02
Sep
The Mercury Prize is fucked up, but not how you think it is
I was chuffed when it was announced that a band as tireless, influential and good-natured as Biffy Clyro were rewarded with a place on this year’s MERCURY PRIZE shortlist, but I doubt if even they would claim Only Revolutions was the most worthy of their five albums to date to receive such recognition.
Arguably, it’s not even the best record to come out of Scotland in the past 12 months, when you consider Frightened Rabbit’s The Winter Of Mixed Drinks and Admiral Fallow’s Boots Met My Face were both eligible.
However, the selection process is not as clear-cut as it looks. To enter an album for consideration, a label must submit 25 copies of it on CD plus a crisp cheque for £195.50 (see last year’s submission form here).
And the expense doesn’t end there. According to Steve Lamacq, if an artist does receive a nomination then their record label needs to forward another 125 CDs to the Mercury team, a payment of £3,900 as a marketing contribution and £2,500 for a table at the ceremony.
When I contacted the Mercury organisers yesterday to verify Lamacq’s claims they insisted the figures were not accurate, but refused to reveal the true costs. They also confirmed that shortlisted artists and their managers aren’t required to pay to attend the awards show.
Regardless, the expenditure of simply entering the competition is well beyond the financial means of the plethora of smaller labels which drive Scotland’s music industry, while larger independents can’t afford to put forward all of their eligible albums.
In the real word this meant that Chemikal Underground submitted The Phantom Band’s Checkmate Savage in 2009 but not De Rosa’s Prevention; FatCat submitted Frightened Rabbit’s The Winter Of Mixed Drinks this year but not recent albums by The Twilight Sad and We Were Promised Jetpacks; and Xtra Mile did not submit The Xcerts’ In The Cold Wind We Smile but did cough up £200 for Frank Turner in 2008.
So you can see why it’s the winning rather than the taking part that counts, but even that part of the proceedings doesn’t exactly cover the organisers in glory. The prize money has stood at £20,000 every year since 1999 – however, in 1998, Gomez walked away with a £25,000 cheque, so when you take inflation into account that means the award is actually worth £10,000 less than it was 12 years ago.
The best albums of 2009 poll of music sites in Scotland unsurprisingly produced a Scottish-centric top 10, but nevertheless it does provide a good gauge of the records that people in this country have been getting excited about. If you were to take the following list as an indication of potential Mercury Prize contenders, though, you would be sorely disappointed as The Pop Cop’s investigation shows:
1. The Phantom Band – Checkmate Savage (Chemikal Underground): entered, not shortlisted
2. Animal Collective – Merriweather Post Pavillion (Domino): not eligible
3. De Rosa – Prevention (Chemikal Underground): not entered
4. King Creosote – Flick the Vs (Domino/Fence): entered, not shortlisted
5. Withered Hand – Good News (SL Records): not entered
6. The Twilight Sad – Forget The Night Ahead (FatCat): not entered
7. We Were Promised Jetpacks – These Four Walls (FatCat): not entered
8. Beerjacket – Animosity (no label): not eligible
9. Mumford & Sons – Sigh No More (Island): entered, shortlisted
10. Camera Obscura – My Maudlin Career (4AD): entered, not shortlisted
Given the absence of major labels north of the border, it seems that the Mercury Prize increasingly has little relevance to the music scene in Scotland – not just because our indies rarely have the budget to nominate albums, but because genuinely talented artists such as Beerjacket (who sells his music on Amazon and iTunes) are banned from entering because they don’t use – or need – a record company.
It’s also worth noting that only two of the Mercury Prize’s 18 winners have had Scots roots – Primal Scream (1992) and Franz Ferdinand (2004). Here’s how much better the roll call would look if more Scottish albums had triumphed:
Belle & Sebastian – Tigermilk v Pulp – Different Class (1996)
Mogwai – Mogwai Young Team v Roni Size/Reprazent – New Forms (1997)
The Delgados – Peloton v Gomez – Bring It On (1998)
Astrid – Strange Weather Lately v Talvin Singh – Ok (1999)
Idlewild – 100 Broken Windows v Badly Drawn Boy – The Hour of Bewilderbeast (2000)
Biffy Clyro – Blackened Sky v Ms Dynamite – A Little Deeper (2002)
Sons And Daughters – Love The Cup v Dizzee Rascal – Boy In Da Corner (2003)
Malcolm Middleton – Into The Woods v Antony And The Johnsons – I Am A Bird Now (2005)
Frightened Rabbit – Sing The Greys v Klaxons – Myths Of The Near Future (2007)
Frightened Rabbit – The Midnight Organ Fight v Elbow – The Seldom Seen Kid (2008)
The Xcerts – In The Cold Wind We Smile v Speech Debelle – Speech Therapy (2009)
It’s surely time Scotland followed the example of the various countries who organise their own version of the Mercury Prize, such as Ireland (Choice Music Prize) Canada (Polaris Music Prize), Australia (The AMP), Germany (Preis der Deutschen Schallplattenkritik) and France (Prix Constantin).
