British Alt-Rock Band Elbow have won the 2008 Mercury Prize for their latest effort, The Seldom Seen Kid. The award leads to a huge increase in sales (400% in sales at HMV in Britain) for the band to accompany the glory and prestige of the prize itself.
The following is from a Telegraph article:
A television appearance by Elbow on ITV's National Movie Awards on Tuesday night was also a factor behond the sales increase.
The five-piece group from Bury beat bands and solo artists including Radiohead and Estelle to the £20,000 Mercury Prize with their fourth album.
The Mercury judges called it "an epic rock record - triumphant, heartbreaking, unerringly melodic and life-affirming".
The award was a long time coming for the indie band. Elbow formed in 1991 but did not release their first album until 2001 on Richard Branson's independent V2 label. The critically-acclaimed LP - 'Asleep In The Back' - was nominated for the Mercury Prize that year but missed out to PJ Harvey.
It's interesting that the prize found Elbow 7 years after their debut was up for a Mercury as well (and 17 years after they formed... heck, why did that debut album take 10 years to make?).
May the Muse continue to be with you Elbow, certainly the judges were and they had such words of praise for the album... and may a prize find us all one day...
2 comments:
According to rateyourmusic.com, Asleep in the Back is better.
ah well, somebody has to win and somebody has to NOT win... but they say Elbow should have won for their debut album, so maybe this is like the Oscars... winning for your past work and not necessarily the one you're nominated for...
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