As I familiarly say because I publish this blog so damn rarely... it's been a while. In terms of my life, University is now done and dusted, I spent a month having the trip of lifetime in the US of A and have now had reality give me a massive slap in the nuts as I return to my parent's home in London and a relatively dead-end 9 to 5 job. The two things I learnt in America:
1) EVERYONE loves Disclosure.
2) NO ONE and I repeat NO ONE in the US has heard of Jimmy Saville.
Anywho... to keep me going I thought I'd try and carry on publishing the stuff I'm listening to and promoting new bands whenever I see fit, along with the odd thought of the week. The focus of the posts will probably shift away from Yorkshire a bit and spread around the country but no one think for a second that Sheffield doesn't still occupy a really quite hefty place in my heart.
Yesterday was mercury prize nomination day. A yearly event which pretty much everyone forgets about and very few people care about but is always a good indicator of the state of the UK music industry at any given time. If this year's nomination pool is anything to go by then this hasn't been the freshest year for new musical talent, every band on the shortlist who has released more than one album has been nominated before, leaving debutants Jake Bugg, Disclosure, Rudimental, Laura Mvula and Savages (so in all fairness quite a few). Last year Alt-J scooped the prize and were touted by a number of bookies as the most highly-backed band in history to win the gong in its fledgling 20-odd year run. This year things look a little bit tighter. While art-rock trio London Grammar were favourites to win the prize before the nominations were announced, it came as a shock to many a fan, me definitely included, to see them not even make the shortlist. Their airy floaty new-xx vibe seemed exactly the kind of sound the judges would be looking for and the fact they released debut offering If You Wait precisely on the final day that albums could be considered for the listing made perfect sense (have a gander at my review of the new LP right over here, shameless plugging I know and for that I'm majorly apologetic).
Instead of the Grammar, the new favourite to emerge is David Bowie of all people. I must admit at this juncture that his is the only album on the list I'm yet to get round to listening to and to be frank I somehow can't see it happening very soon but I hear great things. Would it be a major step backwards however to issue the main prize to a man who was at the height of his talents over 40 years ago? Maybe I'm being a tad cynical I don't know. Other front runners include Arctic Monkeys who's new showing AM was released last Monday and will be a certain topic for my next blog (I'm still waiting for the fucking CD in the post and feel a right mug for pledging not to listen to a single track before it arrived, hurry the fuck up Amazon!) is leaving critics speechless and could stand the Monkeys in good stead to become the second act in history to win the Mercury twice (PJ Harvey did it in 2001 and 2011 but to be fair she's really fucking strange so I may consider them the first).
Post-punk trio Savages have drawn praise from all quarters of the musical critiquing world for their angry raunchy debut Silence Yourself and could be considered an outside bet while if this was only a few months ago and everyone wasn't so fed up of his unbelievably moody teeanger-going-through-puberty-like-scowl (see below) I'd have given Jake Bugg a real shout. James Blake's Overgrown is his second consecutive nomination and deservedly so but I somehow struggle to see him quite making that final final cut and can't really see him giving too much of a shit about the whole ordeal.
But the really seriously important part is my opinion and for me it's got to be a two-way scrap between Disclosure and Jon Hopkins. These are the two that have really pushed the boundaries this year and if that's what the Mercuries are all about then they really can't be ignored. Guy and Howard Lawrence of Dislclosure, both under the age of 21 demonstrated that house music can have strong pop elements while still being lauded by critics and set loose a fresh array of young British electronic talent into the limelight while Jon Hopkins demonstrated just how far-reaching and emotive a techno record can be, his nomination Immunity is an absolute masterpiece and should be heard by all.
It's a strange list... some serious talent but nothing truly breathtakingly exciting with the possible exception of the two mentioned in the above paragraph. This more than anything could possibly be down to the fact I discovered yesterday that bands have to pay a fee in order to even be considered for nomination. There must be some serious gems out there that didn't have the funds or simply couldn't be bothered to submit to this tiring process which is a bit of a shame. Quite why you have to pay to probably not win a prize is a bit puzzling but there you go, that's capitalism for you (only joking, I'm really not that guy).
Until early next week, when AM will have dropped swiftly through my letterbox and I'll be bumming it out to my heart's content. I've linked a few of the better tunes off the nominees records at the bottom if anyone fancies a cheeky listen.
Cheers as always for taking the time to have a read and if anyone's got any music to recommend hit me up at @goldbart1 on twitter or on facebook.
And oh shit I didn't even mention Foals, another big name to throw into the mix, bloody fantastic album.
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