You know the drill, the most prestigious prize in British music is back for another year, and a group of Picky Bastards are back to argue among themselves about which albums should be making the shortlist instead. Using the same criteria as the main trophy, here are the records from the last 12 months we would be shortlisting if someone made the error of letting us onto the Mercury Prize judging panel.
Matt Paul: Billy Nomates – Cacti
In a lukewarm year, Billy Nomates new release stands head and shoulders above other 2023 albums. Urgent and hooky choruses that worm into your head. I didn’t really click with her prior album, but the extra polish on this one has made it a go-to album. With slack bass lines and peppy drums, the songs scoot along easily. Tracks like ‘balance is gone’ and ‘spite’ clearly stand out for the venom of her vocal delivery, but the album is stacked with engaging moments from top to bottom. Well worth a nom.
Read the full review of Cacti here.
Fran Slater: Arctic Monkeys – The Car
My first pick for the Picky Bastards annual alternative Mercury Music Prize list is a surprise even to me. Most years, I bemoan the big, established act who takes up a place that could have gone to a smaller act who needs the exposure. But I honestly can’t think of an album that needs to be on this year’s list as much as The Car. This is an album that takes Arctic Monkeys to a new stratosphere, refining years of chopping and changing their sound, creating the best and most cohesive work they’ve put out since their Mercury-winning debut. For that achievement, they deserve another shot at the crown.
Listen to our mini podcast on The Car here.
James Spearing: Daniel Avery – Ultra Truth
Imagine for a moment that it’s still the 90s and the best British electronic album of the year is a shoo-in for a Mercury nomination. In that world one or more of The Chemical Brothers, Underworld, Leftfield and Faithless made it on to the list every year. Problem is, it’s not the 90s, and this sort of thing doesn’t happen at the Mercury prize anymore. This isn’t the only reason I’m picking Ultra Truth – there are countless others – but it is vital this year that the recent trend of no nominations for this type of album is reversed. Ultra Truth is packed with forceful beats, powerful atmosphere and guest appearances, giving it the swagger of an album released with much more fanfare. It is the best British electronic album of the last year and deserves its place, just like they once did.
Tom Burrows: Jockstrap – I Love You Jennifer B
Here we go again then: my primary nominee for the Picky B’s Mercury list, knowing that my previous 4 have each been inexplicably ignored by the panel. I’ll say again what I’ve said on at least a couple of those occasions – I’m pretty confident that this one is not overlookable. Jockstrap’s debut has ‘Mercury nominee’ all over it. Its combination of fun experimentalism layered on top of catchy, often vintage-sounding pop songs is hard not to like. For instance, if you’re not keen on the warped vocals and techno beats of ‘50/50’, you may be into the string-laden lament ‘What’s It All About’. It was plastered all over 2022’s year-end lists for its likability and I expect to see it here.
Read the full review of I Love You Jennifer B here.
Rick Larson: Big Joanie – Back Home
Why would I stop banging the Big Joanie tom tom now? The London trio’s November 2022 release Back Home was my album of the year and I have not heard anything yet in 2023 from a U.K. band that surpasses it. You can read my review on this very site. They cemented my opinion this year in a packed, sweaty venue in San Francisco. The crowd was buzzed and adoring, the mosh pit active and joyful, the band appreciative and shredding. I couldn’t ask for anything more from a band in the Mercury Prize’s fiscal year.
Read the full review of Back Home here.
Sam Atkins: Loyle Carner – hugo
The first thing I need to mention here is that I’ve basically picked the same album every year and every time it’s ended up on the shortlist. You can thank me or hate me for being accurate, but this year my deserved dead cert is going to be the phenomenal hugo by Loyle Carner. I’ve not heard such a personal and engaging hip hop record in years, from an artist who has been on the brink of greatness and finally tipped over the edge on this album. ‘Nobody Knows (Ladas Road)’ is incredible in scale, ‘Hate’ and ‘Blood On My Nikes’ feature some of the most powerful lyrics in any record this year. An incredible album and I’ll be extremely surprised if it misses out on the shortlist this year.
Read our full review of hugo here.
