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Made in Shoreditch

I also contribute a weekly column to Made in Shoreditch magazine called 'Old East End/New East End', where I look at the relationship between the East End of old and new, looking at the changes and the stalwarts in landscape, residents and culture, focussing on one street or district each week. You can find it here.

Mercury Prize Nominees Announced

Tuesday 19 July 2011

Last night the announcement was made that this year's Mercury Music Prize will be contested between twelve albums, they are as follows:

1. Adele - 21
2. Anna Calvi - Anna Calvi
3. Katy B - On a Mission
4. Metronomy - The English Riviera
5. Everything Everything - Man Alive
6. King Creosote and Jon Hopkins - Diamond Mine
7. Tinie Tempah - Disc-Overy
8. James Blake - James Blake
9. PJ Harvey - Let England Shake
10. Ghostpoet - Peanut Butter Blues & Melancholy Jam
11. Elbow - Build A Rocket Boys!
12. Gwilym Simcock - Good Days At Schloss Elmau


Everything Everything - "We're just, like, soooo vintage yah".

Notable omissions from the list are Arctic Monkeys' Suck it and See and Radiohead's King of Limbs.

The entries are the usual mix of contemporary pop, hip-hop, jazz and folk to be honest. Personally I wouldn't have the Adele record in there, it's got maybe two or three good tunes on it and Tinie Tempah is dross. Elbow bore me too much to even speak of them.


"The royalties cheques after a Mercury nomination are meant to be like this big, innit."

That said the James Blake record is good, I like a bit of Katy B and the PJ Harvey record (though I've only listened to it properly twice) is very good indeed. Metronomy and Everything Everything fill the box which reads 'much hyped, not much cop though' and I have no clue who Ghostpoet is (though I'm told he's a rapper) or, for that matter, who King Creosote and Jon Hopkins are. I've not checked out the Anna Calvi record either so I'll have to listen to the latter three records unless I want to be uncool, hey? Also, what sort of blinking name is Gwilym Simcock?

Apparently PJ Harvey and Adele are the favourites so, knowing the Mercurys, the prize is Ghostpoet's.

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