Magazine: Billboard, September 23, 1995
Section: ARTISTS & MUSIC
London--The eerie tones of Portishead's "Dummy" narrowly beat the introspective "Maxiquaye" by Tricky to win this year's Mercury Music Prize.
Portishead was on hand to collect its trophy Sept. 12 at a packed ceremony at the Savoy Hotel here.
Media coverage of the event, combined with retail support, is expected to add a gentle impetus to sales of "Dummy" and generate wider interest in the band for the release of its second album next spring.
Only the winner of the Mercury Music Prizes was made public, but one member of the panel of judges says the contest between Portishead and Tricky was very strong, with PJ Harvey's "To Bring You My Love" a close third. This meant the judges ranked three of the past year's more somber and exploratory albums above the brighter pop sounds of"I Should Coco" by Supergrass and "Elastica" by Elastica, while Oasis's "Definitely Maybe" went out of the running early on, followed shortly after by Leftfield's charged-up techno extravaganza, "Leftism."
The Mercury Music Prize, now in its fourth year, is sponsored by telecommunications company Mercury Communications. It is decided by a panel of 10 music writers, critics, and experts; the organizers intend to make the award an equal to the Booker Prize for literature.
This year, the awards show featured a live performance of an excerpt from one of the nominated albums, James McMillan's "Seven Last Words From The Cross" performed by the London Chamber Orchestra. Jazz trumpeter Guy Barker, whose "Into The Blue" was also nominated, invited fellow nominee Van Morrison onto the stage for a rendition of "Moondance" with Georgie Fame. Morrison was nominated for his album "Days Like This."
The show is broadcast live nationwide by BBC Radio 1, while an edited version of the show went out later on the evening of Sept. 12. Press coverage of the event was minimal. The Times reported the winner as newsbrief item, although the quality newspapers, such as The Daily Telegraph and The Guardian, were expected to devote space to the winner later in the week. Creation Records took out a front-page corner ad in The Times for the Oasis album, even though "Definitely Maybe" was not the winner.
The prize is supported by individual retailers, by the British Assn. of Record Dealers, and by the record companies' federation, BPI. A 10-track sampler is produced in the run-up to the competition, featuring a track from each nominee, and retailers have specially produced point-of-sale stands racking the albums and the sampler, which retails at 3.99 pounds ($6.18).
Derek Moir, music buyer at John Menzies, which has 200 outlets in the U.K., says, "The Mercury sampler is basically selling because it's cheap. We rack it next to the other albums. Now Portishead's got a Mercury Music Prize 'Winner' sticker on the album, it'll go into the top 20. I wouldn't expect to see any more sales of the other acts from the prize."
Opinion is divided as to whether the Mercury Music Prize has a meaningful sales effect. Two years ago, Suede won the prize and were catapulted even further into the limelight, but, says Saul Galpern, director of their label, Nude Records, the sales increase was negligible.
"At the time when Suede won it, the prize was only two years old, so it's hard to tell. It's really an accolade more than anything. With Suede, we didn't see all that much in terms of incremental sales. We'd already exceeded our sales limits. Most of the people who would have seen Suede because of the Mercury prize were music fans anyway and had already bought the album. What it did was to bring the album and the music back into focus, rather than the band, who had received a lot of publicity."
However, it is understood that last year's winner, "Elegant Slumming" by M-People, helped the band reach a wider audience.
At the ceremony, Portishead's guitarist Adrian Utley told Billboard the act was due to bring out an album, possibly in February. "It'll be the kind of thing we always do best--what comes naturally." Portishead remains firmly wedded to its Bristol roots, said Utley. "We've no intention of moving up to London. It's really nice to see people from the west country getting on," referring to themselves and Tricky from Bristol and PJ Harvey from Yeovil, Somerset.
Addressing the media after his win, a slightly shocked Portishead main man Geoff Barrow flanked by singer Beth Gibbons was still coming to terms with his win. "Music shouldn't be judged. There are 10 albums here, all of them personal. How can you say ours is best? I'm sure there's some bloke in his bedroom making a record on his organ that's as good as ours."
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By DOMINIC PRIDE