Mercury Prize 2010

If last year’s Mercury Music Prize taught us anything, it’s that giving the award to an obscure hip-hop act probably wont do that much good. While Speech Debelle’s victory proved that the judges can choose a lesser-known artist to praise, and that they’re not just token additions to the nominations list, it’s hard to see how it’s had much benefit. The album has still only sold about 15,000 copies to date and people only know her as ‘that one who got the Mercury Prize’. Although it’s not all about sales figures, if no-one has bought the album then there can’t be all that many people who have heard it. As a music award that concentrates on the actual music, it’s a shame that this kind of commerciality has to come into it, but when it’s being broadcast on terrestrial television and sponsored by Barclaycard, it really becomes inescapable.

With this in mind, The xx seem like deserving winners this year. The fact that their eponymous debut has already seen huge critical acclaim, and that their mass popularity has come about partly through covering one of the biggest songs of the previous year (You Got The Love), and partly through being the soundtrack to the General Election is almost irrelevant. The trio’s hauntingly mellow sound doesn’t fit into the mainstream, yet they’ve somehow forged a niche for themselves over the past twelve months. Receiving this award is a fitting to conclusion to an outstanding year. It’s confirmation of their talent and of their popularity but it’s also an incentive to keep the ball rolling and push themselves. In previous years, winners have seen varying levels of success following the prize. The Arctic Monkeys won in similar circumstances -after an intense year of popularity- and went on to produce two more brilliant albums and become one of the biggest bands in the country. Dizzee Rascal has also gone on to mega-stardom since emerging from the underground with Boy In Da Corner, and Ms. Dynamite came fourth in Hell’s Kitchen last year.

The real test comes in the year following the victory and with their next album. While I can’t quite picture them writing the next ‘Bonkers’ (or cooking with Gordon Ramsey for that matter), it’d be a shame to see The xx disappear into insignificance. It’s at that point where we see if they’ll follow Dizzee, Dynamite or Debelle or if they carry on as they are by something completely different. Encouragingly, the latter seems most likely, but we’ll give it a year and see.