Rock bands Fontaines DC and Wolf Alice are vying with pop star CMAT, rock singer Sam Fender and newcomer Jacob Alon to take home the 2025 Mercury Prize.
The 12-album shortlist for this year’s awards show was announced today (Wednesday 10 September) on BBC Radio 6 Music by Lauren Laverne.
With a nod for their recent album, 2025’s The Clearing, Wolf Alice have now been shortlisted for all four of their studio albums; they won the prize in 2018 for their second record, Visions of a Life.
Interviewing the band for The Independent, critic Adam White noted how The Clearing felt like the band’s “most mature” record, “if only because the anxious and unsettled melancholy that underpinned albums one through three has been replaced by a sigh of acceptance”.
Irish rock band Fontaines DC are also familiar faces at the Mercury Prize, having previously been shortlisted for their 2019 debut, Dogrel. They are nominated this year for their fourth album, the critically adored 2024 record Romance, which shows them explore elements of synth rock, chamber pop and shoegaze.
Pop star CMAT is also back just a year after being shortlisted for her second album, Crazymad, for Me. She is now up for what many critics are regarding as her breakthrough record, Euro-Country, which topped the charts in her native Ireland and also made the No 2 spot in the UK.
Both Fontaines DC and CMAT will be considered strong contenders for the Mercury Prize, which has never been won by an Irish act before – a fact noted by Fontaines’ guitarist Carlos O’Connell back in 2019, during an interview with The Independent.
“There have been plenty of shortlisted acts – but in a self-deprecating way I wonder if there has to be a token Irish band each year,” he said.
Stadium rocker Sam Fender, meanwhile, will be another favourite to win with his third album, People Watching, which topped the charts on its release and received praise from a number of critics.
The 31-year-old – whose career has skyrocketed since he broke through with his 2019 debut, Hypersonic Missiles – recently completed a huge run of shows including three nights at the 52,000-capacity St James’ Park in Newcastle.
This year’s Mercury Prize is also being held in Newcastle, a stone’s throw from where the singer-songwriter grew up in North Shields. The 2025 ceremony will mark the first time it is being held outside of London, instead taking place on Thursday 16 October at Newcastle’s Utilita Arena.
Influential folk artist Martin Carthy beats American jazz musician Pharoah Sanders’ record to become the oldest artist ever shortlisted for the award, aged 84, for his 2025 album Transform Me Then Into a Fish.
Sanders was 80 when Promises – the collaborative album by British electronic musician Floating Points – was nominated in 2021. It was also the final album Sanders released before his death the following year.
Remarkably, this is Carthy’s first time on a Mercury Prize shortlist in a career spanning 60 years and 19 studio albums. His daughter Eliza Carthy, with whom he has collaborated on a number of occasions, has been shortlisted twice: first in 1998, then again in 2003.
Instead of the usual “token jazz album”, two jazz records appear on this year’s shortlist. The first spot goes to Welsh pianist Joe Webb, for his technically impressive, well-humoured album Hamstrings and Hurricanes, while the second is taken by musical polymath Emma-Jean Thackray, whose 2025 record Weirdo melds jazz with rock, funk and hip-hop influences. In 2023, Ezra Collective became the first jazz act ever to win the prize in the show’s then 31-year history.
Scottish singer-songwriter Jacob Alon is another Mercury Prize first-timer with their debut, Limerence, which explores themes of sexuality, romantic obsession and loneliness in the queer community. The honour comes barely a year after Alon gave a memorable performance of their debut single, “Fairy in a Bottle”, on Later... with Jools Holland.
In an interview with The Independent in January, Alon spoke about how, growing up in Fife, they didn’t believe a career in music was possible: “I think it’s quite a Scottish mentality, but especially in Fife, there’s a low ceiling on what you can dream for.”
Rounding off the shortlist is avant-garde pop artist FKA twigs and her album Eusexua, rapper and singer Pa Salieu with Afrikan Alien, Pulp with More – their first album in 24 years – and singer-songwriter and producer PinkPantheress, with her second mixtape Fancy That.
The shortlist is curated by an independent judging panel of music industry professionals, among them jazz musician Jamie Cullum, The Times’s chief pop and rock critic Will Hodgkinson, BBC Radio 6 presenter Jamz Supernova, and Radio 1 presenter Sian Eleri.
The full shortlist for the 2025 Mercury Prize is:
CMAT, Euro-Country
Emma-Jean Thackray, Weirdo
FKA twigs, Eusexua
Fontaines DC, 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
Last year’s Mercury Prize went to the Leeds-formed indie-rock band English Teacher, who won for their debut This Could Be Texas, beating acts including pop star Charli xcx and baroque-pop band The Last Dinner Party.
The Mercury Prize awards show takes place on Thursday 16 October at the Utilita Arena, Newcastle.
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