Speech Therapy
Article published: Thursday, September 17th 2009
Odds-on favourites fell by the wayside on Tuesday 8 September as Speech Debelle was named Mercury Music Prize winner 2009. Kyle Soo took a moment to assess the importance of the award itself.
The Mercury Prize came and went for another year and, like many other celestial events, it was a chance to gaze at a lot of stars while simultaneously questioning whether it was worth staying up for at all. This was how many music lovers across the UK must have assessed their Tuesday night, eagerly awaiting the results, and counting down the time before Jools Holland disappeared from their screens.
Like in many previous years, the award did not go to the bookies’ favourite. This time, the recipient was Speech Debelle – a London rapper whose album was highlighted for its jazz and rap infusions – rather than the strongly favoured frontrunner, Florence and the Machine. This is a characteristic, perhaps even contrived trait, of the award, which last year saw acts such as Radiohead and the Last Shadow Puppets trumped by Elbow. As occurs every year, the winners saw their careers since set off on a meteoric rise.
An award celebrating albums might be considered outmoded in a generation that focuses on (often illegally obtained) single downloads. In the UK now, the song rules the day while albums are reserved for an older generation. Genre compilations and Best Of… titles usually dominate as Vera Lynn and Bob Dylan, first and second in the album charts currently, may attest. Arguably, however, this is a strength of the Mercury Music Award, and may even play a crucial role in the fight to keep the LP format alive. On prestige terms it ranks highly too, although it may be seen to tread the thin line of pretension on more than a few occasions. The prize has also been suitably lambasted for its apparent use of positive discrimination in ensuring that certain “idiosyncratic” records appear, year after year. The inclusion of the “rap act”, the “jazz act” and the “weird-one-know-one-has-ever-heard-of” (probably drawn from the bargain bin at WHSmith) is shamelessly contrived and often produces a shortlist that resembles the musical equivalent of Big Brother.
Nevertheless, this too may be reason enough to support it as a notable music event. The exposure to new acts is highly beneficial, especially to those mainstream store stock planners, who appear to have tunnel-hearing when it comes to some genres. Unlike many other awards, Mercury prides itself on setting the musical agenda rather than confirming it. Consequently for the wider public, drip-fed on the likes of the NME, it surely aids in the cultural betterment of society in terms of the diversity – to an extent – it champions.
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