Thoughts on the Mercury Prize nominees and beyond

Society

“I am outraged! I can’t believe the panel didn’t choose the 12 albums I would’ve chosen if I was their Che.”

This is a stupid stance to take, especially if you’re the Reviews/Features Editor of a music website so staunchly against giving records ratings, and as such I definitely won’t be taking it. The decision to review albums sans rating was a decision that required almost no second thought – as intrinsically incongruous as it already is to transform music into words, it’s beyond the realms of creativity to reduce an art form into a number. Arguably, it’s equally stupid to get so frothed up about the Mercury Prize nominations as I’ve done, but the difference lies in the excitement it invokes – the talk, the chat, the debate, the passion.

My reasoning against ‘out-of-10s’ lies somewhere between the adopted role of Narcissist and Self-Depreciator, both as defender/rep. for my own reviews and some sort of mother-figure for the gaggle of writers I’ve accumulated along the way in my year at Muso’s Guide. Back to me again, I don’t want whoever may end up reading one of my reviews to skip to the end in search for a number. They may well scan for words I’ve bolded, but I don’t want to make it easy for them. I love writing about music, that’s why I do it. It’s the only reason I do it. It’s more than enough, it’s more than is healthy. But then I am just writing for myself – I’m not trying to influence you, or you, or you or even you over there. And therein lies the decision.

This is off-track, it’s got to be said, but it’s the justification for why the Mercury Prize is still important in this era where you don’t need to prove yourself to make your opinion public. I happen to care what people (as a representation of the music press, that is) think – I’d really like to know what albums made the long list, why they missed out, why the ones that got chosen did in fact make it… I want to know why Metronomy got left out, how Simon Frith et al felt when everyone took Doves’ latest effort as a dead cert, who took the lead on Sweet Billy Pilgrim‘s nomination and moreover, just how the heck they go about formulating such a list.

The concept of lists is highly personal, so any nominations are frankly not going to keep everyone happy. It’s impossible. And to the counter, annhiliating the nominees is counter-productive, or rather all-too-rehearsed.

It’s disappointing to see Kasabian nominated when there’s so much more innovation going on in the UK at the moment. Take a quick think back to The Week That Was’ striking self-titled album, released last year. It goes back to the objective vs. subjective debate I wrote about at length fairly recently, and whether any core exists where those on some sort of pegging have a common ground where they agree on what falls above and below the intermediatory threshold.

So back to the focus, here’s some thoughts: yes, I’m precious about albums. I’m very precious. Which is why I’d have liked Micachu and The Shapes, Metronomy, Sons of Noel and Adrian and The Week That Was to have been nominated. I can’t say “they should replace x, y and z”, because I’m not the one with the justification for the albums I believe shouldn’t have been put in.

It’s an odd concept, deciding on 12 albums as the highlights of 12 months. It’s like the way-too-convenient “nice, but not as good as their debut” or “like a poor man’s <insert popular pre-’80s artist here>” that are all-too-oft used by lazy hacks. It’s like when Jeremy Kyle asks a contestant what the likelihood is that Wayne isn’t the father; Stacey tells him it’s 85 percent, but she can’t possibly know that.

And on that note, our one prediction remains: The Horrors FTW. And if that fails, revel in the glory that 2009 has been approximately 627.261 recurring times more interesting than 2003′s selection (the list included Athlete, Coldplay, The Darkness, Lemon Jelly and The Thrills).

It’s only opinion but I’m right – if you get my drift. And you do get my drift, and that’s that.

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