Nationwide Building Society Announces Home Mercury Prize Winner
In a hugely popular victory Elbow have been announced as winners of the 2008 Nationwide Mercury Prize for ‘Album of the Year.’
Elbow frontman Guy Garvey said, “This is quite literally the best thing that has ever happened to us.”
“It feels great, very unexpected. I suppose you could look at it in the same way that certain Bedouin tribes look at a bowl of milk,” he added as a tongue-in-cheek aside. “It’s something that doesn’t occur very often, and it’s so much sweeter for it.”
“Having said that, it’s been a long time that we’ve been doing it and this is a cause for celebration. I’m just so very proud that we’ve been working together this long – to this end. We really wanted this.”
The band formed in college in Bury in 1990 and ‘The Seldom Seen Kid’ is their fourth album.
Simon Frith, Chair of Judges, said, “‘The Seldom Seen Kid’ is an album of epic songs, rooted in their locality, a switchback of emotions rooted in the everyday, the sound of musical ambition perfectly realised. Elbow’s album is triumphant, heartbreaking, unerringly melodic and life-affirming.”
BBC Two will be broadcasting a 65 minute ‘Nationwide Mercury Prize’ special on Friday, September 12 at 11:35 pm hosted by Lauren Laverne and Jools Holland and featuring exclusive live performances from many of the shortlisted artists including The Last Shadow Puppets, Adele, British Sea Power, Neon Neon, Laura Marling and Elbow.
The Nationwide Mercury Prize exists solely to champion UK music by promoting the 12 albums of the year by British or Irish artists. All genres of music are eligible and only the music on the album is taken into account when judging the prize.
The prize is sponsored by Nationwide Building society (www.nationwide.co.uk), the UK’s largest building society.
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