Mercury Prize

The Mercury Music Prize is a music award given annually for the best British or Irish album of the previous 12 months. It was established in 1992 as an alternative to the industry-dominated Brit awards. It was originally sponsored by the now-defunct telecoms company Mercury, followed in 1998 by Technics and starting in 2004 the Nationwide Building Society.

Shortlists

Each year's winner is in bold.

2005

• Antony and the Johnsons – I Am A Bird Now
• Bloc Party – Silent Alarm
• Coldplay – X&Y
• Hard-Fi – Stars of CCTV
• Kaiser Chiefs – Employment
• KT Tunstall – Eye To The Telescope
• M.I.A. – Arular
• Maxïmo Park – A Certain Trigger
• Polar Bear – Held On The Tips Of Fingers
• Seth Lakeman – Kitty Jay
• The Go! Team – Thunder, Lightning, Strike
• The Magic Numbers – The Magic Numbers

2004

• Basement Jaxx – Kish Kash
• Belle & Sebastian – Dear Catastrophe Waitress
• Franz Ferdinand – Franz Ferdinand
• Jamelia – Thank You
• Keane – Hopes And Fears
• Snow Patrol – Final Straw
• Joss Stone – The Soul Sessions
• The Streets – A Grand Don't Come For Free
• Ty – Upwards
• Amy Winehouse – Frank
• Robert Wyatt – Cuckooland
• The Zutons – Who Killed... The Zutons?

2003

• Athlete – Vehicles and Animals
• Eliza Carthy – Anglicana
• Coldplay – A Rush of Blood to the Head
• The Darkness – Permission to Land
• Dizzee Rascal – Boy in Da Corner
• Floetry – Floetic
• Soweto Kinch – Conversations with the Unseen
• Lemon Jelly – Lost Horizons
• The Thrills – So Much for the City
• Martina Topley-Bird – Quixotic
• Radiohead – Hail to the Thief
• Terri Walker – Untitled

2002

• Guy Barker – Soundtrack
• The Bees – Sunshine, Hit Me
• David Bowie – Heathen
• The Coral – The Coral
• Doves – The Last Broadcast
• The Electric Soft Parade – Holes In The Wall
• Gemma Hayes – Night on my Side
• Beverley Knight – Who I Am
• Roots Manuva – Run Come Save Me
• Joanna McGregor – Play
• Ms. Dynamite – A Little Deeper
• The Streets – Original Pirate Material

2001

• Basement Jaxx – Rooty
• Elbow – Asleep in the Back
• Goldfrapp – Felt Mountain
• Gorillaz – Gorillaz (nomination withdrawn at the request of the band)
• Ed Hardcourt – Here Be Monsters
• PJ Harvey – Stories From The City, Stories From The Sea
• Tom McRae – Tom McRae
• Radiohead – Amnesiac
• Susheela Raman – Salt Rain
• Super Furry Animals – Rings Around the World
• Turin Brakes – The Optimist LP
• Zero 7 – Simple Things

2000

• Richard Ashcroft – Alone with Everybody
• Badly Drawn Boy – The Hour of Bewilderbeast
• Coldplay – Parachutes
• MJ Cole – Sincere
• Death in Vegas – The Contino Sessions
• The Delgados – The Great Eastern
• Doves – Lost Souls
• Helicopter Girl – How to Steal the World
• Leftfield – Rhythm and Stealth
• Nicholas Maw – Violin Concerto
• Nitin Sawhney – Beyond Skin
• Kathryn Williams – Little Black Numbers

1999

• Thomas Adès – Asyla
• Denys Baptiste – Be Where You Are
• Black Star Liner – Bengali Bantam Youth Experience!
• Blur – 13
• Chemical Brothers – Surrender
• Faithless – Sunday 8PM
• Manic Street Preachers – This Is My Truth Tell Me Yours
• Beth Orton – Central Reservation
• Kate Rusby – Sleepless
• Talvin Singh – Ok
• Stereophonics – Performance and Cocktails
• Underworld – Beaucoup Fish

1998

• 4hero – Two Pages
• Asian Dub Foundation – Rafi's Revenge
• Eliza Carthy – Red Rice
• Catatonia – International Velvet
• Cornershop – When I Was Born For The 7th Time
• Gomez – Bring It On
• Massive Attack – Mezzanine
• Propellerheads – Decksandrumsandrockandroll
• Pulp – This is Hardcore
• John Surman – Proverbs & Songs
• The Verve – Urban Hymns
• Robbie Williams – Life Thru a Lens

