The 2007 Freddie Mercurys

Despite Mercury not existing as a phone company for ooh about thirteen years maybe the name of the national music prize has totally stuck as the "Mercurys". Poor Nationwide then who as the actual sponsors barely get a mention - whoever calls it the Nationwide Mercury Music Prize, and why in fact are a building society sponsoring it?

Anyway these are 2007's sticker bearing nominees:

:: Arctic Monkeys - Favourite Worst Nightmare
:: Dizzee Rascal - Maths And English
:: The View - Hats Off To The Buskers
:: Maps - We Can Create
:: Bat For Lashes - Fur And Gold
:: Klaxons - Myths Of The Near Future
:: Jamie T - Panic Prevention
:: The Young Knives - Voices Of Animals And Men
:: Fionn Regan - The End Of History
:: Basquiat Strings with Seb Rochford - Basquiat Strings
:: Amy Winehouse - Back To Black
:: New Young Pony Club - Fantastic Playroom

The only ones I've not heard are Basquiet Strings, Fionn and Maps so count those out of what I'm about to say BUT:

1. Amy is the only album that will be remembered as a seminal album in 10 years time.

2. The View are the worst band of the last 12 months. I was at the nominiation party earlier today where they performed an acoustic number. If it were not bad enough that I was subjected to 3 mins of The View right in my face, but they didn't even do the barely passable "Same Jeans". It was all I could do not to glass them during the frankly terrible "Superstar Twaadesmmman"

3. NYPC? They look pretty and have a great album title, but a sure case of let's stick someone "cool" on if ever there were. A pretty mediocre album piled with filler. There are maybe 2 or 3 GREAT tracks, however they all came out in 2004 and have only just been thrown on an album. That said FAN is pretty good. If you know me you'll know that NYPC suits my music tastes pretty much exactly, "Fantastic Playroom" just doesn't deliver

4. Lauren Laverne has very good skin.