- The Observer, Sunday 17 September 2006
6 September
3:59pm
Did the right band win? It was the Mercury Music prize last night - a good old-fashioned industry knees-up, spoilt only by the musical interludes. I mean, Thom Yorke mewling through a song like 'Analyse' is enough to put anyone off their seared escabeche of halibut infused with mint and lemon grass, ragout of sweet potato and shitake mushrooms and Asian greens flavoured with lavender essence ... Then again, there were fine performances, most notably from Hot Chip, Sway and Scritti Politti, which is a good measure of the eclectic ambitions of the prize. And some of the speeches were good, particularly the quip from Alex Turner, when the Arctic Monkeys picked up the prize at the end of the evening: 'Someone call 999 - Richard Hawley's been robbed!'
While they were always the bookies' favourites, it surprised many in the audience that the Monkeys came out on top. For one thing, their winning album has already sold 1.1 million copies in the UK this year, and it's hard to imagine that many BBC4 viewers watching the live coverage weren't already aware of who they are and what they sound like. So the award hardly did the trick of introducing a difficult act to a wider audience - as happened last year with Antony and the Johnsons. And while the Monkeys might not be using £50 notes to light their cigars quite yet, one supposes that the £20,000 cheque would have meant a bit more to at least a couple of the nominees. To their credit, the band say they'll give the money to charity.
But shouldn't the Mercury prize have something to do with breaking boundaries? Turner in his speech also accounted for the band's success by saying: 'it's just good tunes, that's what we try to do. There are no tricks.' Which seems a bit Luddite. And yet, and yet ... we still love the record and the group, and to have looked beyond them might have just felt silly.
