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Artist: Manic Street Preachers
Album: Postcards From a Young Man
Recommended by: Radcliffe & Maconie, Dermot O'Leary, Steve Lamacq, Victoria Derbyshire, 6 Music Album of the Day, Radio 2 Album of the Week

Manic Street Preachers - Nicky Wire, James Dean Bradfield and Sean Moore - are one of the most critically celebrated and commercially successful British bands of the past two decades. Having overcome the tragic loss of founder guitarist and lyricist Richey Edwards, who disappeared in 1995 after appearing on three LPs, the group stormed to the upper end of the albums chart with 1996's Everything Must Go, and reached number one with 1998's This Is My Truth Tell Me Yours. Since then only 2003's Lifeblood has missed the UK top five, and their tenth long-player Postcards From a Young Man debuted at three in September 2010.

Widely acclaimed in the press, the luscious orchestral swells of Postcards are a far cry from 2009's ragged and raw, Steve Albini-produced Journal for Plague Lovers, a record that featured lyrics penned exclusively by Edwards. We met Nicky and Sean to talk about the new record, which features contributions from Ian McCulloch and Duff McKagan.

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Our reviewer, before he submitted his copy, told me that Postcards had him thinking primarily of your first two post-Richey releases. Fair to say there are parallels to be drawn?

N: I can definitely see a parallel with Everything Must Go. It might have the commerciality of This Is My Truth, thrown in, but I don't think it's that similar sonically. This Is My Truth is a very reflective, quite soft album.

It's a lot more downbeat than I think people remember.

N: It really is. The Everlasting takes about five minutes just to get going. But with this new one, there's definitely an innate comparison to be made to Everything Must Go, simply down to the orchestration and its uplifting nature, I think.

Everything Must Go was embraced by the mainstream fairly immediately. That can't be something you were anticipating?

N: I think that is because we were a loved band. It's the best position to be in - when you're a real cult band, loved in the underground so to speak, and you go mainstream. You only have it once in your career, but it's the best feeling to have a foot in both camps.

It must be amazing to have not only achieved that crossover, but to have maintained it.

S: We did slip a little with Know Your Enemy (2001), but that was definitely a reaction to Everything Must Go and This Is My Truth.

N: Yeah, that was our one self-destruct album. We had almost become too big.

It was a bit long, from what I recall.

S: It was uncomfortable from start to finish. Even the recording process was uncomfortable. We did a mad stint in Spain.

N: We just p***ed away tons of money in search of an incarnation of the band that didn't want to be found. But as a rule, we've drifted off the radar of our own fault, and that's going to happen if you've done ten albums. The idea of constant success is highly improbable, unless you're U2 or something. You get to a point of such utter blandness, like that, that it doesn't matter anyway. I think since Send Away the Tigers (2007), the reinvigoration we've felt in the band has been like Doctor Who, like a rebranding of something culturally important.

Tigers came after a break, where you (Nicky) and James produced solo material. Was that quite important? As I guess it was the first intentional, professional break you allowed yourselves.

N: It was important in the sense of learning to play the acoustic guitar, as that's helped my lyric writing. It's made my lyrics flow more. The two aspects are linked. It's always been a bit of a weird dynamic in this band, where two people write the lyrics and then hand them over to the two who write the music. So that relationship has changed a bit, and become a little more natural. Also, it made us miss the band, so the break was dually important - we missed what we'd had, and it also gave us a new spark of imagination as to what we could become again.

The productivity since then has been pretty impressive. Three albums in as many years, really.

N: The juices are back! We're generally blessed that inspiration's never been a problem. We may never have turned that inspiration into something great, but you have to be self-critical and realise you've made bad records, otherwise you're kidding yourself. I can't understand why some other people can't find inspiration. You wake up every day knowing less each morning, because there's so much information. Just when you think you've cracked it, you realise that you've got to connect even more.

Even on album ten, there's mellowing of the spirit that drove you in the first place?

N: I wish there was, really. It'd be much easier to be a normal human being.

But if you were there wouldn't be the vibrancy that there is on the new album, that desire, that passion that's always been there. Surely you'd fear slowing down, waking up and repeating a formula?

N: That's true. The fear is always there. When we won the Godlike Genius award from the NME in 2008 - which was a big deal to us, as we'd always read NME - the next day James was in a gigantic panic: "It's all over, we're too old, we shouldn't have accepted it, we've got to get down the studio."

S: It is a bit reassuring when there are younger bands who are slower than you. It makes you think, maybe we haven't lost that fire that we once had. It's hard not to give into that, though, as naturally you slow down as you get older. But for us it's always been about struggle, so...

Do you hear aspects of yourselves in bands that cite you as an influence, and in turn does that inspire you? I see British Sea Power are touring with you.

N: They are, and I love them. They're a great ideas band, and I love ideas bands. It's like when Klaxons came along. It's not always just about the music - to stimulate us there needs to be something behind that. Even if it is pretentious bulls***, because I'm so bored of being sold American 'authentic'... log cabins, beards. Come on, they're all lawyers in Seattle. I do like some of that music. It's not like I'm offended by it, anyway. But this search for supposed authenticity... I think we've become authentic by literally being ourselves. There was nothing authentic about us at the start - we were quite wilfully contrived. But that has turned into our authenticity. And you can't buy that, by pretending you're The Band in 1969.

