The Mercury Prize – Is it still relevant?

Speech Debelle wins the Mercury Prize

People talking about music is one of the great success stories of the digital age. It’s opened up so many opportunities for bands to get their music to an audience, and it’s given music fans the chance to hear untold amounts of life changing new music that fifteen years ago they would never have got near. But nothing inspires tedious recurring bitching among British and Irish music fans like the Mercury Prize. In the six weeks since the announcement of the shortlist, as with so many previous years, I’ve found myself jaded by the same tired old arguments that rear their gruesome heads every twelve months:

“It’s criminal that (band a) aren’t nominated”

“(band z)/rapper b) are the token jazz/hip-hop act”

‘”band x) are too big, they don’t need the award”

“The Mercury hasn’t been relevant for years”

So I pose the question, is now the time to revamp the way the Mercury Prize works? After all, if Kasabian can be nominated for an award which famously claims to reward innovation, something must be amiss, right? Well, the Prize’s past is hardly blameless. Let’s not forget, historic nominees include Simply Red, Dina Carroll and Mark Morrison. And then of course, we had the prize’s darkest hour in 1994 which saw M People beat Blur and Pulp to the prize.

The American version of the Mercury, The Shortlist Music Prize restricts entry to albums which have not attained Gold status. Perhaps it’s time the Mercury adopted a similar approach. Of this year’s twelve Mercury-nominated artists, five (Florence and the Machine, La Roux, Glasvegas, Kasabian, and Bat For Lashes) have sold in excess of the British Gold record threshold of 100,000, and would therefore have been precluded from entering if this rule were adopted. Would the shortlist really have been poorer without these artists? Arguments can be made in favour of all of them (with the exception of Kasabian, obviously), but none of them really need the leg-up in terms of sales and increase profile that victory would have provided. Each are strong bets for Brit award nominations, something which is arguably a lot more appropriate for musicians with that level of exposure.

This year’s winning album, Speech Debelle’s debut Speech Therapy is the lowest-selling winner of the prize ever, having shifted 3,000 copies up to its victory. Given her desire to record which was fuelled by a love of music (that classic, if painfully clichéd image of kids in their bedrooms trying to emulate their heroes), and her affiliation with Ninja Tune, a hard-working London independent which has been around almost as long as the Mercury, it’s difficult to begrudge her victory, even if you aren’t a particular fan of her music. Sweet Billy Pilgrim are a similar story. Having slogged away for years, paying the bills with day jobs and session muso gigs, their lovely second album Twice Born Men was also nominated having previously slipped under the radar of the vast majority of music fans. Surely these are worthier candidates for a £20,000 prize which wouldn’t even keep La Roux in hairspray for a month?

The judges of the prize face a pretty unenviable task. Semi-legendary tales persist of heated arguments carrying on right through the bands’ performances on the night until a dishevelled spokesperson has to run down to the stage to breathlessly announce the winner before the papers go to press. To be fair though, this gives the Mercury a bit of ramshackle charm in keeping with it‘s ‘alternative’ reputation. After all, what’s would be an adequate substitute for a group of industry types arguing in a room? An online vote? You can just imagine the carnage and vote-rigging which would ensue. The Mercury might be severely flawed in some ways, but one thing we have to remember is that it aims to pick the single best British and Irish album of the year, and as such will always be massively divisive.

So all things considered, the Mercury Prize has its plus points and negatives. It has failed spectacularly in its aims in the past, and needs to refocus its purpose, in particular putting more thought into its nominees. However, Speech Debelle’s victory this week has stirred up enough interesting debate aside from the usual banalities to prove that the prize still has at least some kind of relevance.