The Mercury Music Prize looms ever-closer, and so you're probably a little unsure which shortlisted albums are any good and which ones the Mercury Music Prize panel picked to make themselves look clever.

It's a good job we're here, then. Every day between now and the date that the Mercury Music Prize is announced, we'll be prodding a gloved finger around the guts of each shortlisted album like a sort of bored customs official to their suspicious long-haired, sandal wearing traveller.

So who'll win the Mercury Music Prize? Here are the Mercury Music Prize betting odds for Melting Pot by Zoe Rahman…

Zoe Rahman: Melting Pot – Ah, jazz: the Mercury Music Prize's joker card. Nothing says "I'm way more intellectual and cool and deep than you" like a slightly avant garde jazz album, and that's exactly what Melting Pot by Zoe Rahman is. Zoe Rahman plays the sort of jazz that makes you almost compulsively unable to relax – why play one note on her piano, she seems to think, when she can play six freaking million. From what we're able to tell, every single song on Melting Pot sounds exactly the same, proving that Zoe Rahman's music lives squarely in the head, as opposed to the heart. Is it good? It's jazz – we don't know. Now, if you'd have asked "does it go 'skronk skronk skronk?'" we'd have been able to answer with more certainty. Will it win the Mercury Music Prize? If there's one thing we can bet our arses on, it's that jazz goes down like a diarrhea-filled wetsuit on Mercury Music Prize night. Current Mercury Music Prize betting odds – 25/1 

Buy Melting Pot by Zoe Rahman from Amazon for just £8.99  

Tomorrow: The Mercury Music Prize betting odds for The Eraser by Thom Yorke

[story by Stuart Heritage]