The Sigla Blog

The Mercury Prize nominees for this year have been announced and there are well-deserved inclusions and the customary “what the hell are they doing on there?” choices. Top of the latter list is Coldplay’s ‘X&Y’. The album should simply have been called ‘Y?’. This is one of the most uninspired, predictable, U2-lite*, mediocre records out this year. And surely the remit of the Mercury Prize should lean more towards to breaking new talent, as it did in the past with Dizzee Rascal, Badly Drawn Boy, Franz Ferdinand and Ms. Dynamite. It’s heartening to see though, that 8 of the 10 albums in the running are debuts.

On the upside, there are some very fine albums up for the prize including Anthony and the Johnsons’ ‘I Am A Bird Now’, Bloc Party’s ‘Silent Alarm’, The Magic Numbers debut, Kaiser Chiefs’ ‘Employment’, Maximo Park’s ‘A Certain Trigger, Polar Bear’s ‘Held on the Tips of Fingers’, Seth Lakeman’s ‘Kitty Jay’, The Go! Team’s ‘Thunder, Lightning, Strike’, Hard Fi’s ‘Stars of CCTV’ and KT Tunstall’s ‘Eye of the Telescope’.

My personal favourite on the list, and the one I’d love to win it is M.I.A.’s ‘Arular’.

On the day of the announcement, Kaiser Chiefs head up the bookies’ favourite to walk off with the prize (a handy stg£20,000) .

That’s probably less than what Chris Martin spent on a recent purchase of a pink baby Grand Piano for his daugher Apple.

* expression is © Martin Gleeson. That and ‘Bono-lite’ as a reference to Chris Martin.