James Spearing: Billy Nomates – Cacti
To spite future me even further, I’ve picked a second album that will also definitely not get nominated. Anyway, Cacti is, perhaps unexpectedly, a brilliant album that showed a huge leap forward in creativity, lyricism, instrumentation and songcraft for Billy Nomates. The sardonic, vitriolic energy is still there, but instead of a detached dressing down of society’s caricatures, she now confronts issues of loneliness, mental illness and misogyny head on. And while this might sound all serious, there are catchy tunes and singalong choruses to elevate, not lessen, these important messages. In short, on Cacti, Billy Nomates has proved that things that you might not think will work together, definitely do. And it definitely should be on the Mercury list.
Will Collins: Jockstrap – I Love You Jennifer B
Jockstrap are one of those rare acts seemingly making music for themselves rather than the tastes of any intended audience, in the process cooking up songs that don’t quite sound the work of any other bands. I Love You Jennifer B is their first record and is full of abrupt genre shifts and musical left turns, sounding more like a curation of tracks from across a band’s career than a set of songs written the at the same time. What is consistent is the band’s effortless blending of artpop sensibilities and earnest vocal balladry. Whether delivering uptempo electro bangers or slow acoustic singalongs, the album is beautiful and captivating throughout. The antithesis of the bland, focus-grouped nature of most contemporary music, this would be a worthy winner.
Tom Burrows: Everything But The Girl – Fuse
A very outside shout here, but when I think of the British albums I’ve enjoyed in 2023 so far, the comeback from Everything But The Girl ranks highly. On paper, the idea of a duo doubling down on the minimal electro they last made at the end of the last century does not, to my mind, sound like a winning formula. But that is underestimating the intelligence of these two. Fuse avoids chasing trends and trying to do too much. Instead it’s a collection of great-sounding, melancholic (mostly) dance tunes, fronted by Tracey Thorn’s timeless voice. As soon as I heard lead single ‘Nothing Left To Lose’, I knew we were onto a winner. I’m so glad they entered the studio again, and they’d be worthy Mercury nominees this year.
Rick Larson: The Go! Team – Get Up Sequences Part Two
Honorable mention to The Go! Team for Get Up Sequences Part Two. I will not budge from my opinion that this band is wildly underrated. Shortlisted for its debut, Thunder, Lightning, Strike, nearly twenty years ago now, (Antony and the Johnsons won that year. That’s like if The Clash won a U.S.A. best album award because Sandinista was recorded in NYC), it is time again. Mercury Prize, don’t get complacent about repeated genius right under your nose.
Read our full review of Get Up Sequences Part Two here.
Matt Paul: Rina Sawayama – Hold The Girl
Well this would deserve a nod as recompense for the way in which Sawayama’s debut album was overlooked. But after a few years, and some rule changes she has returned with the album Hold The Girl, which deserves to be put forward in its own right. Sawayama has curtailed their nu-metal and tendencies. A red flag for my ‘never grow up’ self. Instead we are treated to an irresistible pop record. Stylish and fun. But with substance and bite. Songs like ‘Hold the Girl’ and ‘This Hell’ are just inescapably charming. And deserve a place on the Mercury Prize stage.
Sam Atkins: Fred again.. – Actual Life 3 (January 1 – September 9, 2022)
Dance music needs some love on the Mercury Prize shortlist and nobody has made more euphoric, impactful and better dance records than the inescapable Fred again.. over the last 12 months. I have a horrid thought that his (pretty dull) Brian Eno collaborative album will make it instead, but if there’s any justice it’ll be the final part of his trio of sample heavy chronological releases instead. I refuse to believe a dance record has had a bigger effect on people over the last year than Delilah (pull me out of this), while the pure euphoria of Clara (the night is dark) is unmatched. This is a record that might miss out, but absolutely should be on the shortlist.
Fran Slater: Anna B Savage – in|FLUX
Is it purely wishful thinking to suggest that Anna B Savage might get nominated for the Mercury Prize with this, her second album? Maybe. In a previous year’s version of this very article I suggested that her debut A Common Turn should make the shortlist and that hope/prediction never materialised. There is no doubt that she has received plenty of recognition since then, though, becoming somewhat of a critical darling even as she still remains far from the mainstream. Second album in|FLUX is certainly on a par, if not better, than the stunning debut – and it could be that the extra levels of creativity, the new experiments with sound, and the increased exposure over the past couple of years, mean that she is better positioned to get that career-changing call when the shortlist is decided upon. She would definitely deserve it.
Read our full review of in|FLUX here.
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