If Creative Scotland want to take care of the funding then The Pop Cop would happily do something about it.
Frightened Rabbit – Swim Until You Can’t See Land
September 23, Strathclyde Union, Glasgow
December 3, Barrowland, Glasgow (sold out)
December 6, Barrowland, Glasgow (tickets)
Beerjacket – Drum
September 3, Oran Mor, Glasgow (tickets)
The winner of the 2010 Mercury Prize will be announced on September 7
10 Responses to “The Mercury Prize is fucked up, but not how you think it is”
September 2nd, 2010 at 16:39
“It’s SHITE being Scottish! We’re the lowest of the low. The scum of the fucking Earth! The most wretched miserable servile pathetic trash that was ever shat on civilization. Some people hate the English. I don’t. They’re just wankers. We, on the other hand, are colonized by wankers. Can’t even find a decent culture to get colonized by. We’re ruled by effete assholes. It’s a shite state of affairs to be in, Tommy, and all the fresh air in the world won’t make any fucking difference!”
September 2nd, 2010 at 19:48
Sing The Greys? Fuck off. It’s just demos.
September 3rd, 2010 at 07:15
This is true, Rupert, but those demos are better than some of the pish that wins the Mercury from year to year. Isn’t that the point being made here?
September 3rd, 2010 at 09:29
Astrid? ASTRID? The best Scottish album in 1999? I’ve got nothing against them, but they never merited being held up as the best of what Scotland had to offer. And while I love Sing The Greys, I don’t think it’s quite suitable, although I do agree it’s better than most of the “pish that wins the mercury from year to year”.
September 3rd, 2010 at 15:51
Y’know, when you put the Mercury winners and The Pop Cop’s alternatives together it certainly does seem like some years the UK as a whole has failed to deliver many good records.
September 5th, 2010 at 09:25
Point is, an annual prize for the best Scottish album (on a Scottish Label or by a Scottish act?) is a really good idea. And the perfect group of folk to take it forward is the list of music websites that provided Peenko’s list in 2009 – along with Creative Scotland. Imagine a £5k prize for something like that – its a piddly amount for an arts quango to put up and I can imagine it bringing a really positive kind of focal point for the music scene here. More positive than T break i think…
September 5th, 2010 at 09:49
I’ve raised this on the Creative Scotland forum at http://www.creativescotland.com/forums/arts-screen-and-creative-industries/a-scottish-mercury-music-prize
September 5th, 2010 at 21:16
Good for you, Divot – I totally agree that it would do much more for Scottish musicians than something like T-Break.
Although T is a worthy and exciting opportunity for bands (particularly younger, newer ones) it garners less respect in terms of critical opinion than a prize for a record would, a la the Mercury.
For a start, making an album is something more tangible and involved than a recording a ‘PLEASE SIGN US!?!?!?’-style demo, so the criteria would be less concerned with cheesily finding the next big thing and more focused on the merits of a body of work.
In addition, the idea of a monetary prize with press attention, rather than simply a slot at a festival beside big-hitters, would go a lot further to distance the creative work of musicians dissatisfied with just spending a fun day pretending to be rock stars.
Maybe such a prize would be act as a peacekeeper amongst this country’s varied music scenes. People would be clearer on their place in the scheme of things – the young-gun rock bands filling the T-Break tent with singalong anthems; the more thoughtful, serious musicians earning critical plaudits and artistic kudos… Sounds good to me…
September 10th, 2010 at 18:48
please check out….
http://www.scotmusicawards.co.uk
…and spread the word
By the people, for the people!
contact us at info@scotmusicawards.co.uk
September 20th, 2010 at 14:11
I think this is a great idea and an initiative such as this could indeed be far more rewarding and valid than the likes of T-Break et al.
However, at the risk of sounding defeatest, it feels like such an award would simply be dominated by the Scottish “big-hitters” and neglect the real grassroots talent (surely the people an award like this would be designed to truly benefit?).
The music press/blogsphere/tastemakers really need to realise that Scottish music does not begin and end with Frightened Rabbit. There IS life outside “The Midnight Organ Fight”!
Really, in principle, this is a great idea and I would love to see this happen to give real recognition to some of the terrific artists this country has to offer.
But honestly this article could easily have been titled:
“Why haven’t FR won a Mercury Prize?”
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