The Mercury Music Prize got it exactly right this year with The xx, which just proves what I've always said: the Mercury is the best prize in the history of EVER.
Its judges were spot on in noticing The xx's chilling and moving eponymous debut was the best album of the year. The decision panel is erudite and wise and every member deserves to be rich, to be creatively fulfilled and have extremely enjoyable sex lives.
I have been blogging about the Mercury since 2006 (2006, 2007, 2008, 2009/2009 and 2010) and I have been nothing but positive about it. The bit where I said "we need a new Mercury Music Prize for people that give a crap about electronic music" and the bit where I said the short-list "was chosen by a bunch of beered up old men with bellies poking out of their bermuda shirts and tofu caught in the straggly bristles of their jazz beards, whose net contribution to world music is the noise emitting from their farty bumholes, and whose critical faculties have long since been pensioned off due the fact that every single one of them has a fading poster of Avril Lavigne in their rancid toilet"? I never said any of that. It's just your imagination.
I do love The xx, but back in Fat Roland world, the Mercury Music Prize holds as much relevance as Piers Morgan giving blow jobs to CNN executives behind a photocopier in a rat-infested Atlanta newsroom.
I mean, would Tristan Perich's new album make the cut? It sounds beautiful even though it is emitted 'live' from one microchip and is controlled by algorithms on a circuit embedded into a jewel case. I can't imagine the Mercury judges discussing this album at the back of a Mumford and Snooze concert. Have a look:
Tristan Perich: 1-Bit Symphony (Part 1: Overview) from Tristan Perich on Vimeo.
Unfortunately Perich wouldn't be eligible because he's from USA.
ReplyDeleteCheers for the tip-off though, I hadn't heard of him before!
Good point about the nationality! And also he's called Tristan and that won't do at all.
ReplyDeleteThey don't move me really but do lend themselves to remixes pretty nicely and drumming on a sampler always excites me.
ReplyDeletethink i'll put a few quids on next years mercury, i didn't hear the nominations for this year but could have told you the xx would win.
AWESOME VIDEO!!, what a tune!
I always think about putting a tenner on something after the fact. Grand national, F1, music awards, Kanye talking rubbish. I'm king of hindsightsville.
ReplyDelete