All the Mercury Winners - ranked

I listened to all the Mercury Prize winning albums.

I’ve pontificated on the rights and wrongs of the winning choices in the past without actually having listened to all the winners all the way through. Who would believe I could be such a phony?

I wondered if there’d be many surprises. There weren’t really.

Before I started, there was only one winning album I truly loved, 'The Hour of the Bewilderbeast' by Badly Drawn Boy, and that remains the case.

I think the one I dreaded most was Roni Size’s ‘Reprazent’ – 1 hr 20 of drum’n’bass, oof – but actually I found it very agreeable, much more full of nuance and peaks and troughs and hooks than I expected. Conversely, I couldn’t be arsed with 'Screamadelica' this time around (I have listened to it a fair bit in the past) – yeah, yeah, I know it’s great, but Bobby Gillespie’s voice just gets me in all the wrong places, and it drifts in the middle.

It’s interesting that, after the 90s, where each winner stands on its own, there are a few patterns – early 2000s – a bit urban, mid 2000s, solid, successful indie, turn of 2010 – slippery, arthouse indie, bulk of 2010s – varied, eclectic black artists.

My least favourite is the slippery indie – I just can’t be doing with the XX and Alt-J, especially the latter. James Blake pretty much, too, though I heard a glimmer this time around with him.

Anyway here’s my list from favourite to least favourite:

1. The Hour of Bewilderbeast    -     Badly Drawn Boy
2. Psychodrama   - Dave
3. Suede -  Suede
4. Franz Ferdinand       -       Franz Ferdinand
5. Boy in da Corner      -       Dizzee Rascal
6. The Seldom Seen Kid   -   Elbow
7. Dummy   - Portishead
8. I Am a Bird Now     -         Antony and the Johnsons
9. At Least for Now     -        Benjamin Clementine
10. Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea    -       PJ Harvey
11. Visions of a Life  - Wolf Alice
12. Process - Sampha
13. Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not - Arctic Monkeys
14. Screamadelica   -  Primal Scream
15. New Forms    -    Roni Size & Reprazent
16. Dead  -   Young Fathers
17. Konnichiwa     -   Skepta
18. Different Class - Pulp
19. Elegant Slumming       -    M People
20. Speech Therapy  -  Speech Debelle
21. Let England Shake      -     PJ Harvey
22. Overgrown    -    James Blake
23. A Little Deeper  - Ms. Dynamite
24. xx    -      The xx
25. Bring It On     -    Gomez
26. Ok     -    Talvin Singh
27. An Awesome Wave   -     alt-J
28. Myths of the Near Future      -      Klaxons