The rise & endless fall of the Mercury Prize…

26 September 2025 - Press release

Submitted comment by Kev Nixon, author of Brilliant Sounding Rubbish, out now
The author's opinion does not necessarily reflect those of the publication

• CMAT – Euro-Country
• Emma-Jean Thackray – Weirdo
• FKA twigs – Eusexua
• Fontaines DC – Romance
• Jacob Alon – In Limerence
• Joe Webb – Hamstrings and Hurricanes
• Martin Carthy – Transform Me Then Into a Fish
• Pa Salieu – Afrikan Alien
• PinkPantheress – Fancy That
• Pulp – More
• Sam Fender – People Watching
• Wolf Alice – The Clearing

 

This is the shortlist for this year’s Mercury Prize, which is apparently being held in Newcastle, and it prompts several questions such as…

• Who cares?
• Didn’t this prize end with the passing of the old millennium?
• Vague recollections of this event being an alternative to the major-label-monopolised Brits, which itself is decades beyond repair.
• Is its purpose still to champion independent artists, even though there is no such thing anymore since Universal and Sony spent the last ten years buying-up the whole indie network while no one was looking?
• Moving the event from London to Newcastle surely means Sam Fender is going to win, even though he’s already a mainstream act of several years?
• What is the prize? A new car maybe? An Air Fryer? Or maybe some money to spend on Social Media ads, in the vain hope that anyone out there will give a shit about your music?

 

Music business awards ceremonies are a bit like Miss World Beauty Contests, they were of their era, and trying to big them up, maintain some vague notion of credibility, or even resurrect them as a token gift to regional decentralisation of the music biz is possibly laudable, but ultimately pointless. To say that no one cares is not so much stating the obvious, it’s more akin to being kind to a lame donkey that needs to be sympathetically relieved of its pain.

BPI CEO Dr Jo Twist told the Guardian that she was “delighted by the breadth of albums nominated”. She continued… ‘it’s a real celebration of such an eclectic mix of achievements across all kinds of genres, and it’s been a really competitive year.”

We are now in the British music industry’s least successful period since 1962, and it’s bland, hopelessly out of touch ‘leadership’ is the main reason for that; and of course because the music business is full of people who know fuck-all about music. Anyone with even limited musical knowledge knows that this lot are far from the most talented underdogs in the UK. Spend ten minutes on Instagram and you will see for yourself. The UK is full of frustrated musical brilliance who can’t get past the traffic of nostalgia, and bang-average label releases, to even be heard.

Among the 35 artists listed in the same press release who maybe ‘feel like they missed out’ is the former multi-millionaire Roxy Music lead singer Bryan Ferry. Is this another attempt to have the good people of Newcastle sit-up and take even the slightest notice? Whatever it may be that Bryan is up to these days, how does that get him involved here? Tell us please, we want to know. 

Of course this and other vital tags of information begs the question of what exactly is the criteria of the Mercury Prize, that is assuming it ever really had one? If the answer was for this to be a box ticking exercise to keep the Woke Police on side with the music business, that would indeed offer a shred of validation, but it’s doubtful that officers of that force are even mildly aware that this ‘prize’ is even still ‘a thing’ (in music biz speak). Also what exactly has diversification got to do with music? If your music is great, no one gives a fuck if you’re from Wigan or the West Indies. Great music has never had boundaries.

Here's a positive and helpful suggestion on how to improve the Mercury Prize. Scrap it now.

If the music business genuinely wants to recognise the talented underdogs in the back bedrooms of the UK, how about enforcing the major labels to divest their ownership of all indie labels and distributors, and then include an award for ‘Best Major Label to keep their money and their noses out of what might be any possibility of a sub-culture growing in this terminally nostalgia-ridden industry, that has not ruled the world since Yoko Ono cancelled John Lennon’s band, his best friend, and nicked all his money.