🎤 Mercury Prize - Best of the rest (2018) 🎤

Music
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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
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
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 mercury prize of 2018. In 2018 the award for best British or Irish album was won by Wolf Alice - Visions of a life

But if you could pick the 2nd place album who would it be? As per normal you have up to 3 votes.

  • Arctic Monkeys - Tranquility base hotel & casino
  • Everything Everything - A fever dream
  • Everything is recorded - Everything is recorded
  • Florence + the machine - High as hope
  • Jorja Smith - Lost & found
  • King Krule - The Ooz
  • Lily Allen - No shame
  • Nadine Shah - Holiday Destination
  • Noel Gallagher’s High flying birds - Who built the moon?
  • Novelist - Novelist guy
  • Sons of Kemet - Your Queen is a Reptile
0 voters
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As ever, take this one away from Wolf Alice and give it to them for Blue Weekend instead.

4 Likes
3

Totally agree

5

They righted it in 2023 but this was the year that the ‘token’ jazz nomination really should have finally won.

5 Likes
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King Krule and Sons of Kemet by a loooooooooooooong way.

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Tranquility Base, Sons of Kemet, I like some King Krule but haven’t got around to this album cos it’s quite long but I’ll vote for it on the assumption that it’s probably good

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Krule sounded great live when I caught a bit of him at Prima, but haven’t made any of his recorded stuff click yet. Just a lot dour-er - live he had a post-punk kick going on too

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Also them winning has also thrown my “Wolf Alice don’t exist outside DiS” theory out the window

3 Likes
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King Krule is one of the best acts to come out the UK in the past 10/15 years. Surprised he hasn’t won anything major yet.

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A Fever Dream

4 Likes
12

I don’t really like Wolf Alice but they are a band I have semi-pretended to like when talking to work colleagues about music, tbf

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went Kemet for clearly being a jazz band who had a chance at this/deserved it, AM for a fun left turn, and Nadine Shah for being personal fav artist on the list (even though I got into her via the next album)

Sad she’s thrown away some good will though, she played here last night and I wasn’t fussed at all which surprised me

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is the High Flying Birds album the worst thing to get a Mercury nom in years? feels nuts that this was anywhere near consideration

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One of my mates absolutely adores them, has seen them in some tiny venues over the years. Means I have to pretend I’m interested in them when he talks about music as they’re the only band formed after 2010 that he likes.

This post paid for by PROF$.

1 Like
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Is this the one he did with David Holmes? Some nice production on it at least, think I remember enjoying the opening track

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I’ll lever with you Ic-Smic, I don’t know a single goddamned thing about it

1 Like
19

Have no memory of Lily Allen releasing an album as recently as 2018

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Same!

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Our twelve 2018 judges are:

Clara Amfo – Broadcaster & DJ
Danielle Perry – Broadcaster & Writer
Ella Eyre - Musician and Songwriter
Harriet Gibsone – Deputy Editor with The Guardian Guide
Jamie Cullum - Musician and Broadcaster
Jeff Smith - Head of Music for 6 Music and Radio 2
Lianne La Havas - Musician and Songwriter
Marcus Mumford - Musician and Songwriter
Mike Walsh - Head of Music at Radio X
MistaJam - DJ & Broadcaster
Phil Alexander – Creative Director with Kerrang!/Contributing Editor, Mojo
Will Hodgkinson - Chief Rock & Pop Critic with The Times.
The Chair of the judging panel is Jeff Smith.

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How does Jamie Cullum have such a big say in British & Irish music every frickin year?!?