Mercury Music Prize Betting Odds: Richard Hawley, Cole’s Corner

If you're anything like us, you've spent the last few weeks feverishly anticipating the 2006 Mercury Music Prize. And if you're anything like us you've also spent a fair amount of time eating your own bellybutton fluff, but that's less important.

But back to the Mercury Music Prize. Tomorrow night, the most important people in music will gather together in London to choose - then cheer at for five minutes, then realise that they should have chosen someone else - the best album of the last 12 months. The winner will get a big cheque for lots of money that will hopefully compensate for the fact that they'll spend the rest of their lives on a list with Gomez and M People.

Here are the Mercury Music Prize betting odds for Cole's Corner by Richard Hawley…

Richard Hawley: Cole's Corner - Oh my, but how we love Richard Hawley round these parts. His big sad voice, his beautifully yearning, perfectly arranged songs… why Richard Hawley isn't number one everywhere in the world all the time is quite beyond us. We'll admit that, after all but wearing a hole in Richard Hawley's old album Late Night Final, we were kind of sceptical that any other Richard Hawley albums would just be a shallow retread of songs on that CD, but Cole's Corner just blows us away time and time again. The title track to Cole's Corner is a gorgeously sad rainy afternoon lament while Ocean just oozes old-school Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid class. The whole album does, in fact, from start to finish. We couldn't be happier that The Longpigs split up. Is it good? Can't you read? We've just spent ages swooning over the bastard. We're not just impressed at Cole's Corner, we're awestruck by it. Will it win the Mercury Music Prize? A rare collection of well-written songs performed perfectly with genuine emotion with old-fashioned style? Chances are that it won't be fashionable enough for the Mercury Music Prize judges. And it'll be their loss. Current Mercury Music Prize betting odds - 4/1 

Now buy Cole's Corner by Richard Hawley from Amazon

Tomorrow: Mercury Music Prize betting odds for Guillemots and Arctic Monkeys 

[story by Stuart Heritage]