As per normal we have up to three votes to decide who should get the coveted second place at the mercury prize from a particular year. This time it’s 1996!
The 1996 mercury prize was won by Pulp - Different Class
Previous Winners from these threads… 1992 - Saint Etienne - Foxbase Alpha 1993 - PJ Harvey - Rid of me 1994 - Pulp - His ‘n’ Hers 1995 - Tricky - Maxinquaye 1997 - Radiohead - OK Computer 1998 - Massive Attack - Mezzanine 1999 - Blur - 13 2000 - Doves - Lost souls 2001 - Radiohead - Amnesiac 2002 - The Streets - Original Pirate Material 2003 - Radiohead - Hail to the thief 2005 - Bloc Party - Silent Alarm 2006 - Hot Chip - The Warning 2007 - Amy Winehouse - Back to Black 2008 - Radiohead - In Rainbows 2009 - The Horrors - Primary Colours 2010 - Wild Beasts - Two Dancers 2011 - Metronomy - The English Riviera 2012 - Field Music - Plumb 2013 - Jon Hopkins - Immunity 2015 - Aphex Twin - Syro 2016 - David Bowie - Blackstar 2017 - The xx - I see you 2018 - Arctic Monkeys - Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino 2019 - Little Simz - Grey Area 2020 - Dua Lipa - Future Nostalgia 2021 - Sault - Untitled (rise) / Mogwai - As the love continues 2023 - Young Fathers - Heavy Heavy
Artists for war child - Help
Black Grape - It’s great when you’re straight… Yeah
Peter Maxwell Davies/BBC Philharmonic - The Beltane fire / Caroline Mathilde
Can’t argue with the winner, but that’s a pretty boggin list when you consider that Stereolab’s Emperor Tomato Ketchup, Super Furry Animals’ Fuzzy Logic and High Llamas’ Hawaii were all released the same year.
Is this the only time a compilation has been nominated? Are compilations even eligible normally?
EDIT: Actually, wasn’t there a thing with this one where the label claimed that it wasn’t a various artists compilation but actually by a War Child supergroup so they’d get in the main album charts?
Not the worst year. A pretty worthy winner, and at least three easy contenders to the throne; Underworld’s (arguably) best album, the Manic’s most commercially successful and the artistic zenith of Mr Shaun Ryder in Black Grape’s debut.
They maybe got in because it wasn’t a compilation of previously released stuff, they were all new recordings I think. The concept was that all the stuff would be recorded in a day and the album would come out by the end of the week (I don’t know how closely they stuck to that).
I think that was (at least touted as) the point of the album; everything was brand new and recorded in 24 hours. Considering that, it’s fucking brilliant. Doesn’t belong in the Mercury Prize, though.