Hooray! The Mercury Prize is waking from its sleepy hibernation to once again throw up a selection of albums to confuse everyone with.

Typically, there are a few nominees that everyone thinks will win because they’re popular and, of course, there are the albums that no-one has ever heard of before.

But this also means you can boost your own street cred and boast to people “Yeah, I had that album wayyyyyyy before it was swallowed up by the mass music-buying masses.”

Unlike other award ceremonies, you don’t just get a badly moulded statue when you win the Mercury Prize, you also get a £20,000 cheque. What makes it even better is that you don’t have to grit your teeth and donate it to charity. If you’re lucky enough to win, you can spend it on anything you want! From prostitutes to 14,503 Mr Kipling cakes, you get to decide. However, whilst £20,000 may be ace short-term, we have to remind you of the curse that is attached to winning one of the more respected awards in music land.

Previous winners Suede and M People have both split up and faded in to oblivion, Ms Dynamite jacked in music to concentrate on smacking police officers and pretending to be a Formula 1 driver. Portishead took a decade-long break and Talvin Singh/Antony And The Johnsons haven’t done much either.

Last year’s winners Klaxons have dropped off the radar too. Maybe they’re still raving away or are simply reinventing themselves as nu classical to get away from the horrible nu rave image they were tagged with. It’s only been Arctic Monkeys who have continued to be a success after winning.

The ceremony isn’t happening until September, so you’ve still got a chance to run out and buy all the albums to see what they are like. Closer to the time, we may give you some betting odds to help stuff your wallet full of cash. But if Dancing On Ice In The Jungle comes back on our screens, we may just concentrate on that instead. Here’s the list of nominees for the 2008 Mercury Prize:

Adele – 19 – If you don’t live in London, it’s impossible to decode what she’s saying.

British Sea Power - Do You Like Rock Music? - Why yes we do.

Burial - Untrue - Burial should win this, but he probably won’t because he doesn’t whore himself out to NME every week.

Elbow - The Seldom Seen Kid – Giving them an award may actually make them smile.

Estelle – Shine – She got her nomination due to her brilliant wonky dancing.

Laura Marling - Alas I Cannot Swim – Whilst most people would cry for eternity because they can’t swim, she’s gone and done an entire concept album on this personal problem.

Neon Neon - Stainless Style – Belinda Belinda Belinda from Big Brother 9 gave them their band name. Fact.

Portico Quartet - Knee-Deep In The North Sea – This year’s band who no-one seems to know anything about.

Rachel Unthank & The Winterset - The Bairns – Radio 2 friendly band to keep the old folk happy.

Radiohead - In Rainbows – From the band that broke the music industry, the Mercury panel are only getting their hopes up to crush them.

Robert Plant & Alison Krauss - Raising Sand – It’s him from Led Zeppelin!

The Last Shadow Puppets - The Age Of The Understatement – Alex Turner is officially a girl now. As Chris De Burgh didn’t say, he’s “three times a lady.” It’s his third nomination in a row, so watch out for the transformation.