Another year, another Mercury Prize (sorry, Nationwide Mercury Prize), and an ultimate feeling of deflation once the dust’s settled. The bookies got it right, we got it wrong; Arctic Monkeys are the critics’ as well as the consumers’ favourites, and who are we to stand in the way of their sweeping-aside-all-before-them power and popularity?
But what have this year’s awards – held yesterday, in case you weren’t tuned in to BBC 4 last night – actually taught us? We knew Arctic Monkeys were a big deal – we’d been repeatedly told that their winning record, Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not (pictured), is the fastest-selling debut from an English rock band, or something. We knew Jo Whiley and Jools Holland would strip any wonder, any magnificence, from the nominated dozen with a series of single-sentence soundbites that could have been penned by someone who’d never even heard one of the twelve albums. We knew that the token jazz nominee wouldn’t emerge victorious, and that, despite our love for it, Isobel Campbell’s Ballad Of The Broken Seas would almost certainly not get the nod purely because of Mark Lanegan’s involvement. Last year's 'But he's not British!' protestations weren't to be welcomed once more.
What we never knew, though, was that the Mercury panel would this year side with popular opinion, something they’ve rarely done in the past. Who really predicted that Antony And The Johnsons would pip Kaiser Chiefs twelve months ago? Granted, Franz Ferdinand won in 2004, PJ Harvey in 2001, and Pulp in 1996; but the former never made first-album waves as massive as the Monkeys’, Polly Jean was damn well due the award after two previous nominations in 1993 (Rid Of Me) and 1995 (To Bring You My Love), and Pulp’s Different Class was just that, compared to both what came before and after it. Put simply: Arctic Monkeys don’t need this additional recognition, especially not when it comes from industry movers and shakers allegedly able to distinguish fads and trends from music of soul and substance.
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We’re not saying Whatever People Say… has neither of those qualities, and nor are we suggesting that their success will be short-lived, but overlooking the genius that peppers so many of the Monkeys’ fellow nominees’ efforts could result in their engulfing by the mists of time; they could join the likes of Tom McRae’s self-titled record of 2001 and The Bees’ Sunshine Hit Me, nominated in 2002 alongside The Electric Soft Parade’s equally hazily recalled Holes In The Wall, in the margins of Mercury Prize history. It’d be terrible, tragic really, if Richard Hawley’s Coles Corner became one of these all-but-forgotten also-rans – this year’s winners rightly offered a nod to their fellow Sheffield resident upon collecting their trophy. Sway’s This Is My Demo probably won’t be relegated to the back room of the Mercury archives any time soon – unlike the actual The Back Room album, if the panel have any sense – but as the sole hip-hop nomination it’s sure to be approached with a degree of cynicism by indie-rockers drawn to it by the sure-to-be-there ‘A Mercury Album Of The Year’ sticker. That, and its newfound association with the Monkeys, of course.
What would we have liked to see happen? Obviously it’d have been nice if a DiS pick – noted here – had won the £20,000 prize for its maker/s, but what we were really hoping for was any result but the one beamed into living rooms nationwide last night. We mean Arctic Monkeys no disrespect whatsoever, but as has been made clear above: they don’t need their profile increased, simply because it can’t get any bigger as of now. Other artists, those twiddling thumbs alongside the youthful Northerners as Jools introduced another clip of band X or Y performing at Reading, would have benefited from the award to a much greater extent – not so much from the prize money but absolutely from the possibilities and opportunities that can land in an artist’s lap in the wake of such an event. If you’re after a summary of the last six-hundred-odd words, it’s that we’re disappointed. We do feel deflated. We feel a little beaten, as if the faceless taste-makers and money men of the business have had their way with an award that should have recognised the uniqueness of at least half of 2006’s nominees by awarding one of them the prize. The Mercury isn’t The Brits, but last night’s result made it seem like a sister ceremony.
