For more than 30 years, the Mercury Prize has celebrated the very best of British and Irish music, with past winners of its prestigious album of the year award including Primal Scream, Portishead, Arctic Monkeys, Michael Kiwanuka, Skepta, Little Simz, Ezra Collective, and PJ Harvey (twice).
This year’s ceremony will take place on Thursday, and the shortlist of contenders bring together some of 2023 and 2024’s best albums.
For many acts, particularly those based in niche genres, or for bands still on the up, making the shortlist is an enormous achievement in and of itself.
Off the back of a nod last year, contemporary Irish folk group Lankum’s album sales and downloads boosted by 198 per cent; back in 2014, relatively unknown jazz acts GoGo Penguin and Polar Bear also enjoyed record streaming hikes of 1,197 per cent and 1,618 per cent respectively.
The following artists and albums are in contention for one of the biggest prizes in music:
Barry Can’t Swim - When Will We Land?
Berwyn - WHO AM I
Beth Gibbons - Lives Outgrown
Cat Burns - Early Twenties
Charli xcx - Brat
CMAT - Crazymad, for Me
Corrine Bailey Rae - Black Rainbows
corto.alto - Bad With Names
English Teacher - This Could Be Texas
Ghetts - On Purpose With Purpose
Nia Archives - Silence is Loud
The Last Dinner Party - Prelude to Ecstasy
Here’s what you need to know about who might win the prize on Thursday.
Thank god, there’s a token jazz act!
At this point, it’s basically an ancient tradition: the Mercury Prize nearly always includes at least one jazz-leaning act that basically nobody has ever heard of. In the past, the honour has been bestowed upon the likes of Polar Bear, GoGo Penguin, and Led Bib.
But in recent years – as the hugely exciting south London jazz scene has grown more and more influential – the jazz nods have been decidedly more high profile. Last year, Ezra Collective even ended up winning.
Thank God, then, for the Glaswegian producer and multi-instrumentalist corto.alto, real name Liam Shorthall. With a modest 19,000 followers on Instagram, he’s far less well known than other recent nods, and describes his album Bad With Names as future-jazz.
It’s a fitting description for the energetic debut from Glasgow’s Royal Conservatoire’s youngest graduate, who started out playing trombone in the Scottish National Jazz Orchestra, and recorded and produced the entire record in his Southside flat.
Brat Summer is in full swing
Since Charli XCX released Brat at the beginning of June, the neon-green record has felt like a shoo-in for the Mercurys, following a previous nomination for her lockdown-created release How I'm Feeling Now.
Drawing heavily from hyper-pop and dance music, Brat feels like a throwback to Charli’s weirdest (and best) releases, with a brilliantly brash, wonky pop sound that recalls 2017’s mixtapes Pop 2 and Number 1 Angel.
The singer has called it her "most aggressive and confrontational record" yet – and thematically it digs into the Brat mentality which is now having bizarre and wide-reaching influence on the US election (it’s a long story, but Kamala Harris is Brat, just trust me).
In a nutshell, it’s early-30s partygirl panic, veering between the grimy hedonism of songs like 360, Von Dutch and Club Classics, to genuinely vulnerable musings on the insecurity Charli feels as a woman in the limelight (Sympathy is a Knife, Girl, So Confusing) and existential questions about motherhood, and how it might transform her current life in all manner of different ways (I Think About It All The Time).
In short, a well-deserved nod, and victory would certainly cap off Brat Summer (or indeed herald Brat Autumn) nicely.
A strong year for dance
It’s perhaps no surprise that Nia Archives is flying the Union Jack for dance music with her debut Silence is Loud, which draws on jungle and breakbeat and mangles them together into an incredibly enjoyable tangle of cathartic, high-impact dance-pop.
A Mercury nomination is richly deserved, but it’s also brilliant to see some recognition for the Scottish producer and DJ Barry Can’t Swim, and his own debut When Will It Land? A more understated dance record, it draws on house, but smatterings of both jazz and ambient music.
After he practically shut down the Park Stage area of Glastonbury earlier this summer, it has certainly felt like Barry’s year, and this is the perfect way to top things off.
A few notable omissions
Given that Radiohead are Mercury Prize mainstays ‒ though they’ve never won, the band has been nominated five times, with an additional solo nod for Thom Yorke’s The Eraser ‒ their sort-of-side-project The Smile feels like a surprising snub.
The artsy and experimental Wall of Eyes, which veers between trance-like psych-folk and the tangled post-rock of tracks like Read the Room and Under Our Pillows, feels like it should be Mercury catnip, but alas.
English singer-songwriter Rachel Chinouriri hugely deserved a nod for her 2024 debut What a Devastating Turn of Events, which explored thorny subjects such as grief, suicide, and heartbreak against a backdrop of spiky indie, with wit and introspection.
South London contemporary jazz mainstay Yussef Dayes, who has really taken off this year with the exceptional Black Classical Music, also felt like a real contender after bagging two Brit nominations early this year. Instead, the drummer and composer leaves empty handed.
Though there’s a couple of rap acts in the mix ‒ grime pioneer Ghetts, and spoken-word poet and rapper Berwyn ‒ it would’ve been great to see the Bob Vylan (who incorporate strains of hip-hop into their frenetic spin on punk rock) among the shortlisters.
A couple of surprises
It’s a pleasant surprise to see British-Liberian singer-songwriter Cat Burns among the shortlisters with her indie and gospel-influenced coming-of-age debut Early Twenties, as well as a second, well-deserved nod for Berwyn.
I’m already looking forward to CMAT’s red carpet costume, and she hugely deserves to be celebrated for her latest album Crazymad, for Me. Though its been met with huge levels of critical acclaim, including a five star review from the Standard, Corrine Bailey Rae’s heavy, rock-influenced album Black Rainbows didn’t feel like it was necessarily a dead-cert. It’s great to see the singer-songwriter getting props, here.
And some obvious frontrunners
It’s little surprise that The Last Dinner Party’s Prelude to Ecstasy, has made the cut, as one of the strongest, most fully-realised debuts from a British band in some time. Though it has its own very distinct sound, which veers from its fluttering orchestral opener to the ABBA-styled power-pop of Nothing Matters, this release’s sheer brass and boldness reminds me of the first albums to come from now-massive groups like Wolf Alice, Foals, and Alt-J.
I’d put good money on them going the whole way. On the whole, it’s a very strong year for debut albums, and Leeds’ English Teacher also feel like serious frontrunners with This Could Be Texas.
On the more established side, grime veteran Ghetts would be a solid winner, with On Purpose With Purpose bringing together the best of UK rap (Wretch 32, Kano) and exciting curveball collaborators (Sampha, and newcomer Moonchild Sannelly).
And given that she’s already won one Mercury Prize with her band Portishead ‒ for their 1994 debut Dummy ‒ and now-solo Beth Gibbons would also a strong left-field winner.
