by Phil Scarisbrick

The Mercury Prize nominations have always been divisive. While there are often curveballs included that you expect – and even surprise winners – some of the biggest shocks can be those omitted from the final list. According to the official website, around 220 albums are submitted for consideration. To make the final shortlist is an achievement in itself, but to win it puts your name alongside the previous iconic winners, and Speech DeBelle.

This year’s nominations, like any other, have provided shocks in both the admitted and omitted columns. While works such as King Krule’s triumphant lo-fi fizz bomb, The Ooz, and Arctic Monkeys’ avant-garde, almost -guitar-less masterpiece, Tranquillity base Hotel & Casino, are rightfully included, others seem to have come more from the leftfield. Noel Gallagher’s Who Built The Moon? for example is not a bad album, but doesn’t seem like the kind of record you’d expect in this sort of list.

Those included are there on merit, and have been picked by an array of artists, DJs and journalists because they collectively loved them. What about the records that didn’t make it though? Below are the British albums that have been released in the last twelve months that we loved, and would’ve liked to have seen gain the recognition of a Mercury Prize nomination.

Shame – Songs of Praise

Gwenno – Le Kov

Drinks – Hippo Lite

Young Fathers – Cocoa Sugar

Goat Girl – Goat Girl

Gruff Rhys –  Babelsberg

Gorillaz – The Now Now

Johnny Marr – Call The Comet

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