On the plus side, Thom Yorke is a magician, a bewitcher of channel-hopping senses. Did you see him perform ‘Analyse’? These eyes didn’t blink; this mouth didn’t close, throughout. Anyone that can hold an attention, through a television screen, so masterfully, while performing with such a special tenderness, is quite clearly a genius. And he didn’t take his thanks-for-coming statue with him when he left the stage, either. He should run the country. Or at least the music business.
Perhaps then the dust kicked up by the once-yearly scrum from the Mercury wouldn’t settle quite as underwhelmingly as it did a few hours ago.
Read DiS's reviews of some of this year's Mercury-nominated albums...
Arctic Monkeys
Thom Yorke
Isobel Campbell
Hot Chip
Muse
Editors
Guillemots
That article is a reason
i read DIS. Bueno, MUY Bueno.
bravo
nicely written piece diver.
i do not dislike the arctic monkeys, but i was surprised they won. back when the nominees were announced i put money on hot chip winning, then after seeing them at leeds i thought the guillemots would win.
it is a shame that mercury couldnt once again make itself stand apart from the mainstream awards ceremonies- because you would expect the mtv or smash hits or whatever awards to give arctic monkeys prizes, but i think we havecome to expect something a little different from the mercury prize. ok, if we ignore the ms dynamite blip a few years ago...
Great read
I can't help but think that the Monkey's winning this year is pretty much a direct kick back from the stick they got last year by giving it to Antony and the Johnsons.
You could almost see the story in the papers today if, say, Lou Rhodes had won over the people's favourites and I think they were looking to be more conservative as a result this year.
Without arguing the individual merits of any particular album
because music is subjective, I see no problem with a music prize being given to a populist act rather than a less radio friendly one.
Pulp sold oodles of copies of Different Class, P J's winning album was by some distance her most 'mainstream' and it all kicked off with Primal Scream's 'Screamedlica' which again was hardly obscure. And then there was M People...
Irie
Does anyone know who is on the panel? Or in what context they hear the music?
edith bowman was on the panel last year
*long pause*
even worse
lauren "kenickie were shite, bitch" laverne was on the panel this year, i believe
Lauren laverne
was on it this year, which is certianly an improvement on edith.
I think it was good they won just because you got to hear 10 year old monkey (the bassist?) speak and it turns out he has a real comedy voice.
noice one
that was quite an interesting read and very insightful :)
the above article is well written..
.. and i do agree with some of the points. but i feel that in a nutshell arctic monkeys this year have made a massive cultural impact, one that was just too big to ignore.
I'm sure i saw
Thom cringe during the acceptance speech.
He was listening intently
to whichever Monkey it was, and wearing a distinct "WTF?" expression, yeah.
His performance was the highlight of the 'event'
i think i love Thom Yorke
his face during the entire ceremony was just...brilliant.
as for Arctic Monkeys, if it wasn't them it would just be someone else who i think isn't so spectacular so it wouldn't matter to me. they are completely awful at making speeces though.
Decent article...
......although a little puzzling in places. You seem to be saying that the mercury panel should give it to one of the less successful artists because it will give their career a lift? Why? Surely the panel HAVE to give it to the artist with IN THEIR OPINION the BEST ALBUM? And, this year, unusually, the BEST album just happens to be the MOST SUCCESSFUL in terms of sales?
Plus, there is no evidence to suggest giving the award to an obscure artist/band actually does much to their career apart from giving it a boost for a few weeks. Antony and the Johnsons anyone? Ronni Size? TALVIN SINGH????? LOL. Dizzie Rascal??
Fact is, it's an award ceremony and so whoever won there will always be people who are disappointed with the result.
I like to look at it like this. Of ALL the albums on show last night, which one has the best chance of defining 2006 in the public consciousness? Case closed.
