🎤 Mercury prize - The best of the rest (2005) 🎤

Music
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Previous winners from these threads:

1995 - Tricky - Maxinquaye
1999 - Blur - 13
2001 - Radiohead - Amnesiac
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 2005 when the award for best British and Irish album was won by Antony and the Johnsons - I am a Bird now
But if you had to pick the second best album on this list who would it be? As per normal, you have up to three votes.

  • Bloc Party - Silent alarm
  • Coldplay X&Y
  • Hard Fi - Stars of CCTV
  • Kaiser Chiefs - Employment
  • KT Tunstall - Eye to the telescope
  • M.I.A. - Arular
  • Maximo Park - A certain trigger
  • Polar bear - Held on the tips of fingers
  • Seth Lakeman - Kitty Jay
  • The Go! Team - Thunder, Lightning, Strike
  • The Magic Numbers - The Magic Numbers
0 voters
2

christ

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4

Some absolute shockers there.

Bet you could pick up all of these on the same day from a quick wiz round the charity shops.

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5

Could I be more 2005? Bloody hell

Silent Alarm is a 10/10 so that’s got to win tbh

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Silent Alarm, A Certain Trigger and Thunder, Lightning, Strike have all massively stood the test of time

9 Likes
8

This couldn’t be more my niche lol. Bloc Party and Go Team could easily both be in my all time top 10, so they’re waaaay out ahead

lots of decent options for third but I’ll plump for Maximo Park as the slightly unfairly underrated group of that scene, banger of an album

Anthony was a very solid choice as winner though, no complaints even if not my favourite

10

Also loved this track ever since I saw him do it on some tv slot, so goddamn dramatic

11

Never caught them live, definitely a minor regret

1 Like
13

Some shite but also loads of really good albums there.

Was listening to magic numbers recently, they’re decent. People were well fatphobic towards them

14

I think they almost won, I Am a Bird Now won by one vote or something

15

He lives near me!

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17

Arular and Thunder Lightning Strike two of the best albums of the 2000s. I Am A Bird Now is great too obviously.

And the Magic Numbers album is lovely, a shame they never got close to it again

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19

A Certain Trigger is front to back perfect actually, prefer it to any Bloc Party, Franz Ferdinand etc album

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20

This was when I was first starting to get into music so this list is giving me big MTV 2 evening session chills with a switch to other channels when whatever Zane Lowe’s show was called started

21

Maximo Park or Bloc Party are both incredible albums, it’s got to be either one of those. Was really big into both of those in 2005. Ah nostalgia… :heart:

3 Likes
23

Ohhhh nice, you defo should!

In the same spirit, I might add them to my queue to listen to next too :smiley:

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24

How ‘Arular’ didn’t win that is shocking….

Not sure how I feel about M.I.A. now, but that album was so important at the time.

Some decent albums in that list though.

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26

Oooooh, I could curate the queue to do that! That is a great idea…and gives me a perfect excuse to stop working for a bit, to do something far more constructive :smiley:

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29

  1. Bloc Party - Silent alarm ----- Should romp home easy winners

  2. Maximo Park - A certain trigger ------ Great album/band I’ve always felt they get a bit of a kicking around DiS. Probably because of the hat…

  3. M.I.A. - Arular ---- ticks all the right boxes for the Mercury

Just missing out The Go! Team

Need to check that Polar Bear album out. Didn’t realize they were ever nominated.

Caught The Magic Numbers at Beautiful Days last year. One of my biggest surprises of the weekend.

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30

I’d say it’s between that and I Am a Bird Now. Ultimately MIA didn’t really need a hand, the way she was blowing up, and I think ANOHNI probably owes some of her career and visibility to the award so I reckon they made a decent call (unlike Burial the other day, which was robbed (twice, again here)). The MIA album will stand as the more influential, but I don’t know if you can go on that alone

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