Break out the token folk / jazz fusion band and underground urban act plus a ton of round tables and champagne, it’s Mercury Prize time.
But who cares what a bunch of over-paid ligers and old musos think – we wanted to find out where the nominated bands rank in your music collections and we doubt the likes of M People, infamous recipients of the prize in the 90s when they beat Blur et al to the post, will appear anywhere near this list. We know you have better taste than that, and we were right.
So here is our Psonar Mercury Prize top five artists, in order of popularity of nominated tracks uploaded to the Psonar Cloud:
1) Kasabian
2) Glasvegas
3) Bat For Lashes
4) Friendly Fires
5) La Roux
Although the bookies have Florence And The Machine pegged as favourites for the prize, her main rival Bat For Lashes royally trounces her in our chart, as do Glasvegas and Kasabian (although the latter, it must be pointed out, have far more recorded music floating around and are thus likely to be much more popular). Our favourite in the Psonar office is Bat For Lashes closely followed by Friendly Fires, but we suspect a left-of-centre choice in 2009 given that the prize has been awarded to relatively well-known bands (Elbow, The Klaxons etc) in recent years.
But regardless of the winner, the awards always throw up one or two musical gems from the lesser-known nominations and it is these we’re looking forward to. Experimental jazz combos will be where it’s at this evening.
Mercury Music Prize nominated but nowhere on our list
