Everyone, it seems, has an opinion on this year's Mercury prize. For every "good on you, Speech!" there's a "who cares what a room full of so-called experts thinks anyway?" According to NME's James MacMahon: "There's no mention of what qualifies any of the names on the list (of judges) to pass comment on a record's worth, or even what the process is that precedes the point where Holland says 'and the winner is ...'" In fact, there's no official mention of who the judges actually are. So MacMahon has decided to out them. Here's who he lists:
Janice Long
Former BBC Radio 1 DJ, now of Radio 2
Charles Hazlewood
Noted British classical music conductor
Jude Rogers
Guardian music columnist
Arwa Haider
Metro newspaper music critic
George Ergatoudis
Head of Music, BBC Radio 1
Conor McNicholas
Former editor of NME. Now editor of Top Gear magazine
Mike Flynn
Jazz editor, Time Out magazine
John Kennedy
DJ and presenter of X-Posure new music show on XFM
Mark Findlay
Head of Music, Global Radio
Dean Jackson
DJ BBC Radio Nottingham
While we're sure this won't affect anyone's opinion on the results of this year's prize one way or another, it does beg the question: why the secrecy in the first place?
