Music Mania

Today's number: Bat For Lashes's Fur and Gold. Er… I confess to being fooled by marketing dressed up as music journalism on this one. I used to buy NME every week and spend liberally on whatever they claimed was the great new thing. After a few years, I realised that they were mostly talking utter bollocks and became a bit more wary.

However, Bat for Lashes seemed to get rave reviews from everybody so I bought a copy. I played it. I played it again. I put it away for a few weeks because sometimes an initial listening just doesn't work, whereas a piece might sound brilliant given some time. Not on this occasion. I admit defeat. I'm not cool. Bat for Lashes sounds like a teenager's parody of KAte Bush, about whom I'm largely neutral-to-admiring.

Mercury rising

Mercury Prize nominations are up - now the NME awards are simply an excuse to plug hairgel and because the Brits are merely for best marketer, they're the closest the pop world gets to credibility (though I rate the BBC Folk/World awards).

Florence and the Machine 5/1

Kasabian 5/1

Bat for Lashes 6/1

La Roux 6/1

Glasvegas 6/1

Speech Debelle 8/1

Friendly Fires 8/11

The Horrors 8/1

Lisa Hannigan 8/1

The Invisible 10/1

Led Bib 10/1

Sweet Billy Pilgrim 10/1

Which of these do you rate? Obviously the folk ones are merely window-dressing, they won't win, unfortunately. Florence and the Machine have had a lot of press interest but there's a suspicion that there's more style than substance. The Horrors might get a nod for following an emo-by-numbers debut with a very interesting sophomore album. On the other hand, there's a groundswell of press opinion that this is the year of the electro woman, so it could come down to Bat for Lashes v. La Roux. Glasvegas produced an LP that sounded like Oasis after a couple of years on a Liberal Arts degree, but they haven't really broken the mould. Your thoughts?