Entertainment For Lively Minds
Mercury prize 1981
Posted by Andy Mackenzie on 18 July 2011 - 11:31pm.
Listening to Steve Lamacq this evening on 6 music. He was talking about the upcoming Mercury prize nominations. Apparently last year on his show he discussed which album would have won the Mercury if it had been around in 1980. Tomorrow he's inviting people's suggestions for who would have claimed the prize for 1981. Cracking idea I thought, so unable to wait till tomorrow I thought I'd ask the question here. What would have won the Mercury prize if it had been around in 1981?
For me it's got to be Dare by The Human league
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Some contenders...
The Sound - From The Lion's Mouth
Psychedelic Furs - Talk Talk Talk
Siouxsie and the Banshees - Juju
If you like that kind of 'Old'
I reckon you might like this 'New':
http://www.wordmagazine.co.uk/content/the-horrors-0
I'm a fully paid up member
of the Horrors fan club. Best live band I've seen this year (so far) so I'm traversing the Pennines in October to see them again.
A plea that will probably fall on deaf ideas
Why don't Word, the blog and Steve Lamacq actually do this, in real time, to compliment the 2011 competition?
We could have a jury of Word staffers, Word bloggers with music industry experience, and SL himself on the jury, who sit and announce at the same time as the Mercury Nationwide committee, using the same operational criteria.
Beforehand, Word bloggers (and perhaps others including genre music specialists to give it a broader spread) could submit items to the longlist before the final ten are announced.
There's a possibility that SL does something like this on his show anyway (I don't listen), but I think it would be great.
Another contender from Sheffield
Oh, and also:
OMD
IIRC, it was released in 82
nope...
...present from my first girlfriend, beautifully complimenting the 'music centre' from mum & dad, christmas 1981
Sons and Fascination
many good choices
so where is "heaven up here"?
what about "prayers on fire" by the birthday party?
both bands did better...and "sulk" didn't come out 'till 1982..
as far as the ethos of the mercury prize is concerned (tries very hard to be hip and not give the award to the ear pleasing platinum shippers) i have no reservations in saying "my life in the bush of ghosts" would have walked away with it ..
and i can think of a lot worse
HUH is another top pick
But 'Bush' was 1980. Would have been one of the top contenders and hasn't aged a day in 30 years.
A pedant writes
Isn't the norm with the MMP that it's awarded in late summer so the eligible records for the 2011 prize will have been released between last summer and this.
If (and I'm not saying you should, but) if you were following the same principle in 1981 then (for example) the eligible OMD album would be Organisation rather than Architecture and Morality.
And I could mention Motorhead's Ace Of Spades.
Oh, and according to Wiki the 25th anniversary edition of Eno's MLITBOG was released in April 2006, so it's definitely in either way. And yes, it's exactly the kind of record that would win.
good point pedant
and by using those criterea "remain in light" now qualifies and cleans up on the night!!
Tin Drum by Japan
and Trust by Elvis Costello
are maybes, but I feel it almost certainly would have been
East Side Story by Squeeze
Why? With its old wave chops, and new wave pedigree, I suspect it would have been the album least likely to split the jury. A lot of the artists listed are "marmite" acts, and Squeeze would have got through through on the second choice vote. I mean, who finds Squeeze objectionable?
What's more, it would have been less than two month's old by the time the jury sat, and that wouldn't have done it any harm.
This thread
Is making me feel very old.
This is the year I left home and everything was exciting and fresh. East side Story and Trust were both on very heavy rotation, as was Wha'ppen by the Beat, but I reckon Tom Tom Club would have figured highly in any Mercury prize stylee competition. Not posting a clip as I'm on mobile broadband and it takes an age to load any!
Good calls...
...but wouldn't TTC be disbarred because they are an American band?
MLITBWG would probably be ok - isn't David Byrne actually Scottish by birth?
MLITBOG
would have been OK on the grounds that Eno is a Brit. The situation, if not the album, is comparable with the Robert Plant/Alison Krauss record that was nominated a couple of years back.
I would nominate
The Fall - Slates
The Pretenders - The Pretenders
Is there any love for
the wonderful "LC" by the Durutti Column?
