Every year, a panel of British musicians, producers, journalists, and other music-business figures gets together to award the Mercury Prize. The award recognizes one album from the UK and Ireland every year, and its results have had momentous results in lots of careers, starting with Primal Scream's Screamadelica in 1992. The Mercury Prize organizers recently shared the list of 12 albums up for this year's awards, and it includes some big names.
Two past winners are up for this year's Mercury Prize is Pulp. The Britpop greats are nominated for their excellent reunion album More, and they previously took home the fifth Mercury Prize for Different Class in 1996. They were also nominated for His 'N' Hers and This Is Hardcore. Wolf Alice, meanwhile, won the Mercury for Visions Of A Life in 2018. They were also nominated for My Life Is Cool in 2015 and Blue Weekend in 2021. Now, they're up for The Clearing.
Two big Irish acts are also up for the big award -- Fontaines D.C. for Romance and CMAT for EURO-COUNTRY. Fontaines were also nominated for Dogrel in 2019, while CMAT's Crazymad, For Me lost out to English Teacher's This Could Be Texas last year.
Big UK stars up for this year's award include FKA twigs for EUSEXUA, PinkPantheress for Fancy That, and Sam Fender for People Watching. FKA twigs was previously nominated for LP1 in 2014, while Fender was on this list for Seventeen Going Under in 2022. This is PinkPantheress' first nomination. The other first-time nominees include Pa Salieu for Afrikan Alien, Emma-Jean Thackray for Weirdo, Jacob Alon for In Limerence, and Joe Webb for Hamstrings & Hurricanes. Also nominated for the first time: Folk veteran Martin Carthy Transform Me Then Into A Fish. At age 84, he's the oldest nominee ever.
Check out the full list of nominees below, via Billboard:
• CMAT - EURO-COUNTRY
• Emma-Jean Thackray - Weirdo
• FKA twigs - EUSEXUA
• Fontaines D.C. - Romance
• Jacob Alon - In Limerence
• Joe Webb - Hamstrings & Hurricanes
• Martin Carthy - Transform Me Then Into A Fish
• Pa Salieu - Afrikan Alien
• PinkPantheress - Fancy That
• Pulp - More
• Sam Fender - People Watching
• Wolf Alice - The Clearing
This year's Mercury Prize ceremony is happening 10/16 at Newcastle's Utilita Arena, marking the first time that the award has ever been handed out outside of London.
