The Mercury Prize at Thirty: A History of Getting It Wrong
The Mercury Prize has given us some of the most important albums of the last three decades. It has also ignored most of them. A look back at the winners, the snubs, and what the prize tells us about British music culture.
The Mercury Prize was established in 1992 as an alternative to the Brit Awards — a prize that would reward artistic ambition rather than commercial success, that would take in the full range of British and Irish music rather than defaulting to mainstream pop. The first winner was Primal Scream's 'Screamadelica', which remains one of the most defensible choices in the prize's history. The second was Suede's debut album. The third was Blur's 'Modern Life Is Rubbish'. For three years, the prize did exactly what it said it would.
The snubs began almost immediately. Portishead's 'Dummy' was shortlisted in 1995 and lost to Portishead's 'Dummy' — except it didn't, it lost to M People's 'Elegant Slumming', a decision that has been relitigated in music journalism ever since. Radiohead's 'OK Computer' lost in 1997 to Roni Size. Massive Attack's 'Mezzanine' wasn't even shortlisted in 1998. The prize's relationship with the most important British music of the 1990s was, at best, complicated.
"The shortlist is often more interesting than the winner. The snubs are often more interesting than either."
The 2000s brought a different kind of controversy. The prize began to feel like a launchpad for certain kinds of credible-but-accessible acts — the Arctic Monkeys won in 2006 with 'Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not', a genuinely deserved choice. PJ Harvey won twice, in 2001 and 2011, becoming the only artist to do so. But the prize also developed a reputation for rewarding a particular kind of tasteful, serious-minded album that felt designed to win prizes rather than to take risks.
What the Mercury Prize has always done well is the shortlist. The twelve albums nominated each year constitute a snapshot of British and Irish music that is more interesting, more diverse, and more accurate than any chart or sales figure. The winner matters less than the conversation the shortlist generates. That conversation — about what British music is, what it values, what it overlooks — is the prize's real contribution. The shortlist is often more interesting than the winner. The snubs are often more interesting than either.