Is the Mercury Prize heading for rocky times? The independent music prize, which has always prided itself as cooler than the Brit Awards, has come in for stinging criticism from Vice, youth media brand du jour.
After the prize announced this year’s shortlist of artists, including David Bowie and the Arctic Monkeys last week, one of the Vice scribblers took up arms.“If last year’s list was unadventurous, then this year’s is positively agoraphobic ... it’s time this miserable award ceremony was locked in a room with a shotgun and bullet,” wrote Sam Wolfson.
Vice, which started out as a Canadian magazine in the 1990s, is now so influential online that Rupert Murdoch bought a five per cent tranche of it last month for $70 million to reach an audience his newspapers like The Times never could.
Vice’s music critiques also hit a high note this summer when it asked Tom Watson, then general election co-ordinator for the Labour Party, to write about Glastonbury. He resigned two days later after becoming involved in the Unite scandal, and, signing off his letter to Ed Miliband, Watson suggested that the Labour leader listen to Drenge, an indie guitar duo he’d just heard at the festival.
