Jim Kerr (jkerr@pharoshealth.com)
Fri, 15 Jan 1999 09:09:58 -0500
started about 6 years ago (I think). Mercury is a telecommunications company
- not sure how they got involved in what is, yes, a Grammy type activity.
Reason why a Mercury Award carries more cachet than a Brit Award - which is
the UKs real equivalent of The Grammy - is that the Brits are voted on by
members of the industry. Mercuries are (again I think) voted on by
record-buying public. We had a ludicrous situation 5, 6 years ago where The
Brits were basically ignoring everything that was happening in British music
- while the music itself was going off in all sorts of interesting
directions and I guess boundaries were sort of being blurred - with artists
producing, writing, remixing, DJing etc - people like Rod Stewart were still
walking off with the Best Male Artist gong. The NME took one look at this,
didnt like what it saw and set up rival award ceremony - The Brats. More of
a Britpop focus and the Brits and Brats actually seem to have gotten a wee
bit closer in the last couple of years - although the Brits still seems a
bit hopeless. [Belle And Sebastian are up for best newcomer this year (!)
and Eurythmics get lifetime achievement award. Robbie Williams is of course
loved because he's not just a naughty boy, he sells truckloads of albums].
The other thing about the Mercury Awards is that they cover the whole
spectrum - category for classical and I think maybe some kind of 'roots'
section. Past winners are Gomez, Ronnie Size, and Leftfield (I think). 4
Hero got very close last year. So there you have it - its not an award
ceremony that Sir Elton should bother showing up to.
May have some of the details wrong but I think this is overall correct.
-----Original Message-----
From: Mark Turner [mailto:mturner@netcom.com]
Sent: Thursday, January 14, 1999 5:49 PM
To: acid-jazz@ucsd.edu
Subject: Mercury Awards?
Can someone enlighten me as to what these Mercury Awards are
all about? I keep hearing about "Mercury Award-winning" albums
and such, but I don't know who votes on these things. Is it
the UK equivalent of a Grammy? Does it have anything to do
with the Mercury record company? Any info would be appreciated.
-- Mark Turner | "Jazzadelica" with Rocky Rococo on KFJC mturner@netcom.com | Sundays 10pm-2am, 89.7 FM, Los Altos Hills, CA
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