The Mercurys exposed

[Nigel w]

Some very good points, Simon, as I would expect. But there are several things you say that cannot be allowed to go unchallenged.

First you say that "the most important part of the judges’ meetings is the talk not the vote" . Then you say "the basic principle of the prize has always been that the judging results (and the featured music/musicians) matter rather more than the judging process." It can't be both, so which is it? It seems a rather casual attitude to a process that results in a hefty cash reward for the winner and which also generates huge amounts of money for certain artists/labels in terms of enhanced sales for shortlisted records.

Secondly, you write that "obviously who the judges happen to be (and the group dynamic that emerges) has a major impact on the list that emerges." Let's look at that again. The judges have only "a major impact" ? This clearly implies that the votes of the judges do not necessarily tally with the shortlist which you subsequently announce and that there are other factors than the views of the judging panel which come into play. What are those factors? We're not allowed to know and it's precisely this lack of transparency that generates suspicions of some secret, hidden agenda behind the prize.

Thirdly, you say "I think the prize works precisely because the judging process is a bit of a mystery." In fact, that is exactly what has damaged the prize's credibility. Talk to most people in the music industry - and probably the general public,too - and they simply take it for granted that the prize is fixed and that there are all sorts of dodgy deals going on. In my experience, that is certainly not true but it is your insistence on "mystery" that encourages such a view. And as for the suggestion that without this mystery there could be "no flexibility, imagination, surprise and, yes, decidedly odd decisions" , there's no logical connection there at all. Of course there could and to claim otherwise is a trick of rhetoric more worthy of a slippery politician than an esteemed professor usually noted for his academic rigour!

FInally, I agree M People "made exhilarating and much loved music" for a time in the early 1990s. It is also true that hindsight is a wonderful thing. But I'm going to use another political analogy. One of the reasons people have no respect for politicians is their refusal to admit that they ever got anything wrong. Mrs Thatcher will probably go to her grave insisting she was right about the poll tax. You seem to have adopted a similar attitude towards M People's Mercury Prize victory. Regardless of the specific merits or demerits of past winners, why not just put your hand up and say that yes, it is an anomaly that neither Damon Albarn nor Thom Yorke - arguably the two most innovative, inventive and significant British rock musicians of the past 15 years - has ever won the prize? I think you'd be pleasantly surprised to discover that such an admission would actually enhance the credibility of the prize and you as its chairman no end.

[simon frith]

Hmm, I suspect that music business people would think the Mercury Prize was fixed however it worked (for some wonderfully off beam rumours of what really happened this year see this week’s Music Week). But I wanted to pursue another, more interesting question. What would it mean to ‘admit’ we were ‘wrong’? Nigel is rightly proud to have been an eloquent member of the panel the year Talvin Singh won—a decision which many commentators think was obviously wrong (see the press’s annual Mercury histories). The Mercury Prize is not the Academie Française, just a decision made by a particular group of judges at a particular moment as to the Mercury record/s of the year. It’s certainly interesting to look back and see which albums didn’t win/weren’t nominated and scratch one’s head about it but that just suggests the arguments at the time were (unsurprisingly) framed differently then than they would be now. This is the nature of such prizes, which is why they shouldn’t be treated too pompously. (I doubt if the books featured in a scholarly history of late 20th century literature would tally very closely to Booker prize lists). If I’d been the only Mercury judge all the shortlists and most of the eventual winners would have been quite different. In the end I’d think a decision was wrong if it reflected no particular passion or commitment (and again hardly surprisingly the most unexpected winners have emerged from the most heated arguments)—looking ‘objectively’ to posterity doesn’t really come into it. Indeed, I’ve long wondered how such objective value judgements might work here. Does everyone agree that Daman Albarn and Thom Yorke (or, in Mercury terms, Blur and Radiohead) are incontrovertibly the most significant British (rock?) music-makers of the last decade? Does that mean that you listen to their albums more than any other? Admire them more? Can trace their influences across the field? What are the best ways of approaching the question of ‘best records’? It would be interesting to compare the list of Mercury Prize winners with the list of best albums as decided by the market (the 15 best-selling albums of the last 15 years) or by the public (the polls carried out by Q, Channel 4, etc). The Mercury list would probably be odder, certainly more interesting and, possibly, a better reflection of the various strands that make up British popular music culture. How would such lists relate to a ‘definitive’ list prepared by a music critic or historian? Many years ago Charlie and I tried to draw up such a list—an essential rock discography—for a Rock File. It still reads pretty well but reminds me that it was more fun thinking about singles than albums because the criteria for a significant single seemed much more eclectic (a single could be silly and important in a way an album can’t be). What’s changed since then, of course, is that singles no longer matter in the same way (they are no longer important). Are albums? If nothing else the annual Mercury fuss does suggest that people do still care (even if only enough to denounce the whole process).

[Adam Blake]

What’s changed since then, of course, is that singles no longer matter in the same way (they are no longer important). Are albums? If nothing else the annual Mercury fuss does suggest that people do still care (even if only enough to denounce the whole process).

Nice to see you here, Simon. You probably wouldn't remember but I interviewed you for Music Week once upon a time. I asked you: if rock was dead, who should pay for the funeral. Without missing a beat you said, "CBS". (This was before the Sony takeover).

Anyway, I think the single might outlive the album, after all - although not as a record/cd but as a download/ shared file. Teaching teenagers as I do, they are just as hooked on music as my generation was - and they love their dad's Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, AC-DC and Beatles records but what tracks come from what albums is completely irrelevant to them. They just download as many tracks as they can find of their favoured act off Limewire or similar, load up their iPods and off they go. Quite often, they don't even know what a song is called. I recently had rather a heated moment with one young lad who was trying to tell me that "American Woman" by The Guess Who was by Jimi Hendrix. This was because it had said so on the illegal download site he had got it from.
You see where this leads? Never mind, we can all shudder together as veracity and recording credits become more and more meaningless even as awards ceremonies become less and less meaningful to anyone outside the immediate confines of the business itself.
Cheers!