If any genre gets an unusually strong showing, it’s pop. For better or worse, this year’s list of nominees avoids the prize’s recent controversies (a lack of grime, swiftly rectified) by playing it safe. If Ed Sheeran was nominated for the commercial colossus ÷ last year, then George Ezra must be feeling sore that Staying at Tamara’s didn’t fill that seat in 2018. Photograph: Jordi Vidal/RedfernsĪs ever, it raises questions about the Mercury judges’ methodology: in jazz’s case, it seems unchangingly rigid, but then whims come and go elsewhere. Kamaal Williams’ The Return is oddly absent, and albums by Tenderlonious (The Shakedown featuring the 22archestra), Zara McFarlane (Arise) and Joe Armon-Jones (Starting Today) were similarly worthy of recognition.įlorence + the Machine performing in Bilbao, 12 July 2018. Just as the Mercury gave grime its dues in 20 (this year limited to Novelist, for Novelist Guy), in 2018 we might have seen the token choice taken seriously, with – humour the thought – more than one jazz contender. Once again, there is a jazz album on this year’s list – Sons of Kemet’s excellent Your Queen Is a Reptile – but for the first time in years, British jazz feels central to culture: vivid, youthful and relevant, intertwined with sweaty dancefloors rather than confined to rarefied enclaves. These brassy outliers – from that year’s Bheki Mseleku to Dinosaur in 2017 – never win, making their nominations seem like that Christmas card to a long-estranged acquaintance that you can’t quite bring yourself to stop sending. T he “ token jazz album” has been part of the Mercury’s DNA since the prize’s inception in 1992.
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