The Mercury Music Prize Roundup (With Spotify links)
8 Sep
The Mercury Music Prize award ceremony took place last night with the honors going to The xx (spelled with lower case x’s if you don’t mind) for their album xx. This didn’t really come as a big surprise to anyone, The xx were the bookie’s favorites and seemed destined to win. If you missed the awards here are the 10 albums which were nominated, click on the title of the album to launch it if you are a Spotify user.
Biffy Clyro – Only Revolutions
Corinne Bailey Rae – The Sea
Dizzee Rascal – Tongue n’ Cheek
Foals – Total Life Forever
I Am Kloot – Sky at Night
Kit Downes Trio – Golden
Laura Marling – I Speak Because I Can
Mumford & Sons – Sigh No More
Paul Weller – Wake Up the Nation
Villagers – Becoming a Jackal
Wild Beasts – Two Dancers
The xx – xx
I was quite pleased that The xx won the award, I’ve enjoyed their album and found it to be a well rounded and complete work. I featured the band on this very blog in August of last year before their album was released (“I liked them before they were popular etc”).
I have also been enjoying Laura Marling’s album I Speak Because I Can which is well worth a listen. It is darker than her previous album Alas I Cannot Swim with a bigger sound and better production. Judging by last night’s performance she has grown in confidence and is no longer too shy to look at the audience. If you haven’t heard it yet check out the video below.
Interestingly, as the Guardian pointed out, the Mercury Prize was created by the same man who created the ‘Now That’s What I Call Music’ compilations. It is no coincidence that the awards take place at a time of year when record sales are traditionally quite low. Who ever wins the Mercury Prize tend to see a big spike in sales although I’m not sure if that happened to last year’s winner Speech Debelle who seems to have vanished.
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