PS I thought Yorke made himself appear slightly retarded last night with the looks he was giving the audience. And the song was dull and depressing. And his face when he realised he hadn't won was a sight to behold. LOL.
the mercury
isn't trying to define the public consciousness, it isn't trying to define the mainstream - leave that to the BRITs, NME awards and Q awards. the mercury is supposed to be rewarding a genuinely fucking good album - one i don't believe (though i'm in the minority) the Average Mediocrities made compared to others in the list, notably but not limited to Guillemots, Lou Rhodes and Richard Hawley.
yes, the reward won't make a huge difference to any artist's sales - a mercury prize for richard hawley or scritti politti was never going to stick them in the top 10. the only previous winner whose career has actually skyrocketed possibly BECAUSE of it that i can think of would be Badly Drawn Boy.
but then that's missing the point completely. i got a feeling from last night that the awards panel felt they NEEDED to give the award to the arctic monkeys, because of their success, the column inches about them, and almost through fear of being classed as a fringe award or something. i remember a few years back there was a big hoo-haa over whether it was relevant, because few Radio 1-endorsed artists had been nominated. it's fucking sick that the idiot media (esp. tabloids and right-wing broadies) feels the need to do that, but then, as an intelligent man once said, "all journalists are wankers"
come on, the mercury awarded it to the average mediocrities because it felt it needed to - i never thought i'd say it, but it was almost like it was too chicken to say what it really thought. which is sad really, because this was the best shortlist i'd seen in YONKS.
the point is not...
about giving someone career a lift..
its just about being a more left field awards, not a mainstream
its about a small less known acts can be reward the monkeys will clean up at the brits and all the rest..
i think the richard hawley should have won the album is totally beautiful.
hopefully
the AM album won't define anything in anyone in a couple of years...
bellend
thom yorke may 'appear slightly retarded' to your eyes. however, he is not.
i have never seen your face, seen you sing or seen you not win an award. but i KNOW you are retarded.
go figure.
Ho Ho Ho....
...you see what you did there? You changed my username for comic effect. You seem like you may be a very interesting person to get to know. And very original. Not. And learn to read what's there, NOT what you want to be there so you can be all indignant about it, please. I stated he MADE HIMSELF APPEAR RETARDED with the looks he was giving the audience. I wonder what your reaction would have been if it had been Alex Turner giving that silly look to the audience instead of someone who is clearly your hero? Anyway, wouldn't want to keep you from tidying the bedsit....you see what I did there? LOL.
Brilliant article, Mr Diver.
You've pretty much summed up my thoughts on the matter in their entireity.
There is one question I don't feel has ever been answered to my satisfaction, and that is: what exactly does the Mercury Prize MEAN? Who are these people voting? The ones who've told me that, over the years, Antony and the Johnsons are just as good as M People? Well, thanks!
Has anyone here ever really, honestly, picked up a CD and thought "hmmm, not sure about this one, but... hang on a second! Mercury Music Nominee? Just as good as M People?! Wowzers - it's a MUST HAVE!"
In a word....
CLEARLY! You just have to look at the current Amazon bestsellers chart. Monkeys up to 8 (they've been languishing in the 50s up tilll the last few days) even though it's already sold a million before the Mercurys. But even more heartening for me as a Sheffield lad is Hawley up to 10 from god knows what position before last night. Sheffield: the home of happening music, you gotta believe it! LOL.
i've been more intrigued
by albums because they're mercury nominated. i'd never have even bothered with Lou Rhodes (not having liked Lamb much) if it weren't for the mercury, and this year ditto for Hot Chip.
A very good..
and true article.
I usually love the Mercury awards and what it stands for. Don't get me wrong I purchased the Artic Monkeys album as I (along with many others) fell fowl of all the hype but after about 4 or 5 listens cannot imagine it being used again for little more than a tea coaster. I always thought that this award was about innovation which I believe some of the other nominees (especially Richard Hawley) had in abundance. Feel a bit let down this year.
I'm not quite with you on this...
...they shouldn't get it because they don't need their profile increased?
I thought the whole reason so many people hate all these awards ceremonies is that it's seen as a showcase, an advert, rather than something purely based on artistic merit. While this award means little more to me than any other, if they're saying they chose it because, like, it was their favourite album, then that's as much as we could have hoped for.
Regards Richard Hawley, it has emerged today that percentage-wise he has been the single biggest sales beneficiary since the nominations were announced...
