And that’s your lot!
Thanks all for reading. Hope you’re as pleased as I am with the result. Mercury blog and it’s shutdown. Off to sleep like a log and I’m shutdown. Going to leave my desk, forget all the rest, going home’s the best, and it’s shutdown. Have a very good night!
So …
Is anyone going to say that isn’t a grand win? Fair play: an album that sounds like modern Britain, made by someone whose music has the distinct hue of the underground, but with wide commercial appeal, who ACTUALLY SOUNDS EXCITING. God know there isn’t enough music that’s exciting at the moment, and Skepta’s someone who’s actually doing something that has an edge. Alexis Petridis will be offering his verdict soon. And I’ll be surprised if he’s upset – he liked Konnichiwa.
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Skepta speaks!
Key points:
- Thanks to everyone
- It’s not just making music
- Thanks to those who helped him through “depressed times”
- Is that his mum on stage with him? I do hope so
- It all came together when he and his crew “started doing it for ourselves and our family”
- It is his mum! Nice shimmy!
- And his dad’s there, too! But he’s a bit hidden
- And all his friends’ mums and dads thanked too!
- “We all [the nominees] get to take the trophy home.” Sorry, you don’t.
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The moment has come!
It’s time to reveal that the winner, as announced by Jarvis Cocker is … Konnichiwa by Skepta! Because it’s what Bowie would have wanted. And here’s the Guide’s interview with him from the other day!
So we’re going to find out any minute …
Now we know Bowie has not won, my money is on Skepta. Have I got time to place a bet?
David Bowie news
His PR has just posted this on Facebook: “Sorry if you put your money on Blackstar but it’s not won The Mercurys.”
Benjamin Clementine!
Is here! And he’s playing a song called Quintessence! I really liked that album last year. But, if I’m honest, I haven’t listened to it since. And if you want proof that winning the Mercury isn’t the passage to fortune that is sometimes thought, consuder this. His album At Least for Now peaked at No 37. Now, that’s a shame. But it’s not wholly surprising: florid, near-baroque balladry isn’t the easiest sell in the world.
Kiwanuka Burgundy
I went to the Mercury ceremony in 2012, when he was nominated for his first album. He played live that year, too. He had a jazz flute. I’d never seen jazz flute played live before. People at my table kept saying “Jazz flute!” to each other.
The final finalist!
It’s Michael Kiwanuka! Tim Jonze spoke to him the other week. Have a read if you don’t want to listen to his song.
Next finalists!
Are Radiohead! With a live clip shot by Paul Thomas Anderson, maker of often unwatchably pretentious films (write your own joke). But they’re not in the room. So they’re not going to win. Serves them right. They might have to smile if they won, and they wouldn’t like that.
Special performance!
The fact that Michael C Hall is performing – he’s the star of the Lazarus stage show, which opens in London soon, and this is in no way a plug for the stage show but a real and sincere tribute to Bowie – puts paid to the theory that Bowie had faked his own death and planned to return at the Mercury ceremony, then. Admittedly, it was not a very popular theory. He’s really been working on his Bowie impersonation. I’d rather have had Michael J Fox, to be honest.
Whatever happened?
To the token jazzer? The A-Z is mentioning the token jazzers, but they don’t seem to bother with them any more. Nice to see mention of the Klaxons. That was a choice no one could regret. They proved to be here to stay, eh? And nice bit of taking the piss out of Tony Parsons and his insistence on the greatness of Mark Morrison.
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Next finalist …
Is the 1975. Their fervent fanbase voted for them, so they’re the public vote inclusion. I’d better be quiet at this point, because anyone who ever looks at Guardian Music knows how much I love them. I must be honest, however, and admit that young Matthew’s voice isn’t sounding at its absolute best here. Because if I don’t, a load of people will tell me so. But bands rarely sound great on live TV, do they?
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A load of American music people …
Were on Facebook earlier, scoffing at BBC 6Music listeners choosing the first Gomez album as their favourite Mercury winner ever. Two words, Americans: JAM BANDS.
Just to remind you …
Of the record that beat Parklife in 1994.
We’re reflecting on the previous years
Apparently it’s a “secret history of British and Irish music”. That would be apart from it being an awards ceremony, rather than something that takes place in a sealed bunker, the results known only to six people, all of whom are shot after learning the winner.
Next finalist!
He started out in pirate radio in east London! Got to be Bowie! Oh, no. It turns out it’s Skepta. He’s doing Shutdown. The song so representative of 2016 it came out in summer 2015. Still great though. My kids run through this one its entirety, often. It would be fair to say they don’t bring quite the same charisma.
Are we feeling tense?
Asks Lauren. No. We’re not.
Exclusive!
Lauren is going to be EXCLUSIVELY revealing the six FINALISTS of the Mercury prize one by one throughout the evening. Kicking off with Laura Mvula and her live performance, earlier tonight. So not quite live, at our end, then. And she is playing a KEYTAR! And her drummer keeps drumming unnervingly. She’s delved into her album to find one of the songs that has a conventional structure. Rather than lots of twiddly bits.
And we're off!
Lauren Laverne has opened the BBC4 coverage. It is the 25th year of the Mercuries, and let’s be honest, it’s all been downhill since M People. If you want to refresh your memory as to the 12 nominees, they’re all here …
And as for the music …
Earlier today, our writers offered their thoughts on who they thought should win, and you can read that right here …
But here are some random thoughts:
- The nation’s music writers are praying the Comet Is Coming don’t win, because no one knows anything about them and it will make writing the post-prize analysis pieces a good bit harder.
- I don’t think Bowie should win. The prize is meant to be about the album that represents British music right now. And with the best will in the world, Blackstar is not that album.
- It remains a disgrace that metal is completely ignored by the Mercury prize. A thriving, commercially successful scene that simply never gets a look-in. I asked Mercury chief judge Simon Frith about this once and his response – I paraphrase, but barely – was that he didn’t care about metal because it’s not really proper music.
- If the prize is to represent British music today, then I think it should go to one of Kano, Skepta or the 1975. Those are the three acts that actually speak to the reality of modern British pop, the first two as representative of a grassroots scene, the latter as a clever portrayal of playlist culture.
- If forced to bet, I’d go for Kano and Skepta, not least as a response to last year’s criticism over the lack of grime.
And here’s a picture of Skepta and his crew!
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Eating it up!
Hannah Ellis-Petersen is there as our news reporter, and she’s already sent us this Pulitzer-worthy scoop: the top-secret, closely guarded menu for the evening’s dinner.
Poached salmon to start. Roast beef for main. And a “dessert and cheese stand” for afters. There wee other fancy bits – “new potato terrine”, “braised ox cheek croquette”, “watercress puree”. But that’s the gist of it. She didn’t tell me the vegetarian option, because she doesn’t recognise the existence of vegetables.
Hello, good evening and welcome!
The 2016 Mercury prize ceremony – sponsored this year by Hyundai, and let’s not dwell on the time they and Kia were fined £62m for not being wholly truthful about fuel economy and greenhouse gas emissions – gets underway on BBC4 on 20 minutes or so. And I’m going to be sitting here in the office, watching it on a computer screen, rather than downing free booze at London’s glamorous Hammersmith Apollo, the venue for my formative gig experiences (oh, beloved Whitesnake, Iron Maiden, Marillion, Judas Priest). My colleague Harriet Gibsone has been a judge this year, but has been singularly unhelpful in giving me information to help me pay off my mortgage via a well-placed bet. In the absence of anything happening yet, here’s a random picture from the red carpet.