Your authenticity comes through because you've never pretended to be something you're not, you've never really jumped a bandwagon.

N: In the Britpop era, we couldn't wear Fred Perry shirts and drape a Union Jack over ourselves, as it'd have been so alien. It was an exciting time, and you were swept up in it - but we were dressed up like Apocalypse Now extras, making an unholy, dark racket. I think the bands that survive are never part of a movement. Even Blur, they were a band way before Britpop.

And they've become, or perhaps they always were, an ideas band.

N: Exactly. And it's the same with Radiohead. They've never rode any coattails; they've always been themselves.

Yet neither has ever won the Mercury Prize, like yourselves, although you've been shortlisted twice.

N: I was really disappointed that Journal didn't get shortlisted. If you look on Metacritic, we were pretty much top of that. I don't know if that should be seen as any kind of indicator, but for Richey's lyrics alone - they could have said the music was s*** - it was the best lyrics released that year. I think it's pretty sad.

So you follow your own press?

N: I'm completely addicted to everything, yeah. Nothing's ever changed with me. It's unhealthy, I think, and I'm always shoving stuff into Sean's face, and James' face. Clash magazine gave us a great review the other day, and there's no need for them to. They're a young, glossy, cool magazine, but their review was really brilliant. But we do get inspired by new bands - I was really inspired by The Libertines. I really fell in love with them.

Did they need to come back, though?

N: You know what, they were really great at Reading. And let's hope that some young kids there watched them and not Blink-182 or something. At least they're romantic, nihilistic and f***ed up - that's what rock'n'roll should be. They're a fantastic disaster, as Malcolm McLaren would say. But I'm quite old-fashioned in my views. We might seem quaint, to some people; but the adrenaline rush of a rock'n'roll band still gives us a buzz.

And that buzz hasn't dissipated any, looking at your touring schedule.

N: It wouldn't be enjoyable if nobody wanted us, but there's a genuine desire amongst people to see us, and that's great. For that to be around when we're on our tenth album is amazing. And we've been on the same label all this time. It's been through some name changes - it's Columbia at the moment - but we've had that continuity. There's a sense of pride that we've got the same manager, that we're the same people, on the same label.

You've worked with Dave Eringa again on the new album, with whom you've collaborated several times across your career, dating back to the early 1990s.

N: There are a few he's not produced, but he's always been involved somehow. He's very good at listening to us when we say we want to sound a certain way; he can translate that idea into an end product. This album is very much a team effort, a mixture of him, us, and our engineer in Cardiff, Loz Williams.

The studio has clearly been embraced on this album. Where the predecessor was raw, all sharp edges, this has a softer heart, and no little soul.

N: It's a very different kind of record. Apart from the last track, Don't Be Evil, not much of it would be suitable for Albini - we'd have actually loved to have him on that, he'd have been perfect. James has always been obsessed with Tamla Motown, and some of that comes out naturally without any of us realising it, and Ian McCulloch's vocals lend themselves to this soulfulness. It's really a celebration of the album itself. It might be naïve and idealistic, but we still think the album is a cultural art form, and one that's been sadly diminished. It was the kitchen sink - we did think, "f*** it", and throw everything at this album. What did we have to lose? If we're going to go out, the dying of the light, let's go out raging.

Does it worry you that this album can be sliced up by digital sales, the listener only choosing to buy two or three tracks?

S: It's baffling, depressing. We feel really deeply dissatisfied. I've gone through technology over the last 20 years, I had an iPod at an early stage, so I saw what was going to happen. But there's no way you can stop it. Even now I feel dissatisfied when you download an album and you get a little picture of what the album cover might be. You wouldn't go into the supermarket and buy a picture of an apple. Then you think: what about books? When you download one of those, for whatever machine you have, you get the whole book. When you download an album, you don't. Why are we splitting albums up? Why can't we make people buy the full albums?

N: There's a brilliant book out by Nicolas Carr, called The Shallows, about how the internet is basically rewiring our brains in a medical, scientific way. It is changing our thought processes, and I suppose that's evolution. It's a new frontier, and seeing that coming perhaps we do think of this album as being our last chance to really go for it. We love the idea of one-off singles, and there are plenty of examples of great singles. Look at The Beatles, for instance. But we're too romantic, I think. It's been 20 years, us making music together, and we've known each other for 30. I don't think we could change how we do things. We'd die instead. Even the idea of physically releasing a single now seems weird to some labels. The music business is the only one where consumers today think they're entitled to something for free. It doesn't apply to food, or clothes; but they genuinely think music is for free. And then bands have to sell their songs to adverts to make money. We let the Welsh tourist board use Australia, but when we were offered quarter of a million for Design for Life, for a car advert, we turned it down.

Finally, what are your favourite albums of this year so far?

N: I love the Mystery Jets album, especially the track Flash a Hungry Smile. It seems to have gone over the heads of a lot of people, which is really sad. I loved the Avi Buffalo record, and I really like Endless Boogie, which is just four blokes sounding like ZZ Top.

S: Well, a lot of what I have heard hasn't done it for me. I like the new Arcade Fire album.

N: I'm always badgering him with new records.

S: I have to load up his iPod.

N: I tried to get into the Ariel Pink record. It has some great songs on it, but overall it's perhaps a little too saccharine, West Coast-vibed. But I buy tons and tons of records, constantly. Even if I don't like something, I want to try to suss it out. And I like the Foals record, too, especially that single, This Orient. I think that's a genius song.

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Read the Ö÷²¥´óÐã review of Postcards From a Young Man

Read recently published Album Reviews Q&A articles:
The Count & Sinden
Bilal
Big Boi
Sleigh Bells

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Artist: The Count & Sinden
Album: Mega Mega Mega
Recommended by: Rob da Bank

The Count & Sinden - aka Josh Harvey, who also records as Hervé, and Graeme Sinden - have been steadily rising to the upper echelons of the UK dance scene over the past couple of years. The pair released their debut artist album, Mega Mega Mega, in August via Domino, and have undertaken remix work for the high-profile likes of Robbie Williams and Mark Ronson, among many lesser-known but eminently cool outfits. They took time out from their ever-hectic schedule to answer our Album Reviews Q&A.

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Mega Mega Mega arrives at a time when several prominent UK producers are issuing artist LPs - Rusko, Skream, Fresh - and the old guard are still very active - The Chemical Brothers, for example. Is this a healthy thing, or as artists is there any concern that the UK dance market is a little saturated at the moment?

H: I think it's good I suppose, though I've never really thought about it. There is an overload of music at the moment, I think. We actively didn't rush our album because we felt if we were going to do one, we had to do the best we could and only put it out when we felt it was ready. There's some great stuff out there but also a lot of throwaway tracks; but dance music has always been a mixture of both.

S: Yeah, I think it's healthy, as long as the quality of the music is high and not as disposable as the dance singles market - this is more of a concern, especially now that anybody can launch a record label online. If this quality control is maintained with albums it can only be positive. The UK dance album market will always be active, as artists aspire to write something with a bit more longevity.

As a debut, is Mega Mega Mega everything you hoped it could have been? Is there anything you didn't get the time to finish for this LP? Anyone you would have liked to work with but just couldn't make it happen?

H: The reason it took so long is because we were not prepared to release it until it felt right to us and worked as a whole album, from beginning to end. We're totally proud of it, and feel that it is something fresh. There were two tracks, though, that sadly didn't make it. One was something we were going to do with These New Puritans, but their singer Jack Barnett just didn't have time to get something finished as our album deadline was fast approaching and it was all kicking off for them with their album. Same situation with the second track as well, really. We are still working on the tracks in one form or another for something cool early next year. There were definitely some people we wanted to get but couldn't, but hopefully we will snare them for the second album.

S: We're already thinking about the content for the next album, so I guess that's where the ideas that didn't make this LP will go. We had a really creative eight months of working at the end of the album - we didn't want to stop. We're just happy that the album is as rounded as we could make it. There were a few higher-profile people that we worked with and had completed great tracks with, but they didn't end up making the cut. It worked out for the best in the end - these things always do. Mystery Jets, Bashy, Katy B, Rye Rye - these were all people that were a real pleasure to work with. It was a natural fit.

Mystery Jets feature on the single, After Dark. Is this kind of collaboration essential in attracting new listeners, those who might not gravitate towards the album otherwise?

H: It wasn't really an idea to draw other audiences to our music. It will be amazing if it does help to open up new audiences to our album, but we just thought it would be a great and interesting thing to do. All the guests are people that have caught our attention through being interesting to us. It's all about trying something fresh and interesting with the vocal collaborations.

S: We didn't really think about that at the time. The collaboration happened very naturally as most of these things seem to do. It wasn't contrived in any way, just something that happened through friendships and hanging out. You're right, it has introduced us to a few new audiences; but we never really make it easy on ourselves as the follow-up is a completely different kettle of fish. It's cool though, I think it keeps people guessing and we don't like to retread old ground and old sounds.

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The Count & Sinden feat. Mystery Jets - After Dark

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Do you think that signing to Domino might also have opened some doors in the indie world that perhaps you might not have stepped through otherwise?

H: It's been up-hill and hard work all the way. At first we thought it might because it's such a cool label, but many people are just not that receptive to dance/electronic music. Hopefully now we have our album out it will be a better signifier of what we do and a hint to where we are heading, and getting people interested will be easier.

S: The label might help, possibly, as it has a definite kudos with the indie world which we're aware of because we both are fans of the bands on their roster. I'm sure there are a few people that wouldn't have checked us out otherwise, but the main reason for signing with them is so that we could pursue our album projects. We were thinking long term; this isn't about releasing disposable dance singles. We wouldn't get this freedom elsewhere and Domino let us get on with it and we didn't compromise anything. Ironically, it was us that started to tone it down, thinking that they wanted us deliver something more commercial.

Katy B also features, and things look likely to go very well indeed for that girl this year. Is she someone you've known for a while, or was the track in question the first time you properly met?

H: It was the first time we met but we both really liked her vocal on a DJ NG track called Tell Me. We just loved something about her voice. So spring last year she came in and we wrote Hold Me. She is a very talented young lady, and it was obvious to me she would go far either as a writer or artist.

S: This collaboration has been in the can for quite a while and stems back a few years. Like Hervé says, we first heard her on DJ NG's underground UK funky record Tell Me, although she was Baby Katy then. That was three years ago. We tracked down the voice and had to get her on board. We thought she was one of the best voices we had heard for ages and when that happens we just hone in. This was the way we worked with all the artists really, picking the future quality and not just for the buzz name.

The pair of you have done your share of remixes. Does this work often inspire your own material, or do you treat the two avenues as wholly separate areas of what you do?

H: Sometimes you can come up with a new trick or musical motif that is really good, and you will find that reappearing in original tracks. So I think remixing and writing original material do sometimes overlap, and certainly one can inspire something for the other.

S: Yeah, remixes can inspire and inform future directions for original tracks; it all feeds into our original stuff. Some people can be quite negative about remixes and say it's like giving away an original track as if that remix blows up, you've already signed it off. That's true, but certain elements can be used again without rehashing the track. We inspire each other with remixes though, it's where new ideas breed.

Beeper, the track you recorded with Kid Sister (watch its video on ) doesn't feature on Mega Mega Mega - simply a case of it being from another stage of your career? Did it not fit the tone of what you're doing in 2010?

H: Yeah, totally. We knew really early on that we didn't want or need it on there, as our sound has moved in several different directions several times since then! It didn't fit on the album; it's from a different era as far as we are concerned.

S: We are really proud of Beeper, but I guess it's from another part of our career. We wanted to present new tracks on the album, we have to move forward. Not to discredit it in anyway but it does sound a bit dated. Making music - especially dance music - is time sensitive so we kept having to update tracks all the time and ditch some others. That's one of the reasons why it took a while to get the album completed, as we ended up with two records.

Finally, what are your favourite albums of 2010 so far?

H: Steve Mason's solo album is the one I've played the most, I think. I loved The Beta Band and love this as much, I have to say.

S: I've really enjoyed Big Boi's Sir Lucious Left Foot; Oneohtrix Point Never's Returnal; The-Dream's Love King; Donso's eponymous album; and the Shangaan Electro compilation.

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Read the Ö÷²¥´óÐã review of Mega Mega Mega

Read selected previous Album Reviews Q&A articles:
Big Boi
Bilal
Sleigh Bells
School of Seven Bells
Foals and Villagers

A year ago I wrote a Music Blog article predicting the artists that would contest this year's Mercury Prize. The winners, The xx, were mentioned early in the piece; but my big tips were Wild Beasts for their second album, Two Dancers. With many a write-up of the night awarding the Kendall quartet honorary second place, I'm happy that my crystal ball-gazing wasn't totally wide of the eventual mark.

With that in mind, I look to next year's Mercury Prize with some optimism, knowledgeable that the judging panel regularly selects acts that have appeared on previous shortlists, and aware that the winner might well be a record already in stores, as xx was when I wrote my piece of 12 months ago.

Out now

I don't know the exact start date that the Mercury Prize is using for their assessment period for 2011 contenders; but as the 2010 shortlist was announced on July 20, let's assume it's from Monday 19 July. I Am Kloot's Sky at Night, which was shortlisted for the 2010 award, came out on July 5, and there's usually a week of Mercury limbo (which may well have done for Lily Allen's debut LP, Alright, Still, which was released on 14 July 2006). So 19 July would seem a sensible start date.

Tellingly, though, little likely to pique the judging panel's interest was released on either 19 July or the following week. Mount Kimbie (pictured above) could possibly impress with their gently enrapturing dubstep-evolved beats, their debut LP Crooks & Lovers recommended by Rob da Bank and Gilles Peterson, and Professor Green's Alive Till I'm Dead might find itself in a berth occupied in previous years by domestic urban acts like The Streets and Dizzee Rascal. Released on 26 July was Tom Jones' covers collection Praise & Blame - but while it accumulated its share of positive reviews (even if the Ö÷²¥´óÐã's assessment wasn't quite so kind), Sir Tom is perhaps a little too beyond the Mercury's intention to feature innovative, culturally significant music in its shortlist. Also, his age could count against him: he's got 18 years on Paul Weller, 2010's oldest nominee.

August and September offer contenders of greater pedigree, among them past nominees. Manic Street Preachers have been shortlisted twice before, for Everything Must Go (1996) and This Is My Truth Tell Me Yours (1999). Their tenth studio album, Postcards from a Young Man, could see them scoop the Mercury at the third time of asking, which would certainly please bassist Nicky Wire, who recently told me that he was disappointed that their acclaimed previous set, Journal for Plague Lovers, was not amongst 2009's last 12. Isobel Campbell and Mark Lanegan's Ballad of the Broken Seas earned a nomination in 2006, and the pair's new album, Hawk, is arguably their best yet. With the heavier end of rock earning recognition in 2010 courtesy of Biffy Clyro's presence on the shortlist, could veteran metal-heads Iron Maiden be a contender in 2011? Their 15th studio album, The Final Frontier, was called "a remarkable achievement" by Ö÷²¥´óÐã reviewer Greg Moffitt.

Klaxons won in 2007, for their debut Myths of the Near Future; but such has been the general indifference towards its follow-up, Surfing the Void, that it's hard to see the four-piece featuring in 2011's Mercury equation. A better bet, in terms of quirky indie-rock, is Everything Everything's debut, Man Alive, which despite a panning on influential US blog Pitchfork has attracted lots of acclaim in the UK. The Ö÷²¥´óÐã's Alix Buscovic called it "wilfully eccentric and endlessly entertaining", and while it's certainly not to everyone's tastes, it's an ambitious collection that deserves respect. Similarly worthy of consideration by the Mercury panel: Skream's mainstream-courting second long-player Outside the Box; Ö÷²¥´óÐã Sound of 2010 fourth-placers Hurts' debut album Happiness; The Count and Sinden's wonderfully boisterous Mega Mega Mega; jazz artist Soweto Kinch's engaging third LP The New Emancipation; 2008 nominee Robert Plant's solid and studied Band of Joy; and east London rapper Kano's well-received fourth LP Method to the Maadness.

Out soon

Best start with the heavyweights. Bryan Ferry's Olympia album, out late October, is already being talked up as a great return from the Roxy Music frontman. His first album of original material since 2002 also features contributions from Radiohead's Johnny Greenwood. Like Tom Jones, though, Ferry (at 64) is very much the wrong side of attractively youthful - perhaps not the best winner for influential buyers with pocket money to burn. 2005 winners Antony and the Johnsons release Swanlights, their fourth studio album, on 11 October - could they feature again come the 2011 shortlist? Also out on 11 October is Belle & Sebastian's ...Write About Love LP - the Scots last featured on a Mercury shortlist in 2004, for Dear Catastrophe Waitress. 2003 winner Dizzee Rascal used to be a member of the Wiley-fronted Roll Deep, and the London grime collective release their new album, Winner Stays On, in November. Then there's the small matter of a new Brian Eno record - the hugely influential composer's debut for Warp Records, Small Craft on a Milk Sea, is due on 15 November.

Looking at the more commercially established side of British urban talent, forthcoming sets from Tinie Tempah (pictured above) and Tinchy Stryder could well be considered for shortlist inclusion. The former, with a number one single already to his name, releases his debut Disc-Overy in October; the latter, with two number one singles in the bag, reveals his third collection in November, the aptly titled Third Strike. Dubstep supergroup Magnetic Man - comprising Skream, Benga and Artwork - release their eponymous debut album on 4 October, and it's certain to be a contender. One of its contributing vocalists, Katy B, is also preparing her own album, in collaboration with past Mercury winner Ms Dynamite (who also guests on the Magnetic Man LP). A more leftfield dance scene selection is London duo DarkStar's debut long-player, North, released 18 October. Offering a glossier take on Mount Kimbie's scattered beats, it's an outsider worth keeping eyes and ears on, especially as it's released through the same label as 2008-nominated dubstep artist Burial's Untrue, Hyperdub.

Glasgow's The Phantom Band were forecast by several critics to feature on 2009's Mercury shortlist for their debut Checkmate Savage, and the sextet's follow-up, The Wants, is released on 18 October. Turning thoughts to folk records that could feature, the multi-award-winning Bellowhead, an 11-piece group founded by fiddler Jon Boden and melodeon player John Spiers, release their third album Hedonism in October. Sticking to folk, Richard Thompson's Dream Attic, released back in August, is the ex-Fairport Convention man's most interesting release for several years, consisting of brand-new material captured in a live setting; and Scottish collective The Burns Unit, featuring King Creosote and Emma Pollock, could also be contenders with their superb Side Show LP. And should classical music return to the shortlist (pigs might fly), Sir Simon Rattle's forthcoming take on The Nutcracker is sure to be a high-profile release worthy of consideration.

Out sometime between now and then, hopefully

And this is where the crystal ball really gets murky. There's still no release date set for Late of the Pier's overdue follow-up to their dazzling debut, 2008's Fantasy Black Channel - an album that quite incredibly did not feature on 2009's shortlist. I stand by what I wrote a year ago: LOTP should be a serious force in the next Mercury shortlist, should their second LP match (or better) the highs of their exemplary first. Sadly, at the moment it seems members are concentrating on side-projects; here's hoping they get back together soon, in time for next year's prize.

Radiohead (pictured above) have never won the Mercury, although they've been shortlisted four times - for OK Computer (how did this lose out to Roni Size/Reprazent's New Forms, really?), Amnesiac, Hail to the Thief and In Rainbows. Frontman Thom Yorke was shortlisted for his solo collection, The Eraser, in 2006. Could it be their turn in 2011? It's certainly a strong possibility, should an eighth studio effort see the light of day before July next year. Guitarist Ed O'Brien has told 6 Music that their sessions are shaping up to produce "the best record we've ever made". It could yet emerge in 2010, but don't go holding your breath. Do, however, keep those fingers and toes crossed.

2006 winners Arctic Monkeys are in the studio now, and hope to have their fourth album ready in 2011 - whether it'll be before July remains to be seen. Another previous winner busy with a new record is PJ Harvey, who scooped the Mercury in 2001 for her sublime fifth studio album Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea. Regular collaborator Mick Harvey has confirmed that the as-yet-untitled collection should be released in February 2011. And this year's victors, The xx, could even feature in next year's shortlist. The trio are keen to crack on with their second album, and may use their prize money to build a studio in which to craft a successor to their spellbinding debut. Can they turn a new album around in time? Quite possibly.

My pick for 2011

If Late of the Pier don't quicken their creative step, the Manics are overlooked and debuts are steered clear of after two successive wins for first albums, then it has to be Radiohead for me. It seems amazing that the most celebrated British band of the past decade-plus has never walked away with the Mercury Prize, and given their position as continual innovators it seems unlikely that their eighth album will lean on any of their previous seven for key compositional inspiration. The only certainty with any new Radiohead record, since OK Computer, has been to expect the unexpected; but it's surely a no-brainer that their next will feature on the 2011 shortlist, and unlikely that (m)any other albums pitched against it will be as forward-thinking and genuinely inspirational.

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But what's your Mercury Prize pick for 2011? Is it one of the above-mentioned LPs expected to make some kind of impression on the domestic music scene, or another collection that I've not touched upon? Leave your suggestions and recommendations in our comments section below...

Radiohead photograph: Insight-Visual UK/Rex Features

Act: Bilal
Album: Airtight's Revenge
Recommended by: Rob da Bank, Benji B, Gilles Peterson, Craig Charles Funk & soul Show

Bilal Oliver's fine follow-up to his widely revered debut, 1st Born Second, has been some time coming. The Philadelphia neo-soul singer was launched into the spotlight on the back of his first collection, which emerged in the summer of 2001 and duly reaped a crop of fine reviews from both sides of the Atlantic. But despite the accolades, misfortune was soon to manifest: his 2006 album, Love for Sale, was denied release by Universal after leaking online, and remains commercially unavailable to this day.

Now free of a major label contract, Bilal has released Airtight's Revenge though Los Angeles-based indie Plug Research. It's a frequently stunning album, and a reminder that those comparisons to Prince, Stevie Wonder and Curtis Mayfield made at the time of his debut weren't so very wide of the mark. The inventive musician kindly took the time to answer our Album Reviews Q&A.

Were you surprised that there was such a high amount of expectation for this new LP given the time that's passed since the debut? Do you think this had anything to do with how 1st Born Second didn't really fit any 'scene' as such, and as a result the music hasn't aged as it might've?
Could be that. I think Love for Sale had a lot to do with it. It feels like my fans genuinely want to see me succeed. I can't express what an amazing feeling of inspiration that gives me.

Tracks from the new album have appeared online, something that helped to derail the last one. Is this something you just have to take in your stride these days, or does it hurt your campaign, or even you personally?
I think the only tracks that have leaked are tracks we put out there... but I don't really know to be honest. I feel like the success of this record will be how it affects people rather than the amount of records I sell. I hope to sell a lot, but times are tough and people are hurting. I hope this record helps them as much as it did me.

The new album finds you working with an independent label, Plug Research, after previously releasing through Interscope/Universal. Did the problems with Love for Sale directly influence this move, or was it simply a case that you felt that you'd be more comfortable at a label where you have a lot more say in the daily promotion of your music?
I guess it was all of the above. Mostly, I wanted to make the music I am actually feeling. Not the music that label execs want. Plug allowed me the freedom to do me. It was as important to this process as a microphone.

Much of the new album is co-produced by yourself. Do you think it's important for artists to be involved in their releases at as many stages as possible?
I only want to do me. It was important for me to be involved in all of the aspects, to ensure that what I want portrayed is actually me. I encourage new and seasoned artists to simply do them.

You've participated in numerous collaborations, guesting on the records of other artists. Typically, does each of these encounters give you something to take away and use to influence your own material? Are there any past hook-ups that you can identify as being pivotal for certain tracks on this new LP, in terms of how it might've changed your creative headspace, or simply introduced you to new sonic possibilities?
Shafiq Husayn's contribution on this project really inspired and helped decide the final approaches to this album. However, I made this record exactly as I wanted to. I guess that's why I co-produced so many of the tracks. I walk away from each of these encounters with new perspectives and lessons. Most of them, great stories.

There's always been a jazz element to your music, reflected again in Airtight's Revenge. Do you think that artists such as yourself can do much to open new ears to jazz? Wide genre though it is, there can't be that many rap fans who dabble with someone like Robert Glasper, despite his numerous projects with MCs.
I think Robert has had a great impact on hip hop heads. Moreover, I feel like Robert reached a lot of straight jazz heads and brought them to hip hop. Not sure how I affect people along these lines. I hope people love jazz as much as I do.

Finally, what are your favourite albums of 2010 so far?
Don't have many albums on my radar. But I do have particular folks I really like in 2010. Flying Lotus, Little Dragon, Thom Yorke, Madlib, Daedelus, Exile. A lot of these folks I just met. Some I haven't met yet. Time has a way of working these things out.

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Bilal - Robots (live in the Attic Addict Tent @ Dour Festival 2010)
Contains language which may offend

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Read the Ö÷²¥´óÐã review of Airtight's Revenge

Read a selection of previous Album Reviews Q&A articles
Sleigh Bells
School of Seven Bells
Big Boi
Foals and Villagers

The xx

Congratulations, then, to The xx. The young London band won 2010's Mercury Prize for their sort-of-eponymous debut album, a frail record of such slightness and deliberate space that to bestow too much praise upon it would surely fracture it to its uneasy-of-emotion core. It's a collection of real promise, effective in the immediate but, more fascinatingly, full of glimpses of potential as yet unrealised. Anyone who has seen the band live since their debut's release in the summer of 2009 will know how they've embraced a confidence markedly absent during their first few shows. If they carry this into album two, relative fireworks can be expected.

Now that the dust has settled somewhat on their victory, and that £20k cheque's been deposited (they might use the prize money to build their own studio), it's time for some completely different checks, of a reality nature. One, the band are going to sell a lot more copies of xx - and it wasn't doing too badly anyway, with some 180,000 copies sold prior to their Mercury triumph. Two, the three members are going to have to contend with being very well known, recognisable to people who previously had the vaguest knowledge of them as a faceless act responsible for lending a song (Intro) to the Ö÷²¥´óÐã's general election coverage trailers (and numerous other documentaries, dramas, comedies; you name a programme made in the last 12 months, it's probably had The xx's music feature on it somewhere). And three, they're going to have to sidestep the Dreaded Mercury Curse.

Or, are they? A popular opinion amongst many critics, and blog-commenting music fans with their ears pressed firmest to the (under)ground, is that Mercury winners rarely experience success after their handshake from Jools and temporary sales boost. But I don't see it, a couple of exceptions aside. There is no Dreaded Mercury Curse, at all; it's just that some acts' success at the annual award ceremony coincides with their commercial peak, simple as.

Look for evidence of this curse, and of 18 winning artists few have slipped from favour after capturing the Mercury. The first winners, in 1992, were Primal Scream for their Screamadelica LP. It was the band's first real commercial success, and sales were certainly buoyed by their Mercury win; but while the group's fortunes did fade somewhat with their follow-up album, the muddled plod-rocker Give Out But Don't Give Up, their creative juices have never dried up. 1997's Vanishing Point was superb, 2000's XTRMNTR blindingly intense, and even their latest long-play set, 2008's Beautiful Future, had its share of highs. Cursed? Far from it - after their Mercury win, Primal Scream soared like never before.

Primal Scream

Suede, winners in 1993 for their fiery yet elegant eponymous debut, were not struck by any curse either. Their next album, Dog Man Star, remains the band's finest collection. M People's Elegant Slumming won in 1994, and their next album, Bizarre Fruit, spawned the enormo-hit Search for the Hero. And so it goes, from Portishead's Dummy in 1995, Pulp's Different Class in 96, through to 1997 and Roni Size/Reprazent's New Forms. Which is where this curse-denying stance does come a little unstuck.

New Forms enjoyed its Mercury boost, and the group became festival heavyweights, calling at any stage with a soundsystem worthy of their tremendous drum'n'bass catalogue. But the music was never meant to be commercial; it wasn't written, or released, with sales figures in mind. So, appropriately, the group slowly slipped from the public eye, Size returning to the below-the-radar bass culture that he produced his magnum opus from the comfort of. Talvin Singh's Ok was another winner punching above its commercial weight, the 1999 victor now returned to the Brit-Asian electro underground. One has to fast-forward to last year's winner, Speech Debelle, to find the only other act whose career has gone rather awry since winning the Mercury.*

It's hardly conjecture to state that Speech Therapy, Debelle's gong-claiming debut, was an unexpected choice. I was at the Mercurys in 2009 and the atmosphere in the room when the winner was announced was strange indeed, many attendees expecting The Horrors, La Roux or even The Invisible, who enjoyed a great response to their on-the-night live performance, to take the prize. So, she was off to an unsure start already. Then Debelle - real name Corynne Elliot - had a falling out with her label, Big Dada. She claimed they had failed to properly market the album, which at no time broke into the UK top 40. The reality: it simply wasn't that great a record - decent, yes, but hardly a must-buy - and on that premise Speech had exceeded expectation levels in the most public way possible. Speech Therapy remains the lowest-selling Mercury winner of all time.

Speech Debelle

But was she cursed? No, of course not - she simply found herself at a stage of her career before the time was right, where the general public were directed towards her ability before it had properly matured. The same can, of course, be said of The xx - but unlike Speech Debelle's debut, the trio's set has already made significant commercial inroads. It has dug itself in, after charting in the top 40 on its first week of release largely through word of mouth, and returned to the upper end of the chart almost as soon as the Mercury shortlist was announced. They will, easily, avoid the Dreaded Mercury Curse.

Not least because, as the above surely proves, there is no such thing.

(* Unless, of course, you consider the chart performance of Klaxons' second album - it entered at 10 and slipped to 38 the next week - to be a result of the Dreaded Mercury Curse. But since this hasn't prevented the group from headlining festivals, performing to packed crowds or enjoying widespread radio playlisting for lead single Echoes, I'd say they're still doing alright.)

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See the Mercury Prize 2010 in pictures
Watch The xx collect the Mercury Prize
Watch The xx perform Night Time at the Mercury Prize
Read the Ö÷²¥´óÐã review of xx HERE

Mike Diver is editor of the Ö÷²¥´óÐã's Album Reviews service - find the latest album reviews HERE

Don't know what to do with those left-over pesos from your summer holiday? Why not splash the freshly re-exchanged cash on one of these little beauties. A selection of August's best new album releases, below...

