1993 - PJ Harvey - Rid of me 1995 - Tricky - Maxinquaye 1999 - Blur - 13 2001 - Radiohead - Amnesiac 2002 - The Streets - Original Pirate Material 2005 - Bloc Party - Silent Alarm 2008 - Radiohead - In Rainbows 2009 - The Horrors - Primary Colours 2011 - Metronomy - The English Riviera 2013 - Jon Hopkins - Immunity 2015 - Aphex Twin - Syro 2017 - The xx - I see you 2021 - Sault - Untitled (rise) / Mogwai - As the love continues
Lets look at 2006 when the mercury award for best British/Irish album was won by Arctic Monkeys - Whatever people say I am, that’s what I’m not.
As per normal with these threads, if you could pick a runner up who would it be. Like always you have up to 3 votes…
Isobel Campbell and Mark Lanegan - Ballad of the broken seas
Black Holes (like a bit of Storm Thorgeson tbh) > Warning > Eraser > Coles Corner > This Is My Demo > Through the Windowpane > Ballad of the Broken Seas > Beloved One > Melting Pot > Back Room > White Bread Black Beer (just the title, boring)
Actually voted for Chip, Thom and Campbell/Lanegan
Voted for Guillemots, Richard Hawley and Muse. Love those three albums. That Editors debut is really good too. Massively gone off of the band now, but The Back Room holds up.
In a way, it’s not surprising that Guillemots petered out the way they did. They made the most grandiose album they could possibly muster, to the extent that anything afterwards would have looked small and inconsequential by comparison.
Despite being a proper Radiohead obsessive, I’ve never really clicked with much of Thommy boy’s solo work, outside.of a few tracks. When I listen to the Eraser it’s like I’m hearing what non-radiohead-fans hear when they listen to Radiohead. I just find it glitchy and grating. I know it’s really well regarded, but it just never got its hooks in me.
I saw Guillemots on their last (and biggest - sold out Brixton Academy!) tour for the debut. They played a bunch of new songs that I remember really liking. One of them was pretty funky and fun! So I dunno what happened between then and the album emerging.
I liked this, from 2012, quite a lot, although with the caveat I probably haven’t listened to it since then
It was independently released after they got out of their major label deal, it was supposed to be the first in a series of four records themed around seasons but the rest never happened…
