The problem isn’t losing, it’s winning. Losing attracts back-slaps of commiseration and sympathetic platitudes. Losing brings assurances of injustice and judges with poor taste.
Winning, on the other hand, gives rise to accusations of undeserved spoils, notions of being overrated and, above all, great expectations. Such is the curse on the Mercury Music Prize.
The track record of previous winners doesn’t make happy reading. Indeed, it could be argued, being crowned the victor isn’t so much the kiss of death, more the huge sloppy snog of an ill-fated future. When Roni Size and Reprezent won in 1997, they gave every impression of being at the cutting edge of drum and bass. Their New Forms album, full of rattling washes of ambient electronica packaged in clinical, minimal design, sounded and looked very hip and very young. It felt like the future.
But it wasn’t. The immediate and disproportionate expectation of ever more vital and ground-breaking releases almost froze the band and became a self-defeating prophecy. Reprezent failed to dent the music loving community’s consciousness further. Accusations of domestic abuse aside.
Granted, PJ Harvey and Primal Scream pushed on with successful careers, but they are the exceptions proving the rule. A rule that torpedoed the careers of Speech Debelle, Gomez and Ms. Dynamite before the bubbly corks and paper hats had even hit the bins.
The stated mission of the Mercury Music Prize is 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.’
So unlike The Brits, this award is not based on sales figures but on artistic merit – it is given for pushing music’s boundaries, innovating and excellence in the art. Or so the organisers would have us believe. By that token, MPeople would have won with Elegant Slumming whether they had sold albums by the hundredweight or barely had a deal – and how likely does that sound?
I would suggest the Mercury panel has many motivations in its decision making process, but artistic merit is only a minor consideration. Much more emphasis is placed on chasing the contender most likely to convey a certain cool on the ceremony and the prize itself. “Look at us” the choice seems to cry, “We have our fingers right on the pulse. We know where it’s at.” And well they might, but for a single rather large elephant in the room: they’re making a prize competition out of contemporary music.
Award ceremonies have always suited certain creative endeavours better than others. Hollywood adores them. So does advertising. But there’s something about good music that depends on a certain authenticity and integrity. A great band will (or should) do exactly what their instinct compels them to. The results are there to be heard, experienced even – but surely not to be measured against other releases.
At least the Top 40 is compiled from comparable metrics: sales and downloads. The Mercury Prize is awarded for purely subjective, critical whimsy. Can anyone really say Adele’s album is better than Ghost Poet’s? And if so, on what criteria? Sure, the judges can prefer one to the other, but that is merely the individual taste of one person, or one panel.
The decision means next to nothing.
Diminishing revenues and profits in the music industry are a secret and surprise to no man. So it makes good sense to cling, like a cat to a buoy, to any activity guaranteed to boost sales of CDs and downloads. The Mercury Music Prize, in most cases, does just that. Last year’s winners The XX sold 200,000 copies of their album once their nomination was announced. (The formula failed Speech Debelle who achieved no more than 15,000 sales, but in the main, the prize is a banker).
So when the artists listed below, clutching their free plonk to their chests at the forthcoming ceremony, and are biting down hard on their bottom lips in anticipation of glory, just remember that the result says zero about the quality of the band or album. In fact, it’s a tiny statement of archness and preference from the judges and an enormous marketing push from the record labels.
Good luck everyone.
The 2011 Mercury Music Prize Nominees are:
Adele – 21
Anna Calvi – Anna Calvi
Elbow – Build A Rocket Boys!
Everything Everything – Man Alive
Ghostpoet – Peanut Butter Blues and Melancholy Jam
Gwilym Simcock – Good Days At Schloss Elmau
James Blake – James Blake
Katy B – On A Mission
King Creosote & Jon Hopkins – Diamond Mine
Metronomy – The English Riviera
PJ Harvey – Let England Shake
Tinie Tempah – Disc-Overy
Winning, on the other hand, gives rise to accusations of undeserved spoils, notions of being overrated and, above all, great expectations. Such is the curse on the Mercury Music Prize.
The track record of previous winners doesn’t make happy reading. Indeed, it could be argued, being crowned the victor isn’t so much the kiss of death, more the huge sloppy snog of an ill-fated future. When Roni Size and Reprezent won in 1997, they gave every impression of being at the cutting edge of drum and bass. Their New Forms album, full of rattling washes of ambient electronica packaged in clinical, minimal design, sounded and looked very hip and very young. It felt like the future.
But it wasn’t. The immediate and disproportionate expectation of ever more vital and ground-breaking releases almost froze the band and became a self-defeating prophecy. Reprezent failed to dent the music loving community’s consciousness further. Accusations of domestic abuse aside.
Granted, PJ Harvey and Primal Scream pushed on with successful careers, but they are the exceptions proving the rule. A rule that torpedoed the careers of Speech Debelle, Gomez and Ms. Dynamite before the bubbly corks and paper hats had even hit the bins.
The stated mission of the Mercury Music Prize is 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.’
So unlike The Brits, this award is not based on sales figures but on artistic merit – it is given for pushing music’s boundaries, innovating and excellence in the art. Or so the organisers would have us believe. By that token, MPeople would have won with Elegant Slumming whether they had sold albums by the hundredweight or barely had a deal – and how likely does that sound?
I would suggest the Mercury panel has many motivations in its decision making process, but artistic merit is only a minor consideration. Much more emphasis is placed on chasing the contender most likely to convey a certain cool on the ceremony and the prize itself. “Look at us” the choice seems to cry, “We have our fingers right on the pulse. We know where it’s at.” And well they might, but for a single rather large elephant in the room: they’re making a prize competition out of contemporary music.
Award ceremonies have always suited certain creative endeavours better than others. Hollywood adores them. So does advertising. But there’s something about good music that depends on a certain authenticity and integrity. A great band will (or should) do exactly what their instinct compels them to. The results are there to be heard, experienced even – but surely not to be measured against other releases.
At least the Top 40 is compiled from comparable metrics: sales and downloads. The Mercury Prize is awarded for purely subjective, critical whimsy. Can anyone really say Adele’s album is better than Ghost Poet’s? And if so, on what criteria? Sure, the judges can prefer one to the other, but that is merely the individual taste of one person, or one panel.
The decision means next to nothing.
Diminishing revenues and profits in the music industry are a secret and surprise to no man. So it makes good sense to cling, like a cat to a buoy, to any activity guaranteed to boost sales of CDs and downloads. The Mercury Music Prize, in most cases, does just that. Last year’s winners The XX sold 200,000 copies of their album once their nomination was announced. (The formula failed Speech Debelle who achieved no more than 15,000 sales, but in the main, the prize is a banker).
So when the artists listed below, clutching their free plonk to their chests at the forthcoming ceremony, and are biting down hard on their bottom lips in anticipation of glory, just remember that the result says zero about the quality of the band or album. In fact, it’s a tiny statement of archness and preference from the judges and an enormous marketing push from the record labels.
Good luck everyone.
The 2011 Mercury Music Prize Nominees are:
Adele – 21
Anna Calvi – Anna Calvi
Elbow – Build A Rocket Boys!
Everything Everything – Man Alive
Ghostpoet – Peanut Butter Blues and Melancholy Jam
Gwilym Simcock – Good Days At Schloss Elmau
James Blake – James Blake
Katy B – On A Mission
King Creosote & Jon Hopkins – Diamond Mine
Metronomy – The English Riviera
PJ Harvey – Let England Shake
Tinie Tempah – Disc-Overy