1997

• The Chemical Brothers – Dig Your Own Hole
• Beth Orton – Trailer Park
• Primal Scream – Vanishing Point
• The Prodigy – The Fat of the Land
• Radiohead – OK Computer
• Roni Size/Reprazent – New Forms
• The Spice Girls – Spice
• Suede – Coming Up
• John Tavener – Syvati
• Mark-Anthony Turnage – Your Rockaby

1996

• Artists for War Child – Help
• Black Grape – It's Great When You're Straight...Yeah
• Peter Maxwell Davies/BBC Philharmonic – The Beltane Fire / Caroline Mathilde
• Manic Street Preachers – Everything Must Go
• Mark Morrison – Return of the Mack
• Oasis – (What's the Story) Morning Glory
• Courtney Pine – Modern Day Jazz Stories
• Pulp – Different Class
• Underworld – Second Toughest In The Infants
• Norma Waterson – Norma Waterson

1995

• Guy Barker – Into The Blue
• Elastica – Elastica
• PJ Harvey – To Bring You My Love
• Leftfield – Leftism
• James MacMillan – Seven Last Words From the Cross
• Van Morrison – Days Like These
• Oasis – Definitely Maybe
• Portishead – Dummy
• Supergrass – I Should Coco
• Tricky – Maxinquaye

1994

• Blur – Parklife
• M People – Elegant Slumming
• Ian McNabb – Head Like A Rock
• Shara Nelson – What Silence Knows
• Michael Nyman – The Piano Concerto and MGV
• The Prodigy – Music for the Jilted Generation
• Pulp – His'n'Hers
• Take That – Everything Changes
• Therapy? – Troublegum
• Paul Weller – Wild Wood

1993

• Apache Indian – No Reservations
• The Auteurs – New Wave
• Gavin Bryars – Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me Yet
• Dina Caroll – So Close
• PJ Harvey – Rid of Me
• New Order – Republic
• Stereo MC's – Connected
• Sting – Ten Summoner's Tales
• Suede – Suede
• Stan Tracey – Portraits Plus

1992

• Barry Adamson – Soul Murder
• Jah Wobble – Rising Above Bedlam
• The Jesus and Mary Chain – Honey's Dead
• Bheki Mseleku – Celebration
• Primal Scream – Screamadelica
• Saint Etienne – Foxbase Alpha
• Simply Red – Stars
• U2 – Achtung Baby
• John Tavener & Steven Isserlis –The Protecting Veil
• Young Disciples – Road To Freedom

Controversy

The Mercury Music Prize is seen as something of a controversial event in the UK. The award can in no sense be seen as representative of prevailing trends in popular music, as the winning album is selected from the shortlist by an extremely small panel of individuals from within the music industry.

Criticism is frequently focussed upon the panel being out of touch with paradigm shifts in popular trends. The 1994 event was a particularly notorious example of this, where what would prove to be hugely influential and popular albums from [Britpop]] figureheads Paul Weller, Blur and Pulp (band) and electronica leaders The Prodigy were overlooked in favour of the contemporarily safe choice of adult contemporary artists M People.

Conversely, the shortlist has often been perceived as a desparate attempt by the panel to appear "cool" regardless of what the actual public's interests are. This occured particularly in 1999, when Black Star Liner and Talvin Singh, who had been shoehorned into a non-existent "movement" created by the music press called Asian Underground, were selected for the shortlist. The latter's album Ok went on to win the prize, yet went on to win a very small number of copies. Also, the artists selected for the shortlist have in the past been prevailingly from major record labels, which has irked many independent record label owners and artists. The exclusion of independent artistes has purportedly been on the grounds of lack of sales, however the same might be said of many of the major label artists who have made the shortlist. A notorious example of this was Helicopter Girl, whose 2000 album How To Steal The World reportedly sold fewer than 1,000 copies.

The award has often proved to be something of a poisoned chalice as artists who have won it have in many cases failed to repeat anything like the success of their prize-winning album. After winning in 1996 with Different Class, Pulp (band) went on to release the grim, downbeat album This Is Hardcore, which sounded the end of the Britpop movement. Similarly, Gomez and Suede (band)'s follow-ups were greeted by disappointing sales in the context of their prize-winning debuts.

External links

• Mercury Music Prize Official Site
• Alternate listings