My Mercury's In Retrograde

A few notes on some of the Mercury Award Nominees that I scribbled. I meant to throw them out before they announced the winner, so they're a little dated now I know:

Florence and the Machine - Lungs:

Lungs is a boiling, swirling cacophony of soul and passion, the only record in the major leagues I’ve heard in a long time with a beating heart; certainly the only one nominated by the Mercury Awards as long as I can remember. Florence Welch’s swirling vocals, firing off synapses in the listener’s brain, lift high above the pounding drums that stir the blood to boil as she shrieks to the stars in ‘Cosmic Love’ and murmurs chastising pillow-talk through ‘I’m Not Calling You a Liar’.

Perhaps the most impressive attribute is the album’s eschewal of today’s penchant for abandoning ‘influence’ in favour of copycat syndrome. Artist’s such as La Roux toil at recreation, while the 80s sensibilities of Phil Collins, Kate Bush and U2 have all left their mark on Lungs, but are incorporated with elegant and innovative subtlety, just as a myriad of other decades worth of music peek through a layered work of solid originality that retains a celebration of those that have gone before.

The Buzzcockian mockney jive ‘Kiss With a Fist’ may veer a little close to Kate Nashness than befits the tone of the album as a whole, and it subsequently stands out as something of a sore thumb, but, considering the writing quality of the record as a whole, she can surely be forgiven a duff track; it is, after all, her debut.

Whether Florence and the Machine win the Mercury Prize may still be up for debate, but the plummet of the award in my estimation should she be overlooked is not.

La Roux – La Roux:

This overrated but musically savvy and deliriously catchy slice of retro sadly substitutes innovation for imitation begging far too many questions regarding a seemingly backwards movement in popular music, impressive as its deftness of imitation is. Elly Jackson’s voice, while exceptionally strong, favours a bored melancholia in tone over the impassioned yell of someone like Florence and the Machine, with less effective results. It also begins to sound irritatingly samey around the halfway point making it almost a chore to get from start to finish without switching to something else. Still good though.

Glasvegas - Glasvegas:

A standard fare and rather lightweight offering of guitar-based, Brit-Rock that makes you wonder why Doves weren’t nominated. Also James Allan’s hilariously thick “scoutush” accent (it makes the Proclaimers sound like The Archers) really does feel ever-so-slightly over-egged; to be honest you can be forgiven for chuckling.