommed sounds like a fantastic word, it is Groomed which helps the sentence make any sense.

I think the Mercury's have a reputation for celebrating innovation, yet have never awarded the prize to anything especially innovative (except M People of course)

What the Mercury Award has done is introduced me to some stuff I would never usually have listened to. Seth Lakeman for instance. How else would I have got to hear about a Cornish folk singer/fiddle player

I want to be grommed.