Well written Diver
I was hoping (praying rather) that Arctic Monkeys wouldnt win. Guarenteed this is going to boost Conor McNichola's ever inflatable ego. They are overated, gimmicky and well generally shite. Mercury usually get it wrong year in year out. Lauren Laverne (hate her) was saying it was a Shefield revolution. How could it be when Shefield's greatest band (65daysofstatic) wernt even nominated.
Bit deflated also
But thought it fair enough. Got a text from a mate a second after the award was announced saying, simply, "Horse Shit". Fair enough, you might say (many have done so above). However, I know for a fact that said mate is one of the few people in the UK who has not heard the Arctic Monkeys album. Had he done so, he might like it, he might not; my point being that his was a knee-jerk reaction against the popular choice, because it was simply that: popular (god forbid!).
I like to think that the judges for the Mercury had at least listened to all the albums nominated. I suspect also, that the Arctic Monkeys album was the for the most part the elephant in the room that they were trying to ignore, but they couldn't. Most of them had thought, said and written that it was the best album of the year - they could be hypocrites or they could stick to their guns. It was also the best reviewed album of the year as far as I can recall, going by mainstream press, underground press, public opinion - note glowing review on DiS.
Personally, I think it is a little overrated, a little too long, generally too derivative - it don't speak to me cos, thankfully, the acne's gone and I binge drink in pubs with seasoned tossers not on pavements with kids having their first toss - but it's certainly not crap and won't stick out like a boil on a sore thumb as some previous winners, in retrospect, have done.
Finally, the Mercury Prize is for best album of the year, which is always going to divide opinion. What I like about it, regardless of the eventual winner, is that it points listeners to a couple of albums they would not have heard otherwise. Again, they can take them or leave them, and then make up their own mind.
My winner: Richard Hawley. I hadn't listened to his album in months. I will do so again now.
I sometimes wonder...
Am I in the minority when it comes to the Artic Monkeys...Ive never ever thought there music warranted the hype.I find it all perplexing really.I think the DIS article is spot on,if the award is for music alone other artists deserved it in my opinion.Yep,I'll agree they've had an impact but I always thought the Mercury looked beyond all the media blitz.
Perhaps i'm just not with it anymore.who knows?
As already mentioned...
great article - would love to see more of this indepth analysis and comment on DiS.
But having said that... Aren't you taking all of this Mercury malarky a bit too seriously?
The Mercury Music Prize
exists solely to champion UK music by promoting the 12 albums of the year by Britsh or Irish artists. The music on the album is the only thing taken into account.
Thank God...
...a sensible poster who isn't chucking his/her dummy out of the pram just because his/her favourite artist didn't win. A rare site on this thread.
???
Can't see much dummy throwing from here. More just people voicing their opinions in a sensible fashion.
A number of people above
suggested that the Arctic Monkeys should not have won because
"Arctic Monkeys don’t need this additional recognition" (Mike Diver)
"we have come to expect something a little different from the mercury prize" (Dagnammit)
"[the jury] was too chicken to say what it really thought." (brusma)
"I always thought the Mercury looked beyond all the media blitz." (thekeymaster)
It's difficult
on one hand i agree with you. The Monkeys don't need (A) this exposure and (B) the money.
On the other hand, who out of the 12 does? The obscure jazz dude maybe?
Then i suppose we enter the argument of why this award, specifically, was created. Is it championing new british music, or just adding to the silent PR? Definitely the latter in this case.
But.....
....the Monkeys ARE new British music, you seem to be forgetting and the Mercury IS championing them, why not?? It's their debut album FFS, they are 20 years old and were playing to SIX people in York not that long ago. The fact that they have become massively successful in such a short space of time seems to prompt people to forget that this is a NEW British band just starting out.
FAR too many music snobs on here who have been totally let down by the ONE award that normally goes to an artist/band the snobs can relate to (i.e. pretty obscure but ever so 'worthy'). I can feel your pain, I really can...lol.
so you've joined DiS
purely to go on this thread and kick up a fuss if anyone agrees with Diver or dares to criticise Arctic Monkeys.
i love that you pulled out the music snob argument too; it's the number one blanket criticism made of DiS by know-nothings who've barely scanned the surface of the site.
nice.
someone above pointed out that 65dos are sheffield's best band - true that; fall of math wees all over the mercury prize shortlist from a great height.
thisGirl were also not on the list, and they're way above Arctic Monkeys on my personal list of good bands from Sheffield....
