Arctic Monkeys win Mercury music prize

Although it pains me to say, the Artic Monkeys' album is probably the only album within that list that qualifies for the award. I personally don't like their music, his whiney voice and cheeky streetwise-Northerner lyrics don't sit with me, and it comes across as The Streets does indie down t'mines. But it's probably the most interesting and successful British mainstream release of 2006 [again - within that list]. You've got to look at it objectively, and throw taste out of the window :D. How they got where they are, what other kind of British music the album compares to in the year past, and so on.

I would have love to have seen Isobel Campbell and Mark Lanegan win, but I can accept the album doesn't have enough impact to justify winning an award. Lovely piece of work, but didn't Elysian Fields do that 10 years ago?
The Editors. Nice album. Ripoff of Interpol ripping off Joy Division, ad infinitum.
Thom Yorke. Great album, but what was new or significant about it in comparison to all his previous work (with Radiohead)?
Muse. See Thom Yorke.
And so on.

The others I can't really see how they would have a chance, being either a token entry or just not successful enough to get those points with the judges.

Besides, the choices for the MMP are always laughable and we shouldn't get too worked up about it. The one jazz entry that gets stuffed in at the end is such a wooden spoon; it's like putting a moose in a litter of puppies and asking someone to choose the best looking dog. It's actually quite embarrasing, and I do feel a little sorry for the artist who gets chosen.

As the MMP always slips in a few lesser known artists into the shortlist, it manages to sit behind this veneer of being on the tip of 'real' music and having genuine taste. While in reality, the award is no less of a sham than something like the NME or MTV Awards.

Y'know, the Nationwide Building Society. They're the hippest cats about!
 
Augmented said:
The Editors. Nice album. Ripoff of Interpol ripping off Joy Division, ad infinitum.
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I don't really want to cause any unneccessery waves, but if I'm reading this right you're saying that Interpol rip off The Joy Division :confused:
If you are, I think that's quite an annoying statement, if you listen to both bands a lot, you can instantly tell that their music is very very different, BUT most people categorise Interpol / Editors / Joy Divison SOLELY due to the monotone vocal style. If you disagree and you think all three bands make the same music, then that's fine. But I ask you to listen to at least Interpol and The Joy Division and come back and truthfully say (try and cast aside the singing style) that their music sounds alike, 'cos I personally think they're quite different :p.
Rant over :D.

As for AM, I really enjoyed the album, but I'm from Sheffield so I supported them by default. The album definetely deserved to make the short list I think, and I have no quarms with it winning out of that list, I still enjoy the AM and haven't listened to them to death and started jumping on the hate bandwagon .. yet ;)
 
Augmented said:
Although it pains me to say, the Artic Monkeys' album is probably the only album within that list that qualifies for the award. I personally don't like their music, his whiney voice and cheeky streetwise-Northerner lyrics don't sit with me, and it comes across as The Streets does indie down t'mines. But it's probably the most interesting and successful British mainstream release of 2006 [again - within that list]. You've got to look at it objectively, and throw taste out of the window :D. How they got where they are, what other kind of British music the album compares to in the year past, and so on.
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Exactly.

Yes, the fact they are one of my favourite bands may well be a contributing factor to why I agree with the award, but it's pretty easy to see why they won it.

Oh an by the way, I don't listen to the radio or watch music on TV :)
 
Carzy said:
There is PLENTY of good music out there, with amazing albums being released ALL THE TIME, you just need to stop finding out about your albums from the radio, TV and magazines (with a few exceptions), because it's bloody hard to find good music on those mediums. To try and say that in the music world the Arctic Monkeys is right up there with the best releases of this year is frankly an utter joke.
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In your opinion. Music is *extremely* subjective, and what one person thinks is a good album is not necessarily what others think. This is what I class as 'music snobbery' when someone thinks that just because music was brought to your attention via the popular media that it somehow makes it less worthy than music that you have to go looking for. It's one of *my* pet hates.

I've listened to a fair amount of music this year, and the Arctic Monkeys album was a breath of fresh air. Both lyrically and musically it's simple, but when I listen to it I feel good. It makes me happy. So to me it *is* one of the best releases.

