Wolf Alice have now been shortlisted for all four<\/a> of their studio albums. <\/p>\nThey previously won the prize in 2018 for their second record, Visions of a Life.<\/p>\n
And hometown hero Sam Fender will be hoping for a local advantage with his third album, People Watching, a steely-eyed dissection of working-class life in the north.<\/p>\n
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Getty Images<\/p>\n
Sam Fender will return home for the award ceremony in Newcastle<\/p>\n
This year sees the ceremony move from London to Newcastle, following in the footsteps of the Mobo awards, as part of a new partnership with Newcastle City Council and the North East Combined Authority.<\/p>\n
It’s the first time the ceremony has taken place outside the capital since it began in 1992. Next year, the Brit Awards will also leave London, moving to Manchester.<\/p>\n
“We’ve always had the aspiration to move the Mercury Prize, in particular, outside of London because it’s a representation of the best music of the year from across Britain and Ireland,” says Jo Twist, says chief executive of the BPI, which organises the Mercurys and the Brits.<\/p>\n
“Celebrating that talent from all over the country was part of the thinking.”<\/p>\n
Highlighting recent success stories from the north-east \u2013 including Brit Award winner Jade and last year’s Mercury Prize recipients English Teacher \u2013 Twist says the music industry is making a “big push” to decentralise.<\/p>\n
“Talent is everywhere but opportunity isn’t,” she says. “So it’s only right that we bring these large scale shows (outside London) to show there are opportunities within the music industry without having to move city.”<\/p>\n
North-east ‘overlooked’<\/p>\n
Coventry-born rapper Pa Salieu, who is also Mercury-nominated for his latest album Afrikan Alien, says the change was long overdue.<\/p>\n
“I always heard of Mercury, growing up, but it seemed so far away, out of reach,” he says.<\/p>\n
“So I think the Mercury Prize should be in Coventry, in Birmingham. It should move like a tour. Let the youth feel heard.”<\/p>\n
In Newcastle, the build-up to the ceremony has included a week of fringe events, including concerts from local artists and workshops for newcomers looking for their break.<\/p>\n
Among the performers is 29-year-old Finn Forster, from Teesside, who’s gone from playing pubs to supporting Stereophonics on their recent European tour.<\/p>\n
He says he’s “super grateful for how much the music industry is taking a step outside of London and the major cities”.<\/p>\n
“The north-east has been overlooked for so long,” he says. “Everyone’s incredibly proud about the fact the Mercury is coming \u2013 and there’s such a high calibre of people performing at the fringe.”<\/p>\n
Thursday’s ceremony will be held at the Utilita Arena, hosted by Sunderland native Lauren Laverne, with performances from nine of the 12 nominees.<\/p>\n
The 12 nominated albums are:<\/p>\n
CMAT \u2013 Euro-CountryEmma-Jean Thackray \u2013 WeirdoFKA Twigs \u2013 EusexuaFontaines DC \u2013 RomanceJacob Alon – In LimerenceJoe Webb \u2013 Hamstrings and HurricanesMartin Carthy – Transform Me Then Into a FishPa Salieu \u2013 Afrikan AlienPinkPantheress \u2013 Fancy ThatPulp \u2013 MoreSam Fender \u2013 People WatchingWolf Alice \u2013 The Clearing<\/p>\n
Full coverage will be available on BBC television, BBC Sounds, Radio 6 Music and BBC News. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mark SavageMusic correspondent Getty Images CMAT has earned two consecutive Mercury nominations – for her second album Crazymad…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":216717,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[49,48,75,341],"class_list":{"0":"post-216716","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-music"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216716","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=216716"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216716\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/216717"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=216716"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=216716"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=216716"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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Getty Images<\/p>\n