This year, most people expected the Mercury Prize to be all about Amy Winehouse – who sold more records, took more drugs and self-mutilated her body way more than all the other Mercury Prize nominees put together.
But last night wasn't Amy Winehouse's night – she was beaten to the Mercury Prize by Klaxons, a bunch of annoyingly drunk poshos who'll you know from that song that goes "ooweeooweeoooweeooo ahhhh" and nothing else. But now it's official; Klaxons' album Myths Of The Near Future is the best album of the last 12 months. And it doesn't matter that you don't agree with it and secretly wanted Jamie T to win, because the Mercury Prize panel have made their decision and if they think Klaxons is best then Klaxons is best. Just like M People, Gomez and Antony And The Johnsons made the best albums of the year they won the Mercury Prize, too. Ahem.
The Mercury Prize panel are a famously contrary lot, and you suspect that they don't so much choose the best album of the year by, you know, choosing the best album of the year, but instead have some other weird parameters that they're keeping from us – like in 1997 and 1999 when Roni Size and Talvin Singh when the winners were albums most likely to soundtrack insufferably upmarket cookery shows, or in 2005 when Antony And The Johnsons won the Mercury Prize because they looked the most like Julie Burchill.
But last year, when Arctic Monkeys won the Mercury Prize it seemed to signal that the prize panel were returning to rewarding critically-lauded, massive-selling albums again. With that in mind, two names stood out when the Mercury Prize shortlist was announced – Arctic Monkeys and Amy Winehouse. Since Arctic Monkeys were never going to win it twice in a row, it looked like the prize was going to go to Amy Winehouse, the most famous drug-overdoser in the world. Amy performed at last night's Mercury Prize ceremony, too – not bad since she's cancelled all her other concerts – in a move that seemed to say "this is about the music, not that time I attacked my husband with a razorblade because he caught me doing drugs with a hooker" even though deep down she must realise that the drug/hooker thing was probably part of the reason why she was favourite to win the Mercury Prize.
Nevertheless, Amy Winehouse's Mercury performance left everyone positive that she'd win it, as The Times reports:
When Jools Holland — usually the inscrutably impartial lover of all music, every note of it — lost his composure after Amy Winehouse’s exquisite performance, we thought the night would be hers. As the applause for her version of Love is a Loser’s Game faded, he frothed with an abandon conspicuously missing after turns from, say, Fionn Regan and The View.
But it wasn't to be. After sitting through the 90-minute BBC Four Mercury Prize shows – essentially Jo Wiley being so smug that we swear she started to glow midway through – Klaxons eventually emerged as the Mercury Prize winners for their album Myths Of The Near Future. Winning the Mercury Prize is a big accomplishment for Klaxons, not least because they've only got one song that isn't terrible. A group of aggressively drunk poshos – like the sort of obnoxious rugger boys you often see haranguing barmaids on Friday nights, only wearing golden shell suits – Klaxons promptly burst into tears and made all sorts of unintelligible noises when they won. One of Klaxons congratulated the Mercury Prize panel for letting them win because they make "future music," which would be true if only we lived in a world where Duran Duran hadn't been invented yet.
Still, Klaxons won the 2007 Mercury Prize and that's that. Even if Jamie T or Fionn Regan should have bloody won.
Read more:
Duncan says
Klaxons…travesty win…… Bats for Lashes were better… as were most of the others.. bar Dizzi Rascal who is a yawn……………………………..I hate that Jo Wiley woman.. she tries too hard to be cool and hip and ends up sounding stupid….as does Laverne and Ferne Cotton.. where do they root them out from.?
Koos says
Is it me but I have never understood a word Jools Holland says.. he is incomprehensible to my ears.. needs some elocution ???
dayzee says
The Times said Jools Holland is inscrutable???
Jools ‘Poker face’ Holland is reknowned for spewing out manic hyperbole whilst wildly overexaggerating the talent and importance of any + all muso’s that comes within a hundred yards of his show and in the process somehow manages to make Brian Blessed look like a laid back kinda guy…
lulz at only ””future music”, which would be true if only we lived in a world where Duran Duran hadn’t been invented yet.’… nice work sir
Carmela says
i fucking hate jo whiley. she thinks she knows everything about music and we shud all treat her like sum guru.
u work on the radio love, they TELL you what to say about music.
VictoriasJukebox says
I think congratulations are in order to Klaxons to be honest for winning last nights prestigous Nationwide Mercury Music Prize. Definite outsiders most people’s money was on Winehouse (who just for the record did turn up and sang “Love is a Losing Game”) or Bat for Lashes. I was gunning for Maps but have to say I am pleasantly surprised with news of the Klaxon’s victory. I dug their response:
“I think [the Mercury judges] have rewarded forward thinking music,” Asked about winning over Winehouse, the band grumbled about having to answer questions about her all day. “She is fantastic, but her record is a retro record, and we have made the most forward thinking record since I don’t know how long,” Reynolds said.
If its true the award is to honour forward thinking music then Klaxons had it in the bag all along…its just the criteria for winners seems to change every year. Previous winners Arctic Monkeys and Franz Ferdinand could hardly be described as forward thinking but their winning credentials could not be doubted.
Year after year the awards are marred with controversy – I think the board at Mercury need to clean up once and for all what the awards are supposed to reward…that way the awards might make a little bit more sense.
What do you think?