Rush - 'Moving Pictures'
Klassik. KKKKK
But also made by foreigners
and therefore, sadly, ineligible (like Tom Tom Club above).
Oh....
I didn't know that.
Brits aside, only the foightin' Irish are allowed
so you could have nominated Moving Hearts' debut to generate some H Block shaped Daily-Mail-baiting controversy..
Au Pairs
Playing With A Different Sex
Contenders
Brain Eno & David Byrne - My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts
Adam & The Ants - Prince Charming
Pretenders - Pretenders
Outside Bet:
Saxon - Denim & Leather
As Usual
is the answer as usual
People, people - how many more times does the simple truth of this statement need to be elucidated?
I'm not around as much these days - so I really would thank you to remember, the simple statement:
As usual, the answer is David Bowie
Having been released in September 1980, Scary Monsters, the last great album he made in an unparalleled sequence of great albums starting with Hunky Dory would have qualified for the time period of the judging and would have been the hands down winner.
As usual
good call Sheev
My only quibble with your post would be to say that his great run started with "The man who sold the world".
good point
as usual
The Space Oddity LP 'oft' gets left out......
.....by 60s dodgers, I reckon.
(a) it's from the Golden Age, the 60s.
(b) it's got Wild Eyed Boy, Memory Of A Free Festival and.....erm.....Space Oddity on it.
David Bowie.
The 1970s.
Where did it all go wrong?
Oh, yeah, I answered it.
The 1970s.
It wasn't just you, Dave.
I think ...
Brain Eno & David Byrne - My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts would be fighting it out with Dare
Nightclubbing by Grace Jones
In 1981 it felt like it was beamed in from outer space. Still sounds fresh today.
If the Mercury prize rules apply then surely Sound Affects by the Jam has to be right up there as it was released november 1980.
Just realised ...
... she's not British. Stick with the Jam.
Edinburgh's Finest
can't be
that's not josef k
whose debut "the only fun in town" probably would have been nominated..or won in a fair universe
Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret
More Specials?
Probably wouldn't win as they wouldn't want a group to have back-to-back wins. Panel might be swayed by the godlike genius of Ghost Town at number 1 (30 years ago today!)
PS Ghost Town not on LP as any fule kno...
By 'eck
1981 was a good year, wasn't it?
1981
is showing up the paucity of choice that we have this year, I'm desperately trying to remember anything as bad as Adele that could have snuck in there by virtue of selling a bit
Heaven Up Here
..would have walked it. The Bunnymen's finest hour.
Token jazz (funk) contender
Token black artist
More suggestions
UB40 - Present Arms (May 81)
Skids - The Absolute Game (Sept 80)
(Skids, Circus Games)
Present Arms IN DUB!!
There's your left field suggestion. Judges would be all over some spaced out hard core dub reggae groove version of One in Ten performed by a young multicultural band from a deprived area of the industrial midlands. As a 40/1 outside, this is THE bet. Lump on.
Record and Tape Exchange on the Goldhawk Road always had shedloads of this record.
Closer. Joy Division.
Debate closed.
And while we're on the subject of British reggae acts,
this was a pretty decent album:
Aswad - New Chapter (1981)
And another British reggae album (see Present Arms above)...
...that had a great Dub version issued later (New Chapter in Dub, natch).
Token classical act
Ah
Another charity shop stalwart.
So
Are we just going to wait until next year when Steve Lamacq gives us permission to do the 1982 shortlist?
It was such a good year that I, for one, can't wait. Check out these for openers:
Lexicon IS brilliant, but there were other contenders
Such as..
"sulk" wins
then "you can't hide your love forever"
see also "pornography", "a kiss in the dreamhouse"..
so many great bands made their greatest records in 1982..as evident from the above posts..
if anything an even better year..post-punk's (second)last hurrah..
Mercury Music Prize 1969
Quicksilver Messenger Service would have been a shoo-in.
I'll get me poncho....
Mercury Music Prize 1695
Henry Purcell's "Music for the Funeral of Queen Mary" would have been a shoo-in.
I'll get me tabard...
Mercury Music Prize 1982
Klaus Nomi's "A Simple Man" would have been a shoo-in.
I'll get me thigh-high snakeskin boots...