2008 Mercury Music Prize Nominees Announced | Radiohead, Adele & Estelle

The Mercury Music Prize, sponsored by Nationwide, is the annual award given to the best album by a British or Irish artist released in the previous 12 months. The ceremony isn’t until later in the year, but a short-list is first released, with the name of the 12 artists, and their albums, on it which the judges think are the best of British.

Having said that, the Mercury Music Prize has a history of choosing albums by up and coming artists, rather than necessarily widely known artists, and certainly not the best-selling ones. Which means there are always some huge surprises in the short-list, and more often than not, in the eventual winner chosen as well.

Last year saw Klaxons named as winners, for their début album Myths Of The Near Future. They beat the Arctic Monkeys, Dizzee Rascal, and Amy Winehouse along the way, although Winehouse’ performance at the awards ceremony probably invoked more press coverage than the Klaxons themselves.

This year’s short-list has now been published, and the usual surprises are present, as well as there being many names missing that were expected to appear.

The 2008 Nationwide Mercury Prize short-list, courtesy of NME, is:

Adele – ’19′
British Sea Power – ‘Do You Like Rock Music?’
Burial – ‘Untrue’
Elbow – ‘The Seldom Seen Kid’
Estelle – ‘Shine’
The Last Shadow Puppets – ‘The Age Of The Understatement’
Laura Marling – ‘Alas I Cannot Swim’
Neon Neon – ‘Stainless Style’
Portico Quartet – ‘Knee-Deep In The North Sea’
Robert Plant And Alison Krauss – ‘Raising Sand’
Radiohead – ‘In Rainbows’
Rachel Unthank And The Winterset – ‘The Bairns’

I have personally never heard of Neon Neon, Portico Quartet, and Rachel Unthank, though I’m now trying to learn more about them via my usual founts of all knowledge, MySpace and Wikipedia.

The others all probably deserve to be on the list, although I think one band, and one album stand out above the rest at this point in time. Radiohead’s In Rainbows is not only a brilliant album, the unique release method, being available to buy online for as little as 1p, ensures its place as favourite.

Adele’s singing style may annoy me at times, but I can also see why she is many people’s favourite to take the prize too, while Estelle has had a magnificent comeback year which has ended with success in America, as well as in her native UK.

The Mercury Music Prize ceremony will be held in London on September 9th, where the winners will be announced, and every act on the short-list will play live. Which gives us all plenty of time to listen to the albums, and make our own minds up over who we want to win.

[Photo Source: rgrieser at Flickr]