The Agenda Setter: Best in class? Who is going to walk away with the Mercury Prize 2024

WHAT EVERYONE SHOULD BE TALKING ABOUT THIS WEEK

Twelve albums, one winner – as the Mercury Prize prepares to crown another album for 2024, who will walk away with one of music’s most treasured gongs?

Words: Ciaran Picker.

You’re unlikely to see an award shortlist as diverse as that of the Mercury Prize. If you look at the last three winners even, it’s hard to draw a thread between them. Rap superstar Little Simz, Irish trad-folk outfit Lankum, and explosive jazz-funk group Ezra Collective all came out on top in their respective years, a testament to both the strength in depth across British and Irish music but also the eclectic brilliance championed by this award. 

This year’s shortlist continues the Mercury Prize’s dedication to difference, forging a hand-picked selection of albums representing every corner and every culture of British and Irish music. Where other award shows promote specific genres, the biggest acts, or sometimes just the most social media savvy, the Mercury sets itself apart as an award that celebrates a smorgasbord of the most exciting, expansive, and egregiously talented musicians on the scene, all chosen by an impressive list of music experts. 

But, Dear Reader, who is actually nominated for the prize, and are their albums any good? Well, let’s have a closer look at the shortlist, shall we? 

BARRY CAN’T SWIM – WHEN WILL WE LAND?

Is there any other genre right now having quite as big a renaissance as electronic music? The number of immensely talented DJs and producers at the top of festival line-ups is ever-increasing, and it’s not going to be long until Barry Can’t Swim is among the heavyweights. The alter ego of Edinburgh’s Joshua Mannie, his debut album ‘When Will We Land?’ represents the best that electronica has to offer. From the ethereal beauty of opener ‘When Will We Land?’, into the intense acid house poetry of ‘Deadbeat Gospel’, this album is an amorphous mass that refuses to stay in one place too long. Travelling through decades, from the heavy 80s-style bass in ‘Tell Me What You Need’ to the late-90s ambient house vibes of ‘Woman’, and even across continents to the samba rhythms of carnival anthem ‘Dance of the Crab’, it’s an album threaded together by innovation. Similar sounds present themselves in different formations, creating a familiar, frenetic, and fabulous palette that fires this album into the stars, and deservedly straight into the running for the Mercury Prize. There we land.

BERWYN – WHO AM I

‘Who Am I’ stands out as perhaps the most important and relevant album on the shortlist. An album focussed on BERWYN’s status as a Trinidadian-born British immigrant, it is as politically charged as it is poignantly crafted. Flitting between buttery smooth vocal and poetic rap verses, he creates a soundscape that is as complex as the album’s subject matter, highlighting his mixed emotions about his life in Britain by contrasting comforting tracks such as opener ‘BAD THING’ with frantically nuanced title-track ‘WHO AM I’. In the wake of recent far-right riots across Britain, BERWYN has captured the zeitgeist, providing a necessary reminder of the socio-cultural richness that immigration and multiculturalism have brought to Britain. Whether in the form of starkly stripped back ‘DEAR IMMIGRATION’, pulsating anthem ‘I AM BLACK’, or heartstring-tugging ‘ALL SHE EVER WANTED’, this record brings together the social comment of the London grime scene, the syncopated rhythms of Caribbean reggae, and a sprinkling of identifiably American hip-hop and R&B to form an LP that is visceral, unapologetic, and masterfully poised.

BETH GIBBONS – LIVES OUTGROWN

You don’t get to be the lead singer of one of Britain’s biggest-ever bands without a fair amount of talent. Former Portishead vocalist Beth Gibbons proves that ten times over in ‘Lives Outgrown’, a tender exploration of loss and grief that expands the accepted boundaries of alternative music, and her first solo in 22 years. Gibbons’ haunting vocal flows into a swirling soundscape, spilling out over stretched phrases and blurred edges that speak to her experience and confidence. It’s an album unafraid to play to with expectation, contrasting ideas to create levity amongst what is otherwise a fairly gloomy, enclosed atmosphere. A children’s choir, employed on ‘Floating On A Moment’, sings “we’re all going to nowhere”, while hypnotic, almost tribal percussion on ‘Burden of Life’ is spliced together with Irish trad-folk violin. There are also moments, such as ‘Beyond The Sun’, that race to the finish, and brass-laden ‘Reaching Out’ carries an ominous presence that quickens your pulse. ‘Lives Outgrown’ is an album that demands and commands your attention, and certainly shouldn’t be overlooked for the top prize.

