I'm going to whack on 'Hemispheres'.

To be serious, I have great difficulty in understanding what the hell the purpose of the Mercury Music Prize actually is. It seems utterly pointless to me.

A while back, it used to be that the Mercury celebrated new / innovative / well written music.

Now it seems that the organisers found a copy of NME lying around and picked all their favourite bands. Seriously lame.

i leave the country. she shouldn't even get a nomination.
i say that as a massive fan of pop music.

They got it right last year with Elbow though.

obviously a couple more to be added, but based on this list I would give it to Friendly Fires.

For me Bat For Lashes is my favourite of the list.

The La Roux album is ruined by her voice being far too grating over the course of the album.

Florence is good but inconsistent, for my money, and doesn't feel like a coherent album as a whole (partly the fault of Kiss With A Fist which just doesn't seem to fit with the tone of the rest of the record)

I do like the Little Boots record, but it's hardly groundbreaking. Honestly, I think she's completely stuffed. They've invested a lot of money into someone who would have been a great mid-sized fanbase artist and she'll never hit whatever sales targets they've dreamed up, I fear.

The rest I haven't heard apart from singles.

for Lashes

"(Glasvegas) were the biggest unknown band it was cool to have heard of" that stop me from reading the Independent, it's complete bloody nonsense!

uninterested.

& wave goodbye to about 90%

...but it would be a travesty if The Phantom Band didn't make the shortlist.

So no Little Boots then. Or Doves, presumably seen as too similar to last year's winners.

Kasabian - West Ryder Pauper Lunatic Asylum
The Horrors - Primary Colours
Friendly Fires - Friendly Fires
Glasvegas - Glasvegas
La Roux - La Roux
Florence And The Machine - Lungs
Bat For Lashes - Two Suns
Lisa Hannigan - Sea Sew
The Invisible - the Invisible
Led Bib - Sensible Shoes
Sweet Billy Pilgrim - Twice Born Men
Speech Debelle - Speech Therapy

No Phantom Band!!

So says Andy Gill in the Independent this morning. I tend to agree but would also add that typically amongst most years' nominees, there are only one or two genuinely innovative artists. This year there are none at all. Bat For Lashes and Florence are just Kate Bush Lite without the genius. Lisa Hannigan is nice but mediocre and, well, I am so underwhelmed by the rest I can't be bothered to comment on them.

Where are the genuinely interesting artists working in fields other than pop-rock. Where's the folk (proper folk, not token folk) where's the electronica, where's the jazz?

Anybody who has ever looked to the Mercury Music Prize for this has been looking in the wrong place. It is what it is -- coffee table music for people who call Glastonbury 'Glasto'.

As usual, the Daily Mash's take is glorious:

THE winner of this year's Mercury Music prize will be be given some money to go away and write an actual tune, it has been confirmed.

Announcing this year's shortlist the organisers said nominees including Glasvegas, the Horrors and Kasabian will get the chance to spend £20,000 to come up with something that does not sound like a crash helmet full of bees.

Music fan Wayne Hayes said: "I really hope it goes to Kasabian, not because of their music obviously, but because they named themselves after the getaway driver for a gang of brutal murderers and I think that's really cool."

Along with the cheque, the winners will get 10 free music lessons and a studio session with someone who can tell the difference between 'good' and 'awful'.

Producer Tom Logan said: "For £20,000 we can bang them out an album, full of potential singles and proper choruses, and not one of them will sound like somebody urinating on a Stylophone."

For those who don't know many of the above records, I will summarise the ones I have, to give an idea. Can't vouch for the others though.

The Horrors - Primary Colours
Intense, fairly lo-fi influenced post-punk/krautrock style band, not something you could sing along to, but it is good.

Bat For Lashes - Two Suns
More expansive than the debut album, this is good modern pop music with inventiveness taken over the quirky aspects that people seem to focus on.

Lisa Hannigan - Sea Sew
Standard modern Irish singer songwriter folk, similar to Damien Rice and Gemma Hayes. Some good songs, but in my opinion not as good as either.

The Invisible - The Invisible
"Britain's answer to TV On The Radio" is about it really. Some good funky indie with danceable grooves and some harmonies.

Out of the other stuff I've heard of the artists, I don't know why Friendly Fires and Glasvegas are included. They're both severely out of tune "hype" supposedly indie bands. And don't get me started on Florence or La Roux...