Blimmin' eck! Fat Roland's guide to the 2020 Mercury Prize

The Mercury Prize has announced its shortlist, and what a list. 

Who is who, why oh why, and what do they look like when you listen to them? I'm here to answer all of your nominee quandaries. Here is my album-by-album guide to the 2020 Mercury Prize.

Anna Meredith – FIBS

Anna is a proper classical music person who chucked all of her violas and trumpets into the sea and waited until a synthesiser washed up to shore. Somewhere there's a fisherman with a barnacle-clad flute wondering if he's found a new species of fish. Meredith's got a proper MBE, which stands for "Music Brilliant Excellent" or "Mercury? Blimmin' Eck!" The album sounds like she's pressed a single loop for ages on a Juno keyboard, but in a good way. It sounds like post rock for people made of cotton wool. Again, in a good way.

Charli XCX – how i’m feeling now

Fact I: Charli XCX is a Roman person called Charlie who lived in the year XCX. Fact II: She recorded this album under lockdown, which means she played the keyboards one-handed while waving goodbye in a Zoom meeting. Fact IIII: The album is full of r'n'b bangers that sound downloaded through an early-2000s modem. Fact IIIIIII (I've lost count): Charli says she sees music in colours, which is a shame because they didn't have colours in Roman times.

Dua Lipa – Future Nostalgia

Dua Lipa is the queen of pop. Is she a benevolent queen, or a despotic one? That depends on how many people she's beheaded. Future Nostalgia is packed to the rafters with roof-raising pop bangers: she reminds me of Sophie Ellis Bexter but without a Blue Peter mum. I like that bit in the Dua Lipa single that goes "pa da da daa pa de dah, oh!" although I don't think that's on this album. Swing that axe, Dua! Oh hold on, the phone's ringing. Hello? I'm being sued for what? No, I don't remember telling my readers that the pop star Dua Lipa led a series of public executions in her bid to become the ultimate pop queen. Sorry, you must have the wrong number. Okay, bye.

Georgia – Seeking Thrills

This is not the eccentric electronic duo Georgia from the oddball Edinburgh imprint Firecracker Recordings. Which is a shame, because I liked what I heard. Instead, this is much more straightforward: summery dancefloor tunes perfectly designed for all the festivals that aren't happening right now. Georgia's dad was in some obscure act called Leftfield. The other Georgia, the one I remember, deconstructed music into a thousand Nintento shards: this Georgia rebuilds it.

Kano – Hoodies All Summer

Grime grandmaster Kano (pictured) has tonnes of award nominations: Mobos, Brits, Mercury Prizes, cycling proficiency certificates. They're literally pouring out of his every orifice. His track Trouble is already a modern classic, with the help of a 92-year-long video in which he shows off his spittin' skills. I'd advise against wearing a hoodie all summer, unless of course you've got stuff falling out of your orifices, in which case I'd recommend a number of hoodies placed at strategic points on your body to avoid the very real possibility of something shooting out of your bum and ruining the job interview and/or funeral you're attending. This is great advice: I hope someone's reading this.

Lanterns on the Lake – Spook the Herd

You can't spook a herd of cows by putting lanterns on a lake: let's get that clear from the outset. You could set fire to a sheep, perhaps. Anyway, this Newcastle outfit's blend of folksy indie music provid– no, wait, I can't let this rest. Maybe make the shape of a cow ghost using the lanterns: the lake's ripples would make it move eerily. Or just throw the cows into the lake and chuck a lantern at them. Yeah, do that.

Laura Marling – Song for Our Daughter

Marling, who is not a fish, is one of the most nominated artists in Mercury prize history. She's been referred to as "nu-folk" which is like nu metal with fewer wallet chains. Marling, who is definitely still not a fish, wrote this album for a non-existent daughter. What is also non-existent is my interest in folk music. She'll probably win the Mercury, because a fish hasn't won the prize since James Hake in 2013. Wait. Was she a fish or wasn't she? Am I thinking of marlin? The Mercury needs to choose less confusing musicians.

Michael Kiwanuka – KIWANUKA

If in doubt, just put your name in big letters. This is why I scribble FAT ROLAND on passing schoolchildren and Deliveroo riders. Kylie's first album was called Kylie, so I assume that's the sort of vibe the excellent Mr Kiwanuka was going for. He's got a labrador called Whisky, which is nice, although I doubt Whisky has ever written "Whisky" on anything, on account of not having opposable thumbs. Madonna's first album was called Madonna. This is Michael's third album: he's doing it all wrong.

