Paul McCartney is an 84-year-old Beatle, and he has won just about every accolade that a musician could possibly win, up to and including knighthood. But up until today, McCartney had never been nominated for the Mercury Music Prize, the annual award given to what a jury chooses as the best album released by an artist from the UK or Ireland. The Mercury Prize was introduced in 1992, so it's not like those folks were snubbing Revolver. Still, McCartney has released 11 solo albums in the time since the Mercury Prize started, so he's been passed over plenty of times. Some of those records were pretty good, too! Anyway, the drought is over. As of today, McCartney is a first-time Mercury Prize nominee.
Today, the Mercury Prize people unveiled the nominations for this year's awards. To be eligible for this year's award, an album would've had to come out between Aug. 30, 2025 and Jul. 17, 2026. This year's list of 12 nominees finally includes Paul McCartney, who's in there for The Boys Of Dungeon Lane, the solo joint that he released this spring. Now that I think of it, he's the first Beatle ever to get a Mercury Prize nomination.
Anyway, McCartney's competition is a typically fascinating list of records that stretch across genres and levels of popularity. Other nominees include a couple of pop blockbusters, Raye's This Music May Contain Hope and Olivia Dean's The Art Of Loving, as well as London rap star and past Mercury winner Dave's The Boy Who Played The Harp.
Dave isn't the only past Mercury winner in the mix. Britpop greats Suede won the second-ever Mercury Prize for their self-titled 1993 debut, and now they've got their third nomination for Antidepressants. The excellent War Child benefit compilation HELP(2) is also nominated, and that's got to feature at least a couple of past winners, right? I don't have time to compare Wikipedia lists right now, but it feels like a safe assumption.
Florence + The Machine are now four-time nominees, while Raye, Kojey Radical, and Nia Archives all got their second nominations. (If I were on the committee, Nia Archives' Emotional Junglist, which came out on the last day of eligibility, would get my vote.) First-time nominees include Irish indie folk guy Dove Ellis, gleeful pop experimenter Jade, and jazz group Knats. Some good albums on that list! But as the great critic Shaad D'Souza points out, the list is super-dominated by major-label releases, which is pretty gross.
As the UK press has already gleefully pointed out, snubs include Lily Allen, Harry Styles, Gorillaz, Boards Of Canada, Kneecap, James Blake, fakemink, the Last Dinner Party, My New Band Believe, Dry Cleaning, Cardinals, Danny L Harle, Lola Young, Ed Sheeran, and Charli XCX's Wuthering Heights soundtrack (though not Music, Fashion, Film, which came out too late to qualify). They're especially talking about the Lily Allen thing. Check out the full list of nominees below.
• Dave - The Boy Who Played the Harp
• Dove Ellis - Blizzard
• Florence + the Machine - Everybody Scream
• Jade - That’s Showbiz, Baby!
• Knats - A Great Day In Newcastle
• Kojey Radical - Don’t Look Down
• Nia Archives - Emotional Junglist
• Olivia Dean - The Art Of Loving
• Paul McCartney - The Boys Of Dungeon Lane
• Raye - This Music May Contain Hope
• Suede - Antidepressants
• Various artists - Help(2)
The winner will be announced in a 10/22 ceremony at Newcastle's Utilita Arena.