A classic...
....music snob's reply, if you don't mind me saying (but I'm sure you do, of course). You know, just sometimes it's OK to say you like an artist/band who are popular. It's not like admitting you go through the mother in law's knicker drawer, you know. REAL people won't find you any less mysterious and interesting. And you judge me unfairly, I read DIS on an almost daily basis. Never felt compelled to comment before, though...
real people
pah, i only hang out with unreal people, well, them and a few surreal people...
If it's okay for me to say i like a band, or dislike a band, regardless of whether they're popular or not, then why did you start accusing people of snobbery - why don't you just accuse them of having opinions - the bastards, how dare they?!
Hmmm...
I actually don't think this thread's been as full of people complaining "their" band didn't win as you make out. Granted, there can be threads on this site where the egos come out to play, but (so far as I can see) here it has been limited only to a certain snobbery regarding M People. Even the article itself (great read btw, Mike) doesn't seem to be saying that the Monkeys "shouldn't" have won, rather that the writer was disappointed that they did.
Now, for the Mercury judges to have rejected an album simply for being popular would indeed have been wrong. Similarly, anyone who dislikes any music merely because it's popular is indeed a tosser. Personally, I myself haven't actually heard the winning album, but my abstention is based not on its success but rather on the fact that I've heard some of the songs and disliked them all (excepting Sugababes' admittedly ace cover of "...Dancefloor"). Nor have I heard a few of the other nominees. Therefore, I could not possibly say that the result was "wrong" and that MY favourite (which happens to be Isobel Campbell, btw) "should" have won. Actually, scratch that, even if I *had* heard them all I wouldn't be in a position to tell someone their choice was wrong.
But I *can* say that I share in Mike's disappointment. I don't begrudge the Monkeys their success, but I do feel more could have been achieved by awarding the prize to an act which has not already been rewarded in the way the Monkeys have. Here's hoping the award will encourage record sales of some of the other deserving acts nominated. Otherwise, I don't really care...
Ok...
So the award didn't go to x band.
And?
It's an award. The winner usually falls into obscurity, the poisoned chalice it is. The fact that a band is nominated for the award is usually enough. It brings extra recognition to them that they may not have necessarily got.
Congrats to the Monkeys. You may not have the best album there in my opinion, but most of the artists on there deserved to win.
Very nice article.
For one, I agree that they didn't need it from a publicity point of view. But, I think more damningly, their's was far from the best record nominated.
Any one of Muse, Guillemots, Editors or Thom Yorke are better records (I won't comment on any others, I've not heard them).
Are the Mercury panel honestly trying to tell me that Whatever People Say... is a better album than Black Holes and Revelations? I just don't buy that, not for one second. It seems to me that they've done this to boost the flagging (imo) profile of the Mercury Prize.
Arctic Monkeys album, to my ears, is a collection of poor riffs, and bad 6th-form lyrics. They might have captured public imagination, but that doesn't make them good.
The only song of theirs that still sounds good and fresh to me is I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor. The album as a whole is hideously underwhelming. They're a singles band, not an album band.
I don't care who won.
Mike seems to expect and desire something from the Mercury prize. His eloquently expressed disappointment is not about taste in music or the fact that a chosen winner is different from someone else's favourite LP, it is about the worth of the prize at an artistic level, or, perhaps, its reason for existing. What is the purpose of the Mercury, at an artistic level?
Is the objective of the prize to publicise several albums released throughout a twelve-month period that many people, who have a true interest in music, feel should be accredited with some praise, and then to highlight one of those albums for extra special praise, appraising all the albums and the winner via near-impossible general objective criteria? If that is the case, then Artic Monkeys were chosen through that process because the judges decided it was the "best". The Artic Monkeys's previous popularity is not a factor.
