🎤 Mercury Prize - Best of the rest (2015) 🎤

Music
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Previous winners from these threads…

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
2017 - The xx - I see you
2021 - Sault - Untitled (rise) / Mogwai - As the love continues

Today we look back to 2015 when the award was won by Benjamin Clementine - At least for now. If you could pick the runner up who would it be?

You have up to 3 votes
  • Aphex Twin - Syro
  • Gaz Coombes - Matador
  • C Duncan - Architect
  • Eska - Eska
  • Florence & the Machine - How big, how blue, how beautiful
  • Ghostpoet - Shedding skin
  • Roisin Murphy - Hairless Toys
  • Slaves - Are you satisfied?
  • Soak - Before we forgot how to dream
  • Wolf Alice - My love is cool
  • Jamie xx - In colour
0 voters
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This was the judging panel in 2015:

Simon Frith (Chairman) - Author and Music Writer, Professor of Music, Edinburgh University
Anna Calvi - Musician and songwriter
Corinne Bailey Rae - Musician and songwriter
Elisa Bray - Music Editor, The Independent
Greg Cochrane - Editor, NME.com
John Kennedy - Presenter, ‘X-Posure’, Radio X
Kat Morris - Festival Director, The Great Escape
Kate Mossman - Music Writer and Broadcaster, Arts Editor New Statesman
Mike Flynn - Music Writer, Deputy Editor Jazzwise
MistaJam - DJ and broadcaster
Nick Luscombe - DJ and broadcaster, founder 'Musicity’
Nick Mulvey - Musician and songwriter

3

So Jamie Cullum doesn’t judge every year!?

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The winner:

5

Matador is the standout here. Jamie xx following closely behind.

6

Another stinker really. Couldn’t even find a jazz album that year?

  1. Aphex Twin, 2. sigh Roisin Murphy, 3. I mean, Eska, Wolf Alice, Ghostpoet and Florence are decent enough albums that it’s hard to get excited about…
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Aphex >>> Jamie xx >>> the worst Wolf Alice album/Ghostpoet just cos I like him/Florence same reasoning

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Aphex the only one of note here

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Jamie xx was the original Fred Again. Complete shite watered down UK dance imo

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10

maybe introduced a generation to perfect song Could Heaven Ever Be Like This so at least there’s that

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11

C Duncan, Gaz Coombes and Jamie xx for me

Wasn’t fussed by that Aphex album, Roisin can go fuck herself and the rest are shite

12

Had a look at the Choice Prize (the Irish equivalent) nominees for 2015 as that list is so sparse.

Colm Mac Con Iomaire - And Now The Weather
Gavin James - Bitter Pill
Girl Band - Holding Hands With Jamie
Ham Sandwich - Stories From The Surface
Jape - This Chemical Sea
Le Galaxie - Le Club
Roisin Murphy - Hairless Toys
SOAK - Before We Forgot How To Dream
Villagers - Darling Arithmetic
Young Wonder - Birth

Absolute fucking dross for the most part but look at Holding Hands With Jamie standing out like a sore thumb there. Should have topped both lists.

Seeing Ham Sandwich, Le Galaxie and Young Wonder on that list gives me the shivers. Such a dark time for Irish music.

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Love that Jamie xx album

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And Kathryn Joseph won 2015 Scottish Album of the Year with Bones You Have Thrown Me, and Blood I’ve Spilled which is streets ahead of pretty much everything on the Mercurys list for my money (though I dunno how the eligibility periods compare and cba to check). The rest of the SAY shortlist was:

Belle & Sebastian – Girls in Peacetime Want to Dance
Errors – Lease of Life
Happy Meals – Apero
Honeyblood – Honeyblood
Paolo Nutini – Caustic Love
Paws – Youth Culture Forever
Slam – Reverse Proceed
The Amazing Snakeheads – Amphetamine Ballads
Young Fathers – Dead

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Yeah, Gilla Band are a really odd omission here. Not as if they came out of nowhere or anything either, album arrived with quite a lot of hype and momentum.

That said, they obviously wouldn’t have given them the prize regardless.

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Absolutely, I remember the run-up to release and everyone was so hyped about it.

100%

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  1. Aphex Twin
  2. Wolf Alice
  3. Jamie xx or Gaz Coombes (can’t decide)
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Just a couple more minutes to get your votes in

19

can’t in good conscience vote for any of these!

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