Mercury Music Prize

[PAULM03]

Best odds/All odds
Bloc Party - Silent Alarm	3.5	4	4	4	4	4	4.5	4
Kaiser Chiefs - Employment	5	3.75	4	5	3.5	5	5	4.1
KT Tunstall - Eye to the Telescope	9	9	9	7	8	8	8	-
The Magic Numbers - The Magic Numbers	9	9	9	8	8.5	8.5	9	-
Coldplay - X and Y	9	9	8	9	7	10	8	6.6
Maximo Park - A Certain Trigger	10	9	11	11	8	10	11	-
Hard Fi - Stars of CCTV	11	11	13	10	13	10	9	10
M I A - Arular	11	13	13	11	9	11	11	11
Antony and the Johnsons - I am a Bird Now	12	17	17	13	10	11	11	-
Seth Lakeman - Kitty Jay	15	17	10	17	17	15	15	-
The Go! Team - Thunder Lightning Strike	17	17	17	17	17	13	17	-
Polar Bear - Held on the Tips of Fingers	23	26	26	21	26	17	17	-

Bloc party and Kaisers early favourites. I think Hard-Fi are in with a shout at 13s though. They look like the next music press darlings. Coldplay *shouldn't* have a prayer given the panels reputation for eschewing the more commercial artists. I think that's the reason I don't see any value in The Kaiser chiefs either.

[dave]

Re: Mercury Music Prize 2004 Franz Ferdinand - Franz Ferdinand 2003 Dizzee Rascal - Boy In Da Corner 2002 Ms. Dynamite - A Little Deeper 2001 PJ Harvey - Songs From The City, Stories From The Sea 2000 Badly Drawn Boy - The Hour Of Bewilderbeast 1999 Talvin Singh - OK 1998 Gomez - Bring It On 1997 Roni Size/Reprazent - New Forms 1996 Pulp - Different Class 1995 Portishead - Dummy 1994 M People - Elegant Slumming 1993 Suede - Suede 1992 Primal Scream - Screamadelica Would not be at all surprised to see this go to a middle of the road female artist like PJ Harvey. In other words KT Tunstall. Bloc Party are obvious choices, but a bit too similar to Franz Ferdinand, and this doesn't tend to go to 2 similar artists in succession.