it is 3am in the morning and i can’t sleep. fuck knows why but for whatever reason i can’t. therefore i’ve decided to write something about the mercury music prize nominations. as i’m still a week away from having internet access at home you will notice that the little time at the bottom of this post probably says about half eight or something. glad we’ve got that cleared up.

i can’t be bothered to list them all as every other site on the web has already done that so if you’d like the list please click here. i’ll wait a moment while you read it. done? good. what did you think? i know what you’re thinking. where are wild beasts? where is tom vek? where are yuck? all three of those (especially wild beasts) will have to go down as 2011′s gorillaz for their glaring omission.

let’s talk about who is in then. ghostpoet. happy day. the quite wonderful ghostpoet is there. i’ve written about him so many times i’ve lost count. not only does he hold the distinction of being the first ever post on the relaunched sockformation, but i also confirmed that i didn’t lick him during a very drunken gig and he was my only tip for 2011 in amongst all of josh’s (none of which are in. take that short stuff). i hope he wins. i really do.

strangely i didn’t review the ghostpoet album. i can’t remember why. in fact, i only reviewed two. or to be more exact, i reviewed pj harvey and helen parton reviewed metronomy for me. both were very positive and i predict that it will be pj harvey who walks off with the prize. she may well be more established than a lot of winners tend to be, but let england shake is a brave and unusual album. mercury love that shit.

others to keep an eye on would be king creosote & jon hopkins or katy b. i’m not the biggest fan of the latter but i think she’s probably come out at the right sort of time for the awards. anna calvi was another hotly tipped artist for this year and her nomination confirms that her self-titled album lived up to expectations. adele has done alright for herself this year and you’ll have trouble discounting her from the running. i’m unsure whether she’s a label mate of last year’s winners, the xx, will affect her negatively though. shame because out of all the nominees i’m sure she could probably do with the £20k prize money the most after selling more records worldwide than there are people.

i’ve put together a playlist on spotify of all the nominees. there are a couple of tracks from each album. you can find it here.

finally. who the fuck is gwilym simcock?