Mercury Music Prize - Latest Odds

The shortlist has been announced for the 2005 Mercury Music Prize. And that means the real fun can start - betting on the winner.

A panel of music industry experts, journalists and artists have chosen a shortlist of 12 albums from a list of 170 that they consider to be the best albums by a British artist in the last 12 months.

Instead of sitting round a pub table with your mates arguing if Maximo Park are better than Hard-Fi or not, why not back up your claims with a crafty bet? It’ll add a level of excitement to the award and, if you’re wise, you’ll get a little bit richer as well.

Who’ll win? Here are the hecklerspray and Betfair.com odds for the Mercury Music Prize 2005…

Polar Bear - Held On The Tips Of Fingers: Judging by the odds, it
looks like 2005 isn’t the year for hardcore punk post-jazz skronk.
Polar Bear’s second album has been highly praised, but is the least
popular album on the shortlist. Current odds - 29/1

Seth Lakeman - Kitty Jay: The other outsider, Lakeman recorded a
cheap folk album all about legends of Dartmoor. Like Polar Bear, his
odds might be suffering from lack of exposure. Or too many fiddles.
Current odds - 17/1

Maximo Park - A Certain Trigger: Maximo Park’s brand of generic
guitar music is neither fashionable or desperately popular. We predict
they’ll fall between these two parties and will be ignored by everyone.
Current odds - 14/1

The Go! Team - Thunder Lightning Strike: The Go! Team, led by the
wonderful Ian Parton, are the dark horses of the competition. Their
day-glo sunshine mishmash pop is taking the world by storm, and we
think their odds will fall sharply before the winner is announced.
Current odds - 14/1

Hard Fi - Stars Of CCTV: Hard Fi’s over-sanitised pop-rock is taking
radio stations by storm, and the Mercury Music people have been known
to vote conservatively in the past. They might do it, but the
guitarheads are spoilt for choice this year. Current odds - 11/1

M.I.A - Arular: We wouldn’t be surprised id M.I.A steals this prize
from a bigger name. Her music is a bit urban, she’s female and her
music is unlike most of the other shortlisted albums. All these stand
her in good stead. It’s a good album as well, which helps. Current odds
- 11/1

KT Tunstall - Eye To The Telescope: She’s the dinner party/Radio 2
favourite. Slightly angsty, slightly bland, slightly pretty, nobody
hates KT Tunstall, but nobody loves her either. A possible winner.
Current odds - 10/1

Coldplay - X&Y: All Coldplay’s albums have been on the Mercury
Music Prize shortlist, and they’ve all been beaten. X&Y is the
biggest-selling album of the year, and the prize rarely goes to
huge-selling albums. And people have heard it so much that maybe the
other albums will sound fresher. Current odds - 9/1

Antony And The Johnsons - I Am A Bird Now: People were whispering
great things about this band until they saw them on Jools Holland. "Is
Julie Burchill singing now?" they all thought. But the guy has a
fantastic voice and writes good sad songs. Current odds - 9/1

Bloc Party - Silent Alarm: Darlings of the NME, Bloc Party are another vaguely post-punk coat-tail riders. The kids love them, and they’re popular with betters, too. They’re second favourites to win. Current odds - 4/1

Kaiser Chiefs - Employment: Widely regarded as favourites to win the prize, the cheeky Kaisers have been flogging their one-song shtick for all it’s worth recently. They seem to remind people of Blur before they started making records that sound like bicycle pumps. Current odds - 18/7

It’s early days, so expect the odds to shuffle about all over the place before the winner is announced in September. We’ll keep you up-to-date on any changes, but in the meantime, head over to Betfair.com to see the odds at their very latest. And don’t forget to place a bet.

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[story by Stuart Heritage]