CAT BURNS – EARLY TWENTIES

‘early twenties’ is arguably the most gen-z album on the entire shortlist, with Cat Burns’ beautifully blunt lyricism creating a no-frills journey through all the uncertainty and anxiety that comes with growing up on 21st Century Planet Earth. Her hit single ‘go’ was an insight into the universe she was creating, one full of introspection and vulnerability, but one also with huge amounts of hope and optimism. Being open and honest about her struggles with depression allowed Cat to make ‘early twenties’ inescapably real, diving headfirst into the bleakness of mental health crises in ‘low self-esteem’, or into the helplessness of ‘people pleaser’, but managing to avoid wallowing in self-pity. Cat’s neurodiversity is as celebrated on this album as it is analysed, using moments of levity in ‘live more & love more’ and ‘happier without you’ to create shards of light through the always-threatening dark clouds of young adulthood. 

CHARLI XCX – BRAT

It’s fair to say that if this award were fan-voted, ‘brat’ would probably win by about 8 million votes. The cultural impact that Charli xcx’s dance-pop phenomenon has had on the world will almost certainly be studied by academics for years to come, with it being impossible to escape the lower-case black font and visceral green backdrop across this ‘brat summer’. It’s unclear for anyone over the age of 22 exactly what ‘being brat’ really means, but it’s abundantly obvious why the album was nominated for the Mercury. Charli’s ability to turn sweaty, underground drum and bass anthems into mainstream pop is a testament to her songwriting and production skills, combining the thunderous beats of ‘Guess’ with bouncier pop melodies in ‘Apple’ to create an album that is as catchy as it is introspective. Charli is rave-pop royalty, but she’s also ‘just a girl from Essex’, serving all the ‘Club Classic’-fuelled highs and self-loathing comedowns that come with that. This award season is likely to be wall-to-wall brat green, so why not start with one of the biggest prizes in British music?

CMAT – CRAZYMAD, FOR ME

Oh, CMAT, where would we be without you? Representing the Emerald Isle all by herself on this year’s shortlist, she carries the support of a nation behind her, and with good reason. ‘Crazymad, for Me’ is the break-up album to end all break-up albums, analysing all the stages of grief with unbelievable clarity and infectious personality. She’s as adept at the huge pop singles like ‘Stay For Something’ as she is with the heartbreaking soft acoustics like ‘Such A Miranda’, creating a universe that is shatteringly vulnerable whilst also being full of levity, humour, and honesty. Opening up about personality crises in ‘Can’t Make Up My Mind’, needing to escape in ‘California’, or experiencing a mental breakdown in ‘Whatever’s Inconvenient’, CMAT creates country-pop classics that are as infectious and addictive as she is, with her slightly chaotic but eternally human energy gaining her fans across continents, and across genres. This album is arguably the best pop album of the last twelve months and would make CMAT a worthy winner of the Mercury.

CORINNE BAILEY RAE – BLACK RAINBOWS

Eclectic. That’s the word to describe Corinne Bailey Rae’s tour-de-force record, ‘Black Rainbows’. Her fourth album, it represents a totally different artist to the one that burst onto the scene with ‘Put Your Records On’ in 2006. Opener ‘A Spell, A Prayer’ gives a taste of what’s to come, providing hints at the sheer breadth of genres and ideas that Bailey Rae explores on this record. The track’s fuzzy, distorted guitar lines make a reappearance in the rumbling electro-shoegaze of ‘Black Rainbows’, before new age punk track ‘New York Transit Queen’ explodes with all the kinetic energy that had been building. There are also moments of real unique beauty, most notably on ambient house track ‘Earthlings’, soulful piano ballad ‘Peach Velvet Sky’, and trip-hop anthem ‘Put It Down’, combining Corinne Bailey Rae’s crystal-clear tone with an accomplished and all-encompassing backdrop that stitches together the moments of madness beautifully with the perfectly executed traditional elements. Impossible to accurately sum up, it’s equally impossible to ignore this album as a real Mercury Prize contender.

CORTO.ALTO – BAD WITH NAMES

It wouldn’t be a Mercury shortlist without a virtuoso-level, new-age jazz artist present. Enter corto.alto, who, like most artists on this list, takes you on a journey that is impossible to predict. The sweeping orchestral movement of opener ‘Intro for Strings’ slowly descends into pizzicato in ‘Hello’ before classic jazz takes the reins, opening the door to a stormer of a jazz record. ‘Xoxoxo’ is the culmination of all this frankly unbelievable craftsmanship, combining throbbing bass, expressive percussion, a languid string section, and a jazz piano part that carries enough embellishment to send the track into the stratosphere. This theme continues through the Caribbean vibes of ‘Slope’, the smooth aura of ‘Would You Mind?’, and the blaring jazz-rock of Bond theme-esque ‘Mechanisms’. Electronic beats and fills, for example, in ‘Bye’, bring all the Roaring 20s glitz and glamour screeching into the 21st Century. It might not be an album that has had massive airtime, but it’s certainly one that deserves any and all accolades, not least a place on this Mercury shortlist.

