1992 - Saint Etienne - Foxbase Alpha 1993 - PJ Harvey - Rid of me 1994 - Pulp - His ‘n’ Hers 1995 - Tricky - Maxinquaye 1997 - Radiohead - OK Computer 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 2008 - Radiohead - In Rainbows 2009 - The Horrors - Primary Colours 2010 - Wild Beasts - Two Dancers 2011 - Metronomy - The English Riviera 2013 - Jon Hopkins - Immunity 2015 - Aphex Twin - Syro 2016 - David Bowie - Blackstar 2017 - The xx - I see you 2019 - Little Simz - Grey Area 2020 - Dua Lipa - Future Nostalgia 2021 - Sault - Untitled (rise) / Mogwai - As the love continues 2023 - Young Fathers - Heavy Heavy
Today we look back at the year of 2012 when the mercury prize was won by alt-J - An awesome wave.
This year is a bit of a blind spot for me because I haven’t heard any of these albums and that includes the winner!
It will be interesting to see who comes out on top.
As per normal you can vote for up to 3 albums from this list…
That Richard Hawley album is great. For one record he stepped away from the drippy ballads and went full on psychedelic rock. If you think you don’t like him try it!
Their second one was great too and they seemed to be getting quite big off it, and then they’ve completely fallen off my radar to the extent I’ve just checked and they’ve released two albums in the last couple of years which I had no idea about. Haven’t seen them tour either, strange. Think they could have easily filled the role of someone like Everything Everything or Hot Chip or someone as a solid touring act who keep up a reasonably big profile.
Looks like a year generally where there’s a lot of ‘good’ albums, but none that I’d really go into bat for as a Mercury winner. Lianne La Havas’ is probably my favourite, might stick that on later for the first time in years.
Tbh even though I probably wouldn’t listen now, at the time I think Alt-J was a reasonable choice, probably the closest on that list to capturing a moment which I think is as much a reason to win the Mercury as out and out quality
I did listen to the second at the time and found it underwhelming, think only one track really stood out, though I did go and see them touring it because Stealing Sheep were supporting. I’ve heard the third is much better but I’ve never got round to it and have now failed to listen to the 4th as well.
Feel like Field Music is very much the best of the bunch, here. Alt-J are fucking terrible, always baffled me how they both won the prize this year and subsequently got so big.
I was a bit disappointed by their second album but then would say that Marble Skies is probably their best. That said, last year’s Off Planet is something of a magnum opus at 21 tracks and 80 minutes long - truly something for everything. They’re great fun live too.