I'm sure there are better albums that were released in the last year. There are probably ones that even you haven't come across. Which is why I think that music awards really don't mean anything, and shouldn't be taken seriously.
 
jakeke said:
I don't really want to cause any unneccessery waves, but if I'm reading this right you're saying that Interpol rip off The Joy Division :confused:
If you are, I think that's quite an annoying statement, if you listen to both bands a lot, you can instantly tell that their music is very very different, BUT most people categorise Interpol / Editors / Joy Divison SOLELY due to the monotone vocal style.
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Yes, I was saying that. And you're probably right, I was being lazy and making an easy (read as: I'm guilty of having spoonfed opinions), and perhaps unjustified, comparison between them. Still think Editors haven't done anything special with the album and they've taken direct cues from earlier work of other artists - this is, however, a perfectly natural thing to do. I do like Interpol, and have nothing bad to say about them... other than Antics unfortunately wasn't a patch on TOtBL.
 
xyphic said:
In your opinion. Music is *extremely* subjective, and what one person thinks is a good album is not necessarily what others think.
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Yes, but I'm always right.

xyphic said:
This is what I class as 'music snobbery' when someone thinks that just because music was brought to your attention via the popular media that it somehow makes it less worthy than music that you have to go looking for. It's one of *my* pet hates.
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I don't recall ever saying that.

xyphic said:
I'm sure there are better albums that were released in the last year. There are probably ones that even you haven't come across.
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Oh my. I didn't read this until now. Basically you're wrong.
 
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:D Don't worry Argumented, I used to be the same, but now I realise they're really different if you give them the chance.
TOTBL is one of my top 5 albums of all time, you're right - Antics doesn't beat it, but TOTBL is amazing, it would be very hard to top it :D.

The Editors have some alright tracks, about 5 of their album tracks are good solid songs, the rest aren't as good though .. Definetely not deserving of winning the Mercury Music Award (which they didn't obviously.)
 
Wardie said:
Oh an by the way, I don't listen to the radio or watch music on TV :)
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omg scene

arctics_gimp said:
It's cool to hate!
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Wardie said:
Yeah i've been expecting that one. Whenever a collective mass of people from all social groups share the liking of a band it always turns to people 'hating' them.
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You always expected that right? I mean you have a bunch of people who like AM and then you expect everyone to like them? Isn't that like conformity gone mad, i mean if you were in a group of people shooting up and they were like hey wardie pal, take a shot of this! We love it! - would you do it too, or would you have your own opinion about the matter.

You say it's cool to hate and because carzy hates, he's cool. Well as i recall, he's never rated the arctic monkeys very highly and i'm pretty sure he heard their stuff maybe as early as some of the "when they were underground" arctic monkeys fans on here.

what i actually hate are people who just follow the bandwagon(hey isn't that an AM song!) - they like the band initially and then they decide to turn in the wake of success (but then again usually success brings more consumer popular music). I mean people have said before that the AM album has been overproduced and compared to some of the demos they did have, it's poor work.

Same happened to zwan, they had loads of legal bootlegs and some of the early demos were amazing. Then they released mary and it was absolute *****, unlucky to those who tattooed ZWAN on their arms. I listened to lost prophets - rooftops yesterday, they went from fake sound of progress to liberation transmission - HAVE YOU HEARD THAT SONG?? IT'S FREAKING AWFUL.

xyphic said:
I'm sure there are better albums that were released in the last year. There are probably ones that even you haven't come across.
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heaven forbid!


So my personal opinion on the subject of the mercury music prize - it doesn't really mean anything does it? Win or lose, these bands exist, some have better live performances than others. It just so happened that this year a pop band won it - and that's what it is, catchy pop music (no maximo park????????) - don't get me wrong, i love a few of the tracks off the album - but there's also a lot of samey (lyrically lads nights out songs) stuff off the album.

I don't agree that it was easy to see why they won it - by that reason, someone like guillemots should have won it or even muse - both producing something that's pretty fresh - thom yorke included, it's a breath of fresh air as well, maybe not as upbeat as the AM album. I think this year they personally picked the album because it's a good british representative but also because of their rising success and people watching the program would most likely be rooting for AM. TV is a ratings war. Nothing like getting the most popular band in the uk on tv is there?

phew. that was rather long.
 
