This year’s nominations for the prestigious Mercury Music Prize have been announced in London, with the usual eclectic mixture of artists vying for the award, which gets announced in September.
BBC 6 Music DJ Lauren Laverne announced the contenders at the Hospital Club, with a full list of the nominees below.
The 2010 winners of the Mercury Prize was of course The xx, who beat off stiff competition from the likes of Wild Beasts, Foals and Dizzee Rascal.
The early favourites for the honours in 2011 are Adele and PJ Harvey, who won the Mercury back in 2001 for Stories From The City, Stories From The Sea. She’s up this time round with Let England Shake. The obvious choice for the discerning fan, though, must be King Creosote and Jon Hopkins, nominated for their album Diamond Mine.
The full list is:
Adele – 21
Anna Calvi – Anna Calvi
Elbow – Build A Rocket Boys!
Everything Everything – Man Alive
Ghostpoet – Peanut Butter Blues and Melancholy Jam
Gwilym Simcock – Good Days At Schloss Elmau
James Blake – James Blake
Katy B – On A Mission
King Creosote & Jon Hopkins – Diamond Mine
Metronomy – The English Riviera
PJ Harvey – Let England Shake
Tinie Tempah – Disc-Overy
And here is a song from PJ Harvey’s 2001 triumph: