The Mercury Prize winner was announced on The One Show last night.

September: now six months since Bojo clamped down on all things fun and populated, and gig-less we remain. In half a year, no one has felt the bass of a speaker thud across their chest, nor begrudgingly sacrificed next month’s rent for a pint of ‘whatever’s cheapest’. Withdrawal symptoms settled in across the nation: better hearing, fewer crowd-induced bruises… nasty stuff, really. Thankfully, just before bucket hats began to see a new life as makeshift face coverings, we were gifted a taste of what once was.
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The Mercury Prize Album of the Year is an annual excuse for any British melomaniac to spend the night in with a few drinks, a few mates and quite literally some of the finest new music around. While watching the ceremony often risks major audience-envy as the crowd screams applause after each set, this year was significantly more personal to watch. Naturally, live performances were out of the question, but many of the shortlisted artists were able to deliver pre-recorded sets specifically for the BBC’s coverage of the event: an hour-long compilation of these performances, presented by Lauren Laverne and uploaded to iPlayer. Not a bad deal, all in all – in fact, many of the videos made it feel like I was standing at the front row of an actual gig, too engrossed by the musicians to notice anyone else around. It’s as close to a concert as I’m getting, anyway, so here are the highlights from The Mercury Prize 2020.

Just before the release of her second album, Donna Missal sat down for a strikingly honest conversation about her career so far.

“I’m really excited by the concept that people change.”

Within minutes of our conversation, American songwriter, singer and musician, Donna Missal, reveals herself to be as intriguing, profound and promising as this one statement. At the time of our call, she was also merely a week away from releasing her second album, lighter.  

“I definitely feel like a totally different person from when I was writing my first record – and I would hope so! You’re allowed to do things differently, to think differently, change your mind, grow and come to understand things in a new way through perspective and through life experience.”
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The new record introduces a greater level of cohesion and vulnerability compared to her 2018 debut, This Time. Turning to music to get through a difficult time, lighter brought Donna perspective and relief as she poured out her feelings – it’s no wonder, then, that it all came together relatively quickly.

​The world is bored. I am bored. So bored, in fact, that I’ve been watching horror films just to feel something besides the monotony of my new existence (cheerful, eh?). When that failed, I turned to nostalgia, a bittersweet remedy which many of us will have pulled upon of late: the film we once knew line-by-line; the playlist that soundtracked last summer; the Monopoly board reeking of Christmas fallouts.
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A strong contender for my favourite TV shows, GIRLS was what I returned to… again. I like to consider it a sort of Sex & The City for twenty-somethings who don’t have it figured out yet. Hannah, Jessa, Marnie and Shoshanna were my Carrie, Samantha, Charlotte and Miranda: relatable, honest, funny and also (as chance would have it) living in NYC. The lines are iconic, the characters are as unique and complicated as you can imagine, and – needless to say – the music is also a fucking treat...

I was almost nervous to hear this new record. Sometimes, after months of teasing with studio clips and new singles, a long-awaited album can come off anticlimactic – as with pres and the club itself, the hype can feel better than the main event. It was stupid to think this could be the case for HAIM: it seems these sisters have a knack for consistently outdoing themselves.

On their third and most exceptional album yet, Women In Music Pt. III (dubbed wimpiii) sees HAIM delve even deeper into stark honesty and emotional vulnerability: ‘I Know Alone’, ‘Now I’m In It’ and ‘I’ve Been Down’ carry a similar theme of depression, while ‘Hallelujah’ depicts the grief of losing a childhood friend. Although their prior records have often portrