The Mercury prize almost always produces surprises – among them, Gomez not The Verve in 1998, and English Teacher not Charlie XCX in 2024 – but perhaps the biggest surprise is that the prize has survived for so many years. That it has been won this year by Sam Fender in his native Newcastle speaks very much of the time that has passed in those 34 years.
Conceived as a kind of credible alternative to the Brit Awards – a prize for those beyond the razzamatazz of mainstream pop music – the (then) Mercury Music prize was introduced in 1992.
This was the year of a general election which, while won by the Conservative party, did not see the re-election of Margaret Thatcher. But Thatcher’s work had been done: the introduction of neoliberal policies which ravaged many UK industries and the regions in which they were located.
