Britain’s biggest musical award, the Mercury Prize, has been steadily unveiling its shortlist of nominees for the 2020 edition throughout the morning. The nominees are deemed to be the best 12 albums released by British artists in the last year, and the overall winner, announced in September, will receive £25,000.
Yesterday there was a little controversy when Nadine Shah tweeted her displeasure at discovering she wasn’t nominated whereas the likes of much bigger, major label acts like The 1975 were. These tweets were later deleted, apparently not by Shah herself, which begs questions about the white washing of genuine outspokenness by those in power in the industry, in favour of maintaining a spotless public profile for those artists over whom they have dominion.
It now turns out that while Shah’s Kitchen Sink is indeed not nominated, The 1975’s Notes On A Conditional Form also did not get the nod. Whether this was due to pressure from Shah’s public outcry or whether she just had bad information, we don’t know.
The full list of nominees is:
Laura Marling – Song For Our Daughter
Dua Lipa – Future Nostalgia
Porridge Radio – Every Bad
Sports Team – Deep Down Happy
Kano – Hoodies All Summer
Anna Meredith – FIBS
Georgia – Seeking Thrills
Lanterns on the Lake – Spook the Herd
Moses Boyd – Dark Matter
Charli xcx – how i’m feeling now
Stormzy – Heavy is the Head
Michael Kiwanuka – Kiwanuka
You can see short reaction videos from each of the nominees on the Mercury Prize’s Twitter feed. The award ceremony when the overall winner is announced will take place on Thursday September 10.
