The Mercury Prize is an annual music award for the best album from the United Kingdom and Ireland. Its main purpose is through the award to promote the best artists and the best new albums of the year, no matter the genre, to a wider audience. It was established in 1992 by the British Phonographic industry and British Association of Record Dealers. The first ever winners were Primal Scream with ‘Screamadelica’ and this year’s one Skepta with ‘Konnichiwa‘.
The judges at first choose the shortlist of the twelve best albums of the year and through meetings, discussions and voting they eventually conclude to the best one. AmongtThe judges are accomplished musicians, music producers, composers, music journalists and presenters. Since 2016 the audience can choose the best six albums of the shortlist at the night of the award.
Many artists became well known thanks to this music award. And we can still recall their songs more or less. But every album that entered the shortlist, deserved to be heard.
Below, you can check out the award-winning albums from 1992 until 2016:
1992: Primal Scream : ‘Screamadelica‘
1993: Suede : ‘Suede‘
1994: M People : ‘Elegant Slumming‘
1995: Portishead : ‘Dummy‘
1996: Pulp : ‘Different Class‘
1997: Rozi Size/Reprazent : ‘New Forms‘
1998: Gomez : ‘Bring It On‘
1999: Talvin Singh : ‘OK‘
2000: Badly Drawn Boy : ‘The Hour Of Bewilderbeast‘
2001: PJ Harvey : ‘Stories From The City, Stories From The Sea‘
2002: Ms. Dynamite : ‘A Little Deeper‘
2003: Dizzee Rascal : ‘Boy In Da Corner‘
2004: Franz Ferdinand : ‘Franz Ferdinand‘
2005: Antony And The Johnsons : ‘I Am A Bird Now‘
2006: Arctic Monkeys : ‘Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not‘
2007: Klaxons : ‘Myths Of The Near Future‘
2008: Elbow : ‘The Seldom Seen Kid‘
2009: Speech Debelle : ‘Speech Therapy‘
2010: The xx : ‘xx‘
2011: PJ Harvey : ‘Let England Shake‘
2012: Alt-J : ‘An Awesome Wave‘
2013: James Blake : ‘Overgrown‘
2014: Young Fathers : ‘Dead‘
2015: Benjamin Clementine : ‘At Least For Now‘
2016: Skepta : ‘Konnichiwa‘
Eleftheria Gesou