So three weeks on since the Mercury Prize was awarded to female Hip-Hop artist Speech Debelle things haven’t exactly gone to plan. She should still be riding the wave of publicity from her award and be in demand, but isn’t, now why is that?
Photograph: PA
Her victory was met with shock, a lot of angry message board posting and questions over why exactly her album had won. Nevertheless it was widely accepted that she would benefit from some exposure that the other nominees didn’t need and who could begrudge her that after her difficult past.
However, the first night of her current UK tour in Sheffield on Saturday night drew an audience of between 50 and 100. I wasn’t at the gig but several reviewers have painted it as quite a bleak and awkward affair with a clearly embarrassed Debelle trying to put on a brave face despite the lack of people.
Her album peaked at 65 the week after the awards and is now residing outside the top 100, with less than 6000 albums reportedly having been sold in total. Now while sales figures don’t reflect the quality of an album, these figures aren’t exactly the kind you would associate with the supposed best alternative album of the past year.
This is as embarrassing for the Mercury as it is for Debelle, perhaps even more so. Those who labelled her album unworthy of winning and claimed the judges were wrong will point to these things as proof. The more important question this brings up is what exactly the point of the Mercury Prize is if it can’t even raise the profile of the winning artist.
Why has this happened we can ask? Female Hip-Hop isn’t the easiest music to sell (see Miss Dynamite who also won the Mercury in 2002), so have the Mercury judges become overconfident in their ability to award mainstream success to whom they deem worthy? Does this just go to show how big the gulf is between critics and fans these days?
The judging panel this year consisted of major magazine editors, newspaper critics, radio DJ’s, radio music managers and a classical conductor. Are we no longer accepting being told what to like by even the upper echelons of music criticism?
The Mercury is in a precarious place, when the award is given to a mainstream act, people argue it isn’t serving its purpose, but if people are also no longer willing to like any obscure act they thrust upon us, where can it go from here? How many more bad decisions can they make before the award loses all of its credibility?
This article has far more questions than answers but it’s safe to say that both Speech Debelle’s career and next year’s awards will be interesting to follow.
Tim Marklew
Dude I couldn’t agree more; like, i think William Hill gave Speech 8:1 odds which seein as it’s based on public opinion polls and (to quote Mercury) “based on music off only the album nominated” then I agree with what you say about it highlighting gulf between critics & fans….
Personally, I seriously think Horrors should have won for Primary Colours…no other album this year has come close to fusing surf and Doors and gothic and indie.
i’m pretty sure no other album this year has tried to fuse surf and Doors and gothic and indie, but that’s by the by.
Fair enough