Moses Boyd – Dark Matter

When I reviewed this album for Electronic Sound, I said Moses Boyd pinballed around his drum kit "like an oiled whippet". This was not meant to be a suggestion. I would sincerely like to apologise to any dog owners who have lost their pets due to unexpected slippage, but you shouldn't have been near the cement mixer in the first place. Where was I? Oh yes. Moses. Boyd. Jazz. Funk. Drums. More drums.

Porridge Radio – Every Bad

Lawks, it's an indie guitar album. I've not heard one of those since 2003. If you're not sure what a guitar is, it's like a synthesiser but shaped like an 8 and made of string. Weetabix Wireless, sorry, I mean, Porridge Radio are from Brighton. The beach in Brighton is most famous as a filming location for the Paul Bettany film Wimbledon. If a guitar album wins the Mercury, albeit one as good as this, all electronic music is dead. Fact.

Sports Team – Deep Down Happy

Sports Team are wacky, like a clown on a sausage, or a barbershop quartet up the nose of a walrus. Their critics say they are posh Cambridge lads who read too much John Betjeman. Why are they even in this list of best albums? I don't even like sports. Or teams. Or being happy deep down. Uh-oh! Coco's fallen off the bratwurst! So wacky! Like a goose in a top hat, or a buffalo in a fez, or morris dancers with googly eyes on their knees, or an office tie covered in cartoons of Stewie from Family Guy, or an inflatable penis dressed up to look like Prince Phillip, or saying the word "Uranus" the rude way, or a piece of poo on a stick, or a stick embedded in a massive poo, or stabbing yourself to death with a poopy stick, stab stab stab until the horror of this album is forgotten forever. Ahem. I think I need to lie down for a bit.

Stormzy – Heavy is the Head

Never heard of him, sorry. Only joking! I am being very hilarious today, I hope someone's reading. Stormzy does actually have a very heavy head and has to carry it around in a wheelbarrow. Sometimes he wears bullet-proof vests just to support his torso, what with the weight of his colossal bonce. Stormzy once did a single about how his head was too big to fit in his boots, which to be honest we could have guessed without learning it in the song. If the actual Mercury prize is a medal worn around the neck, Stormzy is truly stuffed. 

Further Fats: "Darius Versus The Venga Boys": Fat Roland's guide to the 2011 Mercury Music Prize nominations (2011)

Further Fats: A complete guide to the 2012 Mercury music prize nominations (2012)

The alternative, picky version of the Mercury music prize

The Mercury Prize is the best metal of prize. Much better than the Wrought Iron Prize, the Tin Prize and the Ytterbium Prize. Yes, I just looked that up.

In advance of the Mercury shortlist being announced later this week, my friends at Picky Bastards have cobbled together a pretty impressive alternative list of Mercury Prize nominations

FKA Twigs is hailed as a genius, there's praise for the warm analogue tones of Michael Kiwanuka, and Ghostpoet offers a "masterclass in restraint". One album is called an "uncompromising, apocalyptic triumph" but you'll have to read the article to find out which album it is.

I've also made a suggestion: 808 State's Transmission Suite. "808 State’s first album for 17 years wasn’t just a triumph in techno," I write. "It was a brilliantly realised celebration of old electronics." Have a read of all of our alternative Mercury albums here.

While you read that, I'm going to learn about ytterbium. It's named after Ytterby in Sweden, which is a bunch of houses built on a haunted mine. Apparently Ytterbium has a "molar heat capacity" , which I can only assume is to do with setting your teeth on fire. You shouldn't put ytterbium in your eyes, which, to be fair, you can say about most things.

Have you finished reading that Mercury piece? Good. I can stop reading about ytterbium now: it's really dull.

While I'm lazily researching things, here's something else. Wikipedia tells me the Mercury Prize is named after their original telecommunications company sponsor Mercury Communications. When Technics took over as sponsor in 1998, they kept the Mercury name, even though the Technics Prize would have loads more cred because of the whole turntable thing. 

Maybe the Technics Prize can be a dance music version of the Mercury, which would make me very happy. Someone set that up, please, thank you.

A complete guide to the 2012 Mercury music prize nominations

The Mercury Prize nominations filled me with so much excitement, I literally vomited myself inside-out.

But as I lay there in a bloody mess of colons and juices like an M&S advert from hell, I began to reflect on the list. Did I care? Had I heard of any of them? Shall I have sausages for tea?

The 2012 Mercury has pulled off the amazing feat of leaving me almost universally apathetic. Last year was great, with Metronomy, Everything Everything and Lady Peej of Harvey. I liked The xx in 2010, while recent years have given us Burial, the Klaxons and Hot Chip.

But where's Rustie? Where's Kuedo?

Maybe the Mayans are partly right, and in our brown depressive post-Olympic world, every one of us is three months from dying of boredom.

Still. I am a music blogger and I have to do my duty. Here, my sweet reader, is my complete guide to the 2012 Mercury Music Prize nominations. There is one slight problem: the list bores me so much, I've just guessed at what they're like instead of listening to them.

But, y'know, I'm a pretty good guesser.

Jessie Ware

Jessie was famous in the late 1980s as the Voice Of Gurning Rave, and with her album Devotion, she covers many club classics such as Nomad, Rozalla, the KLF and Don Pablo's Animals. Because of a bourbon biscuit addiction during a cold turkey phase in the 90s, she let herself go a bit. A lot. But sometimes, the gasping and the wheezing sounds a bit like DJ scratching, so it's okay.

Django Django

Following the critical acclaim of several shows in the West End written by monkeys with typewriters, hopes were high for the debut album by Django Django (pictured). Despite being a panda in Edinburgh Zoo, Django Django produced a truly human album, full of emotion and hope. Could have done without the twenty-minute bamboo drum solo, though.

The Maccabees

Forced circumcisions! The destruction of pagan altars! The murder of powerful Seleucid figures! These musical founders of the Judean Hasmonean dynasty may not be a cheerful bunch, but their barbershop quartet packs a punch. A guest rap from Ptolemy VI of Egypt on the benefits of the iPhone 5 is possibly just product placement, but hey, it's got a good beat.

Roller Trio

Disco. On Skates. Obviously.

Richard Hawley

My name is Richard Hawley. You remember me.
I was in Pulp for a bit, but after they were sorted for E
s and Wizz. Yes? No? Well stuff it, those times are long gone.
I was in the Longpigs too: we went on and on and on.

My name is Richard Hawley. You remember me.
I was beaten by the Artics in the 06 Mercury.
I haven't got time. Must rush, must dash. I really really oughta
Wax my hair and do 50s things with Elvis Presley's daughter.

Field Music

Ah, the sound of the field. Crickets chirping. Birds singing. Worms, erm, crawling. But don't be fooled by the pastoral name, because Field Music sound like the darker underbelly of the countryside. Cows being slaughtered. Crop dusters mowing down film actors. Farmer Giles falling into the blades of his combine harvester. Wildfires. Lynchings. Snakes. Basically, they're John Craven with a crossbow.

Michael Kiwanuka

Michael Kiwanuka made his name as the lead singer of Aphex Twin. The band's acrimonious split happened when Michael was possessed by demons accidentally released on the set of the video for the chart-topping pop hit Come To Daddy. His subsequent breakdown saw him recuperating with dozens of John Legend and Otis Reading records. He describes his solo album as extreme chillcore.

Ben Howard

It was never going to go well for Michael Howard's son-- sniiip. Ed.

Plan B

Plan B, or Nathan Plainsocks as he's still known in da hood, loads a wheelbarrow with bricks and smashes a bunch of windows on a Brixton estate. The residents come for him armed with baseball bats, machetes and unusually sharp sticks of carrot. Plan B is prepared. He launches into his album Ill Manors, a collection of smooth soul songs in a Timberlake stylee. They don't listen. He is destroyed to death.

Alt-J

Triangles within triangles inside a massive triangle balanced on the uppermost tip of a snooker triangle made from triangular bandages trying to play the triangle whilst shouting in a triangular voice "try angles" at the angles of a triangle whilst watching on a triangle television screen the 2009 Bermuda Triangle-themed horror film Triangle. Now imagine Mumford and Sons singing about that. There, you've got Alt-J.

Lianne La Havas

Don't bother: she's an anagram of 'Aha! Anal Snivel'.

Sam Lee

Sam and Lee, you'll remember, were the wacky pair that fronted SM:TV Live, hence the programme's name. They performed quirky skits such as Here's Me Singing Off Rhythm, Larks Mother That Sounds Funny and What's That You've Put In My Trousers. Their best known folk song is George Colin, named after the two presenters Sam and Lee had killed to get the spot on SM:TV. Sample lyric: "Oh ye olde lover of mine, stick that arsenic down yer bloomers, best kill all the viewers too, for thems be startin' rumours."

Further Fats: They say you can't keep a good tune down (the 2006 Mercury Prize)