The short list for England's Mercury Prize has been announced and basically nobody has heard of any of the ten bands up for the prestigious album-of-the-year award. Not even the record geeks at Pitchfork. (Most well-known: Bat for Lashes. Silliest name? Led Bib.)
The Mercury folks seem to take pride in such inscrutability, as last year, the obscure Seldom Seen Kid album from the group Elbow beat out Radiohead's magnificent and much-loved In Rainbows.
So in protest, let's watch the new song Radiohead singer Thom Yorke debuted this past weekend at the Latitude Festival-which is also in England! It's reportedly called "The Present Tense." And featuring lyrics like, "As my world comes crashing down/I am dancing, freaking out..." it doesn't get much Yorkier than this.
There's another music site out there where an informed, passionate discussion of the Merc shortlist is taking place... and it even has videos from the nominees! Ahem.
Ok, sorry. Anyway, a few of these artists are new to me, and perhaps the most promising of those is The Invisible, which features a guy from Hot Chip and which is produced by electro genius Matthew Herbert. And the Glasvegas album is really lively if you're unto the whole big guitars thing.
My money is on Florence and the Machine, with The Invisible as the possible "omg who?" long shot. Also, Micachu's Jewellery was robbed!
Ahh thanks for the reminder! The post on... the other music site was everything I was hoping this one would be.
Definitely have to give it to Flo. Even I bought that album and I hate everything.
Especially most of the bands on this list.
(and Lily Allen was robbed, too.)
At least there'll be no Nickelback.