or King Creosote & Jon Hopkins or Gwilym Simcock or elbow. Quite a good bunch really

but I can't get into her. Lord knows I've tried, I've even sing her live, but it's just not happening.

Personally I love Everything Everything, but I'm sure they're not everyone everyone's cup of tea either!

was a huge fan of the last Elbow album but haven't listened to the new one yet...

wheras the woman she reminds me most of made the best record of this year so far for me - PJ Harvey. Not that she'll win again

The James Blake album is very interesting. The King Creosote/Jon Hopkins album is also good. The PJ Harvey album is a PJ Harvey album. Haven't heard any of the rest.

Also, it's sponsored by Barclaycard?!?

I liked them

I have a fiver on King Creosote and Jon Hopkins at 20/1.

I am, it should be said, a mug punter but I do think they have a small chance. And such a beautiful record.

It's a good list but he'll shade it because PJ and Calvi are similar enough to divide. As is often the case, concensus falls on everyone's second favourite (and it doesn't hurt that the have form for 'down wiv the kids voting .. Klaxons anyone?).

Making pop music good again. But it'll probably be a toss-up between Ghostpoet (underground rappy man) or Elbow (because everyone loves them at the moment).

"Katy On A Mission" is just such a good song.

And on the Elbow note, I watched their set from Reading on the old iPlayer last week, and whilst it was good, I couldn't get over the fact that it could really have benefitted from maybe a couple of tracks from before the "Seldom Seen Kid" album. Maybe something like "Forget Myself", "Fallen Angel" or "Asleep In The Back", all of which charted much higher than the more recent tracks, and would have given the set more ooomph. Maybe that's just me. Oh well.

is Everything Everything, and I also rather like the Ghostpoet record.

I strongly believe The Mercury Prize should be about promoting new or underexposed acts like those two. I don't think nominations need to go to well established turns like PJ Harvey or Elbow and certainly not international megastars like Adele. We have The Brit awards for the latter and doubtless she will come away laden with gongs in February.

The Mercury Prize has always had an identity crisis and can't decide if it wants to genuinely promote new music or be a glitzy awards ceremony/media shingdig and has settled for a unsatisfying mix of the two. I guess without the likes of Adele in there, it risks not getting enough attention.

but not necessarily for this album. The guy deserves more recognition though, for being a bloody genius.

isn't actually in there, so I'm not really fussed.

(It's Erland & The Carnival Nightingale if you were wondering.)