ANOTHER GIRL, ANOTHER PLANET

All eyes on the Mercury Prize…

Criticising the Mercury Prize is like machine-gunning so many useless fish in a barrel. Yet, like any national sport, it’s fundamental to the British way of life – certainly in the rapidly diminishing circles of the music press. And for what it’s worth the judges were pretty much on-the-money on Tuesday night, as a delighted and somewhat diminutive Speech Debelle took this year’s Freddie for ‘Speech Therapy’. There’s nothing hugely radical about it – though little in hip-hop is this second – it’s simply a well-told and touching autobiography, set to slightly outré beats in line with rap’s strongest traditions.  

WHERE THERE’S A WILL…

There’s been some carping in the press that ‘Speech Therapy’ had only shifted about 3,000 units prior to Tuesday’s award, though a more careful analysis (even a bit of good old fact-checking) would reveal that, sadly, that’s about the extent of the UK urban market once downloads et al are removed from the equation. It’s precisely why the Mercury Prize is a massive result for Debelle’s label, Big Dada. It would be hard to begrudge its founder Will Ashon of some just rewards for 12 years of toil. Ashon has always sought out artists he believes in (New Flesh, Infinite Livez) first and foremost, subsidising their releases from the proceeds of big hitters like Roots Manuva – a maverick yet sustainable approach all but obsolete in today’s shark-infested waters.

17 SELECTIONS

More shocking, to this crumbling mask of bones anyhow, was the revelation that the Mercury itself is some 17 years old – just a few years shy of potential winners like Florence And The Machine (and my god, the odds-on favourite looked gutted to lose, her rictus grin set in stone as the result filtered through) and La Roux. How did that happen? And does it really boast the creative cojones to back up its inflated claims to grandeur?


To put this to the test I decided to assemble a very quick Mercury Prize compilation, picking my favourite offerings (where possible) from the 17 previous albums to triumph so far, combined with a brief and bittersweet analysis of whether, hard cash aside, the Mercury was ultimately a blessing or curse for its recipients. All 17 tracks fit rather snugly onto one CD if you’re bored, listless and dumb enough to follow this at home. Here goes…

1. PRIMAL SCREAM

HIGHER THAN THE SUN

(Screamadelica, 1992)

It’s not uncharitable to note Primal Scream jumped on the explosion of rave culture with unseemly gusto. Hooking up with the likes of Andrew Weatherall for Loaded transformed a luck lustre old album track (I’m Losing More Than I’ll Ever Have) into chart gold (and one of the worst showings of leather trousers on Top Of The Pops to boot). In truth, Screamadelica is wildly uneven and hugely overrated, yet the lunar lunacy of this hook-up with The Orb holds up a treat. A promising start.

Blessing or curse? Undoubtedly the latter. The band apparently lost their winning cheque amid the celebrations, but its proceeds can’t have hurt their subsequent rush into full-on smack addiction, or the gleeful self-destruct button-pressing of Give Out But Don’t Give Up. 

2. SUEDE

ANIMAL NITRATE

(Suede, 1993)

Helmed by the creative foils of singer Brett Anderson and guitarist Bernard Butler Suede were widely perceived as The Smiths’ natural successors – for their artwork obsession, dedication to quality B-sides, and their frontman’s seemingly ambiguous sexuality (“a bisexual man who never had a homosexual experience”). Like the rest of their debut, Animal Nitrate endures for its chemical overtones and dark malevolent energy.

Blessing or curse? Another curse. Anderson and Butler would only continue as Suede for one further album, the unfinished dog’s dinner of Dog Man Star, and despite further successes in both camps the thrill had long gone.

3. M PEOPLE

LA VIDA LOCA

(Elegant Slumming, 1994)

If, as they are wont to claim, the Mercury rewards artistic endeavour, this one night in hell was the biggest cop-out of the lot. Mike Pickering’s Manchester house-lite People would have been inoffensive enough were it not for the blaring foghorn of Heather Smalls. Forget this abomination, she’ll never be forgiven in my house for hammering the final nail in the coffin of Lou Reed’s Perfect Day, no matter if it was for Children In Need or not. And why La Vida Loca? It’s the shortest, at a bowel-evacuating 4.30.

Blessing or curse? A blessing for them, of course, like their rugby club cocktail shtick needed extra promo, and a curse for the rest of us with ears.

