Mercury Music Prize

So Speech Debelle won the 2009 Mercury Music prize, well done to her. I haven't heard much of her stuff but what I heard seems pretty good. I am even more pleased for her label Big Dadda who have been pushing UK Hip-Hop for years bringing us Roots Manuva & New Flesh.

The response has been interesting, with some believing that the Speech Debelle's album isn't groundbreaking enough, it's tokenism and other such complaints.

Unlike The Brits which is largely a big pat on the back for the majors, The Mercury is touted as the "credible" award as accepts albums from any genre and with any amount of record sales, The FA Cup of the music awards if you will. To quote thier site:

"The Barclaycard Mercury Prize exists solely to champion music in the UK, mainly through the 'Albums of the Year' competition, which celebrates recorded music of all genres by British or Irish artists."

It could be argued that it is The Mercury's openness that is its downfall, every nomination feels like a token gesture to Folk, Jazz, Indie, Urban... But then there is the issue of exclusive awards; The MOBOs always seemed a bit of a weird one to me.

I like the idea of The Mercury, an open door policy where music is judged on merit and not on sales or even poularity (the two are not always one and the same). But at the same time it seems a bit a folly, some fun to be had be comparing Le Roux and Led Bib, and realising that each have their own merits and flaws.

I now apologise for sounding like a huge music snob, but The Mercurys always seem like a bit of a pointer to the middle aged men who want to be listening to what they think is cool, the fact that most of the past winners have become popular with The Gaurdian could be seen as testement to this. This is taking nothing away from the winners themselves and fair play to them all if they get a boost in record sales, but if you win The Mercury it sought of seems to make you a bit wel, um, uncool as you know accountants who wouldn't have gone anywhere near you are suddenly your biggest fans.

But then who the fuck am I to say who should or shouldn't listen to music? and my last statement contradicts entirely my belief that music is for everyone.

In truth awards are all problematic, selecting 12 albums from an infinite choice of new nusic and saying "this ones the best" is a load of shit. Where The Mercurys do succeed is in creating a conversation around music, and while Florence & The Machine might not need the publicity Speech Debebelle certainly does and whle it might not be "the album of the year" for me it might become just that for somebody else.