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Arcade Fire - The Suburbs
(Mercury, released 2 August)
Recommended by Zane Lowe, Victoria Derbyshire, Nick Grimshaw, Fearne Cotton, Radcliffe & Maconie, 6 Music Album of the Day 2 August

"The Suburbs is their most thrillingly engrossing chapter yet; a complex, captivating work that, several cycles down the line, retains the magic and mystery of that first tentative encounter. You could call it their OK Computer. But it's arguably better than that."

Read the full review and listen to previews

Arcade Fire - Ready to Start - - -
The Count & Sinden - Mega Mega Mega
(Domino, released 16 August)
Recommended by Rob da Bank

"Innovative, intelligent dance music that is as entertaining as it is enterprising, combining some of the most successful elements of the genre's varied past with the bang-up-to-date influences of today's urban and RnB artists."

Read the full review and listen to previews

The Count & Sinden feat. Mystery Jets - After Dark

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Everything Everything - Man Alive
(Polydor, released 30 August)
Recommended by Zane Lowe, Nick Grimshaw, Vic Galloway, Huw Stephens, Marc Riley, Bethan Elfyn, 6 Music Album of the Day 31 August

"Whether they're talking a load of gibber, spewing poetic profundities or playing auditory jokes, it doesn't really matter; it merely adds to their quirky brilliance. And it is brilliance. EE are wilfully eccentric, and endlessly entertaining, but they know more than most how to craft a song, how to make an album."

Read the full review

Everything Everything - MY KZ, UR BF - - -
Sleigh Bells - Treats
(Columbia, released 9 August)
Recommended by Huw Stephens, Steve Lamacq, Lauren Laverne, Nick Grimshaw, Zane Lowe, Vic Galloway, 6 Music Album of the Day 9 August

"Electronic beats drop like cartoon anvils, guitars and synths are slathered in distortion, and the mix appears to have been plotted to introduce your ears to the concept of whiplash. It's their sonic mayhem that'll get them noticed, but Sleigh Bells have content beyond the chaos."

Read the full review and listen to previews
Read our Album Reviews Q&A with Sleigh Bells

Sleigh Bells - Infinity Guitars (audio only) - - -
Zola Jesus - Stridulum II
(Souterrain Transmissions, released 23 August)
Recommended by Steve Lamacq, Huw Stephens, Rob da Bank

"Over dark wave synth sweeps that owe everything to the 80s and a martial bass drum throb that'd make These New Puritans proud, Nika Roza Danilova intones in a spooked-up siren call equal parts Siouxsie Sioux (an undoubted influence) and Cocteau Twins' Liz Fraser."

Read the full review and listen to previews

Zola Jesus - Sea Talk - - -
Jason Moran - Ten
(Blue Note, released 23 August)
Recommended by Jazz on 3

"A typically bold expression of Moran's multifaceted personality and the chemistry between the pianist and his accompanists, both of whom have mastered that elusive skill of bringing sufficient detail to a piece without overshadowing its essential character."

Read the full review and listen to previews

Jason Moran - Gangsterism Over 10 Years (audio only) - - -
Vijay Iyer - Solo
(ACT Music, released 23 August)
Recommended by Jazz on 3

"The original compositions on Solo reflect Iyer's immersion in the improvised music of his adopted New York. The energy of his attack, the variety of material presented and the fluidity of form combine to establish his place in, as he puts it, 'the stream of history'."

Read the full review and listen to previews

Vijay Iyer - About Solo (documentary) - - -
The Burns Unit - Side Show
(Proper, released 2 August)
Recommended by Lauren Laverne, Marc Riley, 6 Music Album of the Day 12 August

"Excellently conceived, brilliantly executed and splendidly presented, Side Show is a little wonder that's considerably more than the sum of its admittedly excellent parts. Fingers crossed that its makers turn their occasional live performances into a proper tour, soon."

Read the full review and listen to previews

The Burns Unit - Side Show (documentary) - - -
Baths - Cerulean
(Anticon, released 9 August)

"At its most intoxicating, Cerulean is wonderfully escapist fare, and even at its most perfunctory - Maximalist and Aminals echo Clark and Bibio respectively - it's never dull. What Baths must do next is take the language he has mastered, his accent impeccable, and use it to say something truly unexpected."

Read the full review and listen to previews

Baths - Lovely Bloodflow (CONTAINS LANGUAGE WHICH MAY OFFEND) - - -
Iron Maiden - The Final Frontier
(EMI, released 16 August)
Recommended by Rock Show with Daniel P Carter

"This is Iron Maiden truly living their purpose. No compromises, just complexities and challenges and more moments of brilliance than perhaps even they thought they still had left in them. A remarkable achievement."

Read the full review and listen to previews

Iron Maiden - The Final Frontier (teaser) - - -

Of course, there were many more great albums released in August, by the likes of Skream, Best Coast and The Sword, to name but three. Check the Ö÷²¥´óÐã reviews from week to week by clicking HERE, and follow the Album Reviews service on .