As a writer on culture, I’ve always felt about the Mercury Prize rather as one might about a colleague’s birthday. I know I ought to care more about it than I do. The problem for me is that firstly, though obviously I like it (I’m not a psychopath), I don’t have a particularly sophisticated appreciation of music (which is why I struggle a bit with opera, unable as I am to see past the preposterous narratives) and secondly, I’m not very cool. I have really quite mainstream taste, which is very much not the Mercury Prize’s reputation.
Which is why I’m delighted by yesterday’s announcement of the 12-strong shortlist of nominees, nearly all of whom I’ve heard of and nearly all of whose work I genuinely enjoy. I hold up my hands to not having listened to Gwenno’s majority-Cornish language album Tresor - which I think means ‘treasure’ - or anything by this year’s sole jazz entrant Fergus McCreadie, though I will have dutifully made the attempt by the time the winner is announced on September 8.