4. PORTISHEAD

SOUR TIMES

(Dummy, 1995)

A fresh listen to this epochal debut – it was the album widely hailed as birthing ‘trip-hop’ before that became an insult – reveals most its celebrated charms are intact. Geoff Barrow’s sparse, open production, telling use of hip-hop samples and Beth Gibbons’ otherworldly howl merge seamlessly thanks to Adrian Utley’s restrained musicianly chops. It still sounds delightfully unforced, unlike the torturous genesis and pursuit of perfection tainting later efforts.

Blessing or curse? See above. Portishead managed to follow it swiftly (by their standards) with their eponymous second, but the seeds had been sown for Barrow’s public disaffection.  

5. PULP

I SPY

(Different Class, 1996)

Released on the back of ‘Common People’ and just after their triumphant Glastonbury headline slot (a late shoe-in for the Stone Roses after John Squires fell off his bicycle); Pulp finally had the momentum they’d been craving after over a decade hugging the shadows. Lyrically it was Jarvis Cocker’s masterpiece, skewering social mores with precision, not least on I Spy: “My favourite parks are car parks/Grass is something you smoke/Birds are something you shag/Take your Year In Provence and shove it up your arse.”

Blessing or curse? Massive success and vindication, in the short-term, but the loss of Russell Senior impacted hard on its disaffected follow-up, This Is Hardcore. The fame Cocker longed so hard and long for barely lived up to the brochure. 

6. RONI SIZE

BROWN PAPER BAG

(New Forms, 1997)

Very much drum & bass with a human face, New Forms was a classy debut by any standards – a double disc magnum opus that managed to fuse the organic with what sounded like beats of the future. Free of the lyrical ubiquities that often spill liberal blood, Size was also canny enough to promote it with a live tour-de-force his still PA-giving compatriots could only viciously envy.

Blessing or curse?  A blessing in many ways – it would have arguably died an expensive death without the Mercury – but like so many life-changing debuts, something of an albatross in the long term.

7. GOMEZ

WHIPPIN’ PICADILLY

(Bring It On, 1998)

The unlikely sound of sexy Southport, at first listen Gomez sounded like a bunch of fat American old-timers peddling their curious amalgam of American boogie, Tex Mex and Little Feat in some decrepit Louisiana rib shack. Their ramshackle signature sound was ultimately given focus by the growling-with-rocks vocals of Ben Ottowell – a voice that almost hurt on first hearing but managed to endear when regularly refried.

Blessing or curse? A blessing. Last spotted supporting Pearl Jam, Gomez certainly wouldn’t still be going without the Mercury’s early lift, though they’ve been largely forgotten on home soil.

8. TALVIN SINGH

OK

(OK, 1999)

1999 was a bit of a stinker for the Mercury, so Singh was the only realistic victor from a panel packed with lowlights from overrated stadium-fillers like Stereophonics, Faithless and Underworld. And while OK is much better than its mild title suggests, the tabla supremo’s fusion of Indian classical and drum & bass comes unstuck in places, descending into noodling self-indulgence. All the same it was dinner party staple of the time, often heralded with the words “Singh for your supper?” Kill me now.

Blessing or curse? A blessing, opening up a new and sartorially challenged audience, although some of Singh’s early fire was muted on Ha, its long in the tooth successor.

9. BADLY DRAWN BOY

PISSING IN THE WIND

(The Hour of The Bewilderbeast, 2000)

There was a cleverly engineered low-humming hype machine behind Badly Drawn Boy – cultivated during some wildly erratic live shows – long before joe public got to sample his wares. Yet Damon Gogh had the skills to back it up, Bewilderbeast being as diverse as its nomenclature hints – and still his most complete work – slipping from country to Springsteen in the strum of a major chord.

Blessing or curse? Part blessing, part curse. Gogh was commissioned to score Nick Hornby’s About A Boy for its partial follow-up – yielding the ace Silent Sigh – but his staunch insistence on sporting his trademark beanie is emblematic of a talent long since tainted by self-parody.

10. PJ HARVEY

THIS IS LOVE

(Stories From The City, Stories From The Sea, 2001)

A tricky one. Stories… was almost universally hailed as Polly Jean Harvey’s best work – Q going so far as to crown it the Greatest Album Of All-Time By A Female Artist – yet to these ears it’s even not in a top three that boasts Dry, Rid Of Me or White Chalk. Regardless, it was certainly her most melodic, sumptuous and confident effort, those combined forces inspiring countless critical bon mots.

Blessing or curse? Neither. Harvey is a restless talent, always shifting direction, and one suspects blithely unaware of any of the pros or cons the Mercury traditionally bestows.

