Saturday, August 02, 2008

Mercury Prize 2008

The Mercury Prize nominees were announced last week. I was surprised by how mainstream they are this year. I actually own most of the nominated albums, which is a first. The nominees:

Adele - 19
British Sea Power - Do You Like Rock Music?
Burial - Untrue
Elbow - The Seldom Seen Kid
Estelle - Shine
Laura Marling - Alas, I Cannot Swim
Neon Neon - Stainless Style
Portico Quartet - Knee Deep in the North Sea
Rachel Unthank and the Winterset - The Bairns
Radiohead - In Rainbows
Robert Plant & Alison Krauss - Raising Sand
The Last Shadow Puppets - The Age of the Understanding

Click on my links to see what I think of seven of these. Among those, Radiohead is by far my favorite, and I think they would be very deserving of the award this year. The Last Shadow Puppets album is good, but Arctic Monkeys have been nominated for both their albums (and won in 2006). Interesting that Adele was nominated and not Duffy.

Among the five I don't know, I'm most interested in checking out Burial, whose album is supposed to be awesome. Portico Quartet is a modern jazz group, which could be interesting. Estelle's album is supposed to be good, having generated the biggest hit from any of these albums ("American Boy" with Kanye West).

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