News

Barclaycard Mercury Prize Albums of the Year To be Revealed

• 10th Jul 2009

The 2009 Barclaycard Mercury Prize‘Albums of the Year’ will be revealed at 11.30am on Tuesday 21 July 2009. The announcement will be made by presenter and broadcaster Lauren Laverne and will be hosted by The Hospital Club in Covent Garden, the club for the creative industries.

The Barclaycard Mercury Prize, which is open to all genres of music, has received more entries than ever before in 2009. The shortlist of 12 ‘Albums of the Year’ is chosen by an independent judging panel, which includes musicians, producers, presenters and music journalists. The panel’s decision is based solely on the music on the albums rather than on commercial sales success.

The Prize recognises and celebrates the UK Albums of the Year and has a reputation for highlighting both new talent and more established bands and artists. Albums released between July 2008 and July 2009 are eligible for this year’s Prize. 2008 winners, Elbow, enjoyed a significant rise in profile and uplift insales of their album ‘The Seldom Seen Kid’ after picking up the Prize last year.

The Prize’s Chair of Judges, Simon Frith said: “It’s been an intriguing year for UKmusic and we once again saw a rise in the number of albums entered for the Barclaycard Mercury Prize. One of the continuing developments is the blurring of genres, with musicians clearly being influenced by a wide-range of sources”.

The overall winner of the 2009 Prize will be decided and announced at the Barclaycard Mercury Prize Awards Show,which will be broadcast live on BBC Two on Tuesday 8 September 2009. Lauren Laverne will present the programme, with the Awards Show event itself hosted by Jools Holland. A second programme will also be broadcast on Friday 11 September also on BBC Two.