Photo credit: Patrick Gunning / Dork

ENGLISH TEACHER – THIS COULD BE TEXAS

The Mercury Prize has always been a chance for more experimental, earnest albums to get the praise they deserve. English Teacher’s ‘This Could Be Texas’ is just that. A tribute to the cross-Pennine landscape that raised them, the quartet travel through traditional indie-rock, jazz-blues, and even punk on their 13-song debut masterpiece. From the minute ‘The World’s Biggest Paving Slab’ dropped in August 2023, it was clear that this was a very special band with a terrifyingly bright future. Taking on topics as seemingly mundane as kitchen table drama in ‘Broken Biscuits’, as painfully relatable as anxious indecision in ‘Mastermind Specialism, and as depressing as society’s ever-present racial bias in ‘R&B’, the quartet play with metaphor, tempo, and instrumental modulation with a maturity befitting a band several albums into their career. What makes English Teacher a truly electrifying prospect, is that this is their debut record. This raw edge brings grit to proceedings, such as on ‘I’m Not Crying, You’re Crying’ or in Lily Fontaine’s cathartic shouts in ‘Nearly Daffodils’, resulting in an album made perfect by these very imperfections.

GHETTS – ON PURPOSE, WITH PURPOSE

Ghetts’ longevity isn’t something to be surprised by. Ten years since his debut record ‘Rebel with a Cause’, his latest offering is as effervescent as it is expressive, combining sonic patterns heavily inspired by the London grime and drill scene of the 2000s and 2010s, with an immediacy in the issues discussed on vast swathes of the album that keeps him not only relevant but necessary. Featuring the uniquely beautiful tone of Sampha, ‘Double Standards’ carries with it piercing social analysis of global political hypocrisy, providing the clearest example that this is the Ghetts we know and love, but with a newly added layer of maturity and confidence. ‘Tumbi’ and ‘Gbedu’ travel through a world of Afrobeats, whilst ‘Mount Rushmore’ featuring Kano and Wretch32 harks back to the classic collaborations that made grime initially so exciting to a wave of young fans. Growth is a lifelong process, and this album proves that some artists really do get better with age. Will it be rewarded with a Mercury Prize? There’s no reason why not.

NIA ARCHIVES – SILENCE IS LOUD

‘Silence is Loud’ is possibly the most wide-ranging album on this year’s shortlist, influence-wise, at least. Nia Archives’ debut album, it pays tribute to all the music that raised her, while retaining the high-tempo drum and bass rhythms that she has honed over her numerous EPs. Using intense jungle beats as a backdrop to tie the whole record together, Nia Archives journeys through her past for inspiration. From song to song, she bounces around genres with ease, travelling back to the to 90s Britpop with ‘Cards on the Table’, before jolting back to the glory days of Motown in ‘Out of Options’. References to massive stadium rock (‘Unfinished Business’) sit snugly alongside trip-hop anthems (‘Blind Devotion’) and addictive rave-pop lead single ‘Forbidden Feelingz’. This is also Nia Archives at her most vulnerable, using this first album to explore painful situationships, familial torment, and self-worth with an assuredness that ensures this album’s place as an institution of dance music, rather than a TikTok famous flash in the pan. Dance music hasn’t had a win at the Mercury for a little while. Watch this space.

Photo credit: Jennifer McCord / Dork

THE LAST DINNER PARTY – PRELUDE TO ECSTASY

The phrase ‘meteoric rise’ doesn’t begin to do justice on the year that The Last Dinner Party have had. Their piercing analysis of societal views on femininity, placed alongside Victorian decadence and 70s prog rock arrangements, made them the most talked about band of the last twelve months and landed them new band tips left, right, and centre. More than that, it made ‘Prelude to Ecstasy’ one of the most anticipated albums of the year. And damn, was it worth the wait. Tracks such as ‘The Feminine Urge’ and ‘Burn Alive’ took over from where stratospheric singles ‘Nothing Matters’ and ‘Sinner’ left off, with the purity of Abigail Morris’ soaring vocals and the tricks and licks of Emily Roberts’ guitar solos adding another layer of luxury to the plush orchestral arrangements of ‘Gjuha’ and endearingly bold song structure of ‘Caesar on a TV Screen’. The recent announcement of their upcoming ‘Prelude to Ecstasy’ film shows they’re determination for world domination shows no bounds, and there’s every chance their plans will shift into gear with a Mercury Prize win.

Basically, it’s impossible to call. Probably best if you tune in and watch, wouldn’t you say? Excellent, well we’ll see you there. The Mercury Prize is presented at 8pm on Thursday 5th September on BBC 4.