Or, does the Mercury prize exist as an alternative to assessment by sales or assessment by music business hype? Is the Mercury prize an opportunity to expose and publicise music that offers something different to the chart norms, music that is, in an unspecifiable sense, interesting? If so, would the Artic Monkeys be excluded on musical grounds?
DiS, The Wire, NME, etc. all have their lists of "best" albums of the year, even if they are not explicitly listed in an order. For all such magazines, websites, TV shows, etc. there are boundaries within which the artists must be in order to be considered for inclusion in such a list. Whether or not an artist is within such a boundary can depend on genre and also on a vague standard of artistic merit that aspires to objectivity whilst, hopefully, eschewing snobbery. The Mercury prize has similar restictions: A cursory investigation would reveal that its boundaries conatin a subset of music that has a large intersection with what one might expect to see on the Jools Holland TV show, excluding non-British artists. Thus a variety of music genres can be considered for the prize, but the boundaries are clear. Hence, the Mercury prize is merely just another subjective-disguised-as-objective assessment that must fail to reach any true conclusion. Elevating winning the Mercury prize to a higher and seperate level of achievement is wrong from an artistic perspective: It has no more worth than a best of list from any contributor to this forum. In fact, because the Mercury prize result is an amalgam of the different views of people with different outlooks on music and different tastes, it could be argued that the result has less worth than one individual's views, in the sense that such an amalgam of views can mean that the most accessible and least demanding album wins.
I don't know if Artic Monkey's success was partly due to the judges reacting to the adverse reaction last year to Antony And The Johnsons success; if true, it would be very disappointing. Mike talks of the Mercury prize helping a band's "profile". Is that the prupose of the Mercury prize? Does it exist specifically and exclusively to counter the success of chart-hogging albums and offer something different? If so, then it would be contrived and not be compatible with an appreciation of music.
The process of awarding the Mercury prize is doomed to fail because such an anlysis of music is impossible. To demand that the Mercury prize should be an alternative to what a lot of the public like is absurd. The Mercury prize is one assessment amongst many. It's only effect is to help sales figures. Who deserves better sales?
i am thinking
thom was god right?
cos i missed it for a fecking BSP and iLiKETRAiNS gig...
feck me
i just saw the video for it......
my god..
and he takes the piss about everyone thinking he's depressed at the end by doing that cheesy fake smile!!
truly gawpingly good...
What I can't stand
Is the 'class' element behind their popularity. I'm sick of hearing their fans drawl on about how they reflect everyday life for lower class people. I find this to be insulting to people of a lower social class, because it's esentially suggesting that their lives can be universalised as scummy by virtue of their background and circumstances, which I don't believe to be the case.
And then we come to the idea of 'honesty'. The general assumption amongst most music fans nowadays is that, for some reason, lyrical/musical 'honesty' is synonymous with the mundane and the boring. It's better to be workmanlike than adventurous, better to aim low and achieve rather than aim high and miss. This is a mentality befitting of the Brit awards, not the Mercury music Prize. How they could stand up their and even accept the award in the face of that jazz pianist, Hot Chip, Thom Yorke and Muse without apologising on behalf of the judges I don't know.
Yeah
cos what they should have done was hold their hands up and say "no not us, we only made our album for blowjobs and free drugs, give it to one of the real, set in stone, matured in a real oak barrel for 20-years artists".
They should be ashamed of their success.
All of that said...their album isn't that great. Still...you can't blame them personally can you?
This isn't really about the Arctic Monkeys
...it's about dissapointment, like Diver said. Like that year when Lord of the Rings 3 won a dozen Oscars. I was sitting up at 4am and the stream of plaudits was so predictable and endless. I mean, the film got everything it was nominated for. Boring. But hey, those films DID have the best costumes, production design, sound editing and all that. So fair enough. It's boring to be reminded of the obvious, but awards panels can't just choose obscurities so they can look hip. And like it or not, that album was huge and the press and public loved it. It's just ironic that the AMs won the Mercury the same month they released their first truly underwhelming, weak single.