11. MS DYNAMITE

DY-NA-MI-TEE

(A Little Deeper, 2002)

Very much a case of the emperor’s new clothes, the Mercury panel’s wrong-headed decision to show that they were down with ‘garage’ – yeah, get off granddad – resulted in this stupid endorsement of a singularly minor talent. Two annoying hits and a grab bag of hastily completed filler do not an album make, however hard you shout it from the rafters.

Blessing or curse? Total curse. Dynamite’s follow-ups all flopped heavily, though the medium of reality TV still regularly finds space for this over-opinionated gobshite.

12. DIZZEE RASCAL

I LUV U

(Boy In Da Corner, 2003)

As if to make amends for the previous year’s insanity, the Mercury panel once again went all-out UK urban, though they couldn’t fail to back a winner with Dizzee’s debut. Raw and embryonic in tone, it sounds surprisingly sparse and harsh now, but like all his work the listener is captivated – not so much by his skill with words (which are none too shabby) but by a voice and delivery clearly in a league of its own.

Blessing or curse? Untold blessings. The Rascal juggernaut ploughs on relentlessly, improving album by album, as his singles file gets ever more commercial – if he chanced a cover of The Birdie Song he’d probably still be critically felated.

13. FRANZ FERDINAND

TAKE ME OUT

(Franz Ferdinand, 2004)

The momentum was so comprehensively with Alex Kapranos’s crew of edgy Scots that, like labelmates the Arctic Monkeys after them, the Mercury was merely the cherry on the top of the cake for a job well done. That said, this debut still sounds remarkably fresh – nothing amiss in their flighty fusion of angular guitars, dance and real pop suss whatsoever – and almost edible too. 

Blessing or curse? The corporate-feeling pat on the back of the Mercury might have seemed irrelevant at the time, but in its wake FF rushed out an inferior second and seemingly slogged themselves to a creative impasse thereafter. So curse.

14. ANTONY & THE JOHNSONS

YOU ARE MY SISTER

(I Am A Bird Now, 2005)

Perhaps the most heart-warming, deserved Mercury to date. Antony Hegarty’s remarkable larynx had previously been restricted to an eponymous low-key debut, a few EPs and some sterling work on another of Lou Reed’s grand follies, The Raven. I Am A Bird Now was the real deal, Hegarty transcending his high-profile collaborators – Devendra Banhart, Rufus Wainwright, Reed again – by showing his full range. This gorgeous Boy George collabo is just one of ten perfectly assured picks.

Blessing or curse? At first, a curse. After years in a wilderness of his own making, Hegarty was clearly ill at ease with his sudden surge in fortunes, gradually accepting it with grace and turning a potential defeat into a strolling victory.

15. ARCTIC MONKEYS

I BET THAT YOU LOOK GOOD ON THE DANCEFLOOR

(Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not, 2006)

While not technically their first single – though how many of us own Five Minutes With The Arctic Monkeys? – I Bet… was a call to arms for a certain breed of rock fan sick and undernourished from being fed ever more stale crumbs from captain Noel’s table. Energetic, punchy, and lyrically erudite, Turner’s mob already had plenty of plus points in the bank for their determined eschewing of the majors and that knowing Sillitoe reference in the album title.

Blessing or curse? “Somebody call 999, Richard Hawley’s been robbed,” went Turner’s acceptance speech, showing that they regarded the award with just the right amount of levity.

16. KLAXONS

GOLDEN SKANS

(Myths Of The Near Future, 2007)

New rave is an awful mantle for anyone to carry though The Klaxons did so with a certain amount of aplomb, crafting a relentlessly melodious minor pop classic from some less than inspiring materials. It’s not the all-conquering vision of the future the NME somehow over-egged it as, but this year’s contenders The Friendly Fires would surely be lost without its blueprint. 

Blessing or curse? The jury is still out. Their label has rejected several sessions for its work-in-progress follow-up, and with no release date pending the momentum may well have gone.

17. ELBOW

THE BONES OF YOU

(The Seldom Seen Kid, 2008)

There’s a sort of irritating smugness about the Mercury Prize – all those ‘experts’ earnestly polishing their knock-off crystal balls – that this late-in-the-day selection for Guy Garvey’s band of brothers was almost apologetic. A vindication for the Bury boys’ earnest commitment to their task, sure, but one they would have appreciated better early doors – even if no-one has celebrated the prize with such joyous abandon.

Blessing or curse? A blessing, undoubtedly, four albums in, affording a bit of much needed financial security, a few new suits and opening the doors for this year’s famed Halle collaboration. Few would bet on them fluffing the ball for album five either.