Mercury Prize 2012

This year's nominations for the Mercury Prize are:

• Alt-J - An Awesome Wave
• Ben Howard - Every Kingdom
• Django Django - Django Django
• Field Music - Plumb
• Jessie Ware - Devotion
• Lianne La Havas - Is Your Love Big Enough?
• Maccabees - Given to the Wild
• Michael Kiwanuka - Home Again
• Plan B - Ill Manors
• Richard Hawley - Standing at the Sky's Edge
• Roller Trio - Roller Trio
• Sam Lee - Ground Of Its Own

An interesting list. Glad to see Richard Hawley and Sam Lee but the rest is very middle-of-the-road. Probably the weakest commercial line-up in years but some really interesting music, most notably Alt-J. Two very strong female singers in Jessie Ware and Lianne La Havas and the stand-out rap artist Plan B. This makes this year's Mercury difficult to predict.