Mercury Music Prize 2009

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

Albums? What a ridiculous concept...

(format nicked wholesale from last year's poll)

[Poll #1433368]

Comments box questions:

Do you feel compelled to check out any of the above?
Do you think this is a fair representation of British Music in 2009?
How do this lot shape up against last year's nominees?

(Stay tuned for news of this year's Lex 20p Indie prize!)

Comments

[piratemoggy.livejournal.com]

Good god that makes the PJ 20p music prize look AMAZING. Bring on the Lex 20p. If I started listing all the missing things I would quite literally be here ALL NIGHT.

I really like the new Kasabian single and have now nearly bought the album twice. That doesn't mean it deserves a Mercury tho.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

The Popjustice shortlist is definitely better this year but still really shit and dull. half-drunkenly went through it ILM last night:

alesha dixon - the boy does nothing - CRAZY COUSINZ REMIX - AMAZING.

'the fear' is really good, even if it seems to be a bizarro one-off for allen. 'beat again' is hugely likable, even if it is a straight rip of ciara's '1 2 step'.

original 'boy does nothing': kinda fun track carried mostly by alesha's liveliness, but there's a touch of the "geri halliwell goes to samba class" about it, and it's aimed far too obviously at daytime radio when she should be ~going back to her roots~ and vocalling some uk funky tunes.

'new in town' is a well-written song but they should probably find an actual performer to sing it rather than release the songwriter's half-assed, charisma-free demo.

'take me back' is annoying trebly electrocheese with a dose of autotune bandwagonning for good measure; its role as harbinger of tinchy's terrible new direction makes it significantly worse. i'm glad tinchy's a bankable no 1 pop star now but the disparity between his best tracks and his most successful tracks makes me grimace.

'method of modern love' is ok, can't really remember it, strictly for sentimental ostriches.

'love etc' also for sentimental ostriches except it's kind of awful, especially with its trite lyrics :/

'the promise' is a clumsily-sung, poorly-written attempt to jump on a bandwagon of a pastiche. what a pointlessly turgid group girls aloud have become.

hey let's recreate rachel stevens' career with half the hooks, a quarter of the production and a tenth of her personality (lol she had none anyway) spread over 5 british chicks. how is it even possible to give a shit any way about the saturdays, especially given the emergence of electrik red.

i've dealt with that worthless hack frankmusik here already (http://www.thesinglesjukebox.com/?p=399).

calvin harris is also a worthless hack in much the same vein, plus he gives every impression of being a cunt as well. why on earth is this pound-shop james murphy popular?

which leaves that shrieking harridan la roux. words literally cannot do justice to my hatred of her at this point. bitch is unreal and needs to sit the fuck down and shut the fuck up forever.

[piratemoggy.livejournal.com]

I cannot actually see one song on the PJ list which genuinely excites me in any way. SADFACE. Why must Mr PJ be such a generally nice person but so off the rails musically these days?

[friend-of-tofu.livejournal.com]

'New In Town' is probably the 2nd worst track on the LB album. Really don't know why that was chosen as the single, so many better choices.

I don't really see the point of Calvin Harris either, I never really get him.

IMHO, there's only one halfway decent song ("Tigerlily") on the La Roux album which isn't "Quicksand" - it's all horribly, horribly overrated. I did try to listen fairly (and it's a genre I'm slightly more predisposed to like, not that that usually means much!) but no, really, it's mostly a waste of time. Not that I've very surprised. Elly herself appears to be an annoying pain, but I'm not sure how much of the musical input is hers anyway.