00bob00 said:
omg scene
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Umm, what? I was just telling the guy I don't listen to music on the TV/Radio since he brought up about people finding all their music through said mediums.

00bob00 said:
You always expected that right? I mean you have a bunch of people who like AM and then you expect everyone to like them? Isn't that like conformity gone mad, i mean if you were in a group of people shooting up and they were like hey wardie pal, take a shot of this! We love it! - would you do it too, or would you have your own opinion about the matter.
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Actually you just summed up what I was saying in one of your following paragraphs, so I think you misunderstood what I was saying. It's usually all the scene type people i've noticed doing it. They rave about a band until it hits the charts and becomes liked by masses.. Granted the music may become more commercial from their initial demo work etc, and some tracks may not make it on to their album, but they are still the same band and more often than not their music still practically remains the same.
 
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Wardie said:
Whenever a collective mass of people from all social groups share the liking of a band it always turns to people 'hating' them.
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well i must admit, i deliberately (apologies in advance) picked up on this purely because what you said is different to what i summed up. I "misunderstood" because you worded your sentence in a manner that could be misinterpreted. NOT HAVING A DIG, was merely pointing out that people may see your point being that "a collective mass of people from all social groups share the liking of a band - there will always be people who then hate them regardless"

surely that's different from liking a band when they're unknown then hating them when they get popular.

the "omg scene" comment was a joke but i guess it's hard to tell. Generally if you don't get your music from the forsaid mediums (tv, magazines and radio - there are a few exceptions) - then surely you get them from...well where?

amazon recommends - bandwagon
magazines recommends - bandwagon
tv recommends - bandwagon
radio recommends - bandwagon
websites recommends - bandwagon

so you see everything is the bandwagon but it's ok because you don't use these mediums, you sit outside recording studios and go to gigs and record using your mobile phone, the quality isn't bad, it's raw. YOU ARE SCENE.

also you say that even if their work becomes commercial they still are the same band - i say i agree but they remain only the same band by name. the first arctic monkeys album is still good but some demos are actually better (mardy bum was one of my favourite demos and they changed that quite a bit)

A good example of a band/person mentioned earlier, you have Pre OK computer radiohead - just another indie band and Post OK computer radiohead - something special/evolving electronic
 
The correct choice really when you look at the nation's taste; im not saying that in a derogatory way, but when most people listen to it...
 
William said:
The correct choice really when you look at the nation's taste; im not saying that in a derogatory way, but when most people listen to it...
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but isn't that the whole point everyones trying to make? popular doesn't necessarily mean good and not popular doesn't necessarily mean bad! I agree though whole heartedly that if we were looking at it from the perspective of what the nation likes and loves - then yeah, indeed the correct choice.
 
I don't rate that band at all lol - and what the hell is the Mercury music prize?

Suppose i dont pay attention to pop im into ROCK! :D
 
there's no such thing as varying degrees of subjectivity. it's either subjective, or it's not.

i'd say that the majority of the people commenting in this thread aren't who any particular awards ceremony would be catering for in the first place.

yesterday i was in a car with 3 other people, and they were talking about the Mercurys...i stated that i hate the arctic monkeys and i believe that they'll contribute nothing worthwhile to music for the long-term, but they love them and thought they thoroughly deserved it. this leads me to believe that we don't have to all like the same thing, and not every prize-winning musical outfit is going to be to your taste. oddly enough
 
Sic said:
there's no such thing as varying degrees of subjectivity. it's either subjective, or it's not.

i'd say that the majority of the people commenting in this thread aren't who any particular awards ceremony would be catering for in the first place.

yesterday i was in a car with 3 other people, and they were talking about the Mercurys...i stated that i hate the arctic monkeys and i believe that they'll contribute nothing worthwhile to music for the long-term, but they love them and thought they thoroughly deserved it. this leads me to believe that we don't have to all like the same thing, and not every prize-winning musical outfit is going to be to your taste. oddly enough
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Hah I laugh at your compromise, good nature and lack of argument picking one side. Pfft! Get out of my thread with this kind of positive thinking.
 
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