Rising New York stars beat Coldplay to top UK music prize

By Peter Griffiths

LONDON (Reuters) – An androgynous New York-based artist who
sings haunting ballads about gender confusion beat Grammy
Award-winners Coldplay to win one of Britain’s most prestigious
music prizes on Tuesday.

Antony Hegarty, whose quavering voice has been likened to
Billie Holliday and Nina Simone, won the Mercury music prize
with his band, Antony and the Johnsons, for their album “I Am a
Bird Now.”

Widely-acclaimed by the critics but little known in the
mainstream music world, Hegarty has been described as the
“gayest thing ever recorded.”

The 20,000 pounds prize is awarded each year by an
independent judging panel to the best album by a British or
Irish band.

Antony and the Johnsons only qualified for nomination
because Hegarty was born in Sussex, southern England, before
moving to the United States.

“I am completely overwhelmed,” Hegarty, 34, said after
accepting the award at a central London ceremony. “I think they
must have made a mistake. I think that is insane.”

Losing nominees included Coldplay for their bestselling
album “X&Y,” guitar band Kaiser Chiefs for “Employment” and
London newcomers The Magic Numbers.

Hegarty said trying to pick between such different nominees
was like choosing between an “orange and a spaceship and a
potted plant.”

At well over 6 feet tall and with a ghost-white face and
straggly hair covering his face, Hegarty’s looks are as unusual
as is his voice.

Rolling Stone magazine described his voice as “an
instrument of delicacy and rapture in which Nina Simone,
Morrissey and Joni Mitchell seem to inhabit the same breath.”

The Mercury judges often award the prize to rising stars
rather than established names.

Past winners include Scottish rock band Franz Ferdinand,
rapper Dizzee Rascal, indie band Pulp and singer-songwriter PJ
Harvey.