Talvin Singh has scooped this year’s Mercury Music Prize for his album ‘OK’in a result just announced tonight in London’s Grosvenor House Hotel, the eighth year that the prize has been awarded.
In a shortlist that looks increasingly familiar – token folkie, token jazz, token classical, token Asian, token commercial sellers – Singh was considered an outsider.
Somewhat surprisingly, judging panel Chairman Simon Frith said that the discussions were “acrimonious”.
The shortlist is compiled by 10 judges from the music industry, journalists from The Times and music business trade magazine Music Week and executives from MTV and radio and the BBC from a pool of 140 releases entered for the competition by record labels. It’s claimed that the decision on the winner is not made until just before the actual announcement.
Click here to read John Mulvey on this year’s Mercury Music Prize nominees.
Click here to read NME‘s review of this album.