October 22, 2026<\/a><\/p>\nThe announcement was made at the Utilita Arena in Newcastle, with Raye among the performers on the night.<\/p>\n
![\"Raye](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/002538ab-614.jpg\"\/)
\nRaye on stage at the Utilita Arena in Newcastle before the winner was announced<\/p>\n
Raye – whose real name is Rachel Agatha Keen – had been among the favourites to win the award, which honours the best album of the year in the UK and Ireland.<\/p>\n
In an emotional winner’s speech, Raye said: “I’ve always banged on about how much I believe in albums.<\/p>\n
“I wanted to make seven-minute songs.<\/p>\n
“I wanted to go to a big band section ‘there’, and do strings ‘there’, and, like, just be really indulgent.”<\/p>\n
![\"Raye](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/002538af-614.jpg\"\/)
\nAn emotional Raye makes her way to the stage to accept the award<\/p>\n
Referring to the album’s title, she said: “Hope is a very cheesy word, you know, especially for us British people.<\/p>\n
“We don’t do that kind of deep stuff like that, but hope is just something that we all need, and music is medicine.”<\/p>\n
Mixing styles from jazz to soul to pop, Raye’s album was released in March and includes the singles Click Clack Symphony (featuring Hans Zimmer), I Know You’re Hurting, Nightingale Lane, and Where Is My Husband!. <\/p>\n
\n
Along with a trophy, the winner of the Mercury Prize receives \u00a325,000.<\/p>\n
Galway singer-songwriter Dove Ellis was among this year’s Mercury Prize nominees for his debut solo album, Blizzard.<\/p>\n
Other nominees included Olivia Dean for The Art of Loving, Paul McCartney for The Boys of Dungeon Lane, Dave for The Boy Who Played the Harp, Florence + the Machine for Everybody Scream, and Suede for Antidepressants.<\/p>\n
Additional Reporting: Press Association<\/p>\n
Click here for more music news.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Singer-songwriter Raye has won the 2026 Mercury Prize for her second album, This Music May Contain Hope. The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":662533,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[61,60,80],"class_list":["post-662532","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-technology","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/662532","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=662532"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/662532\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/662533"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=662532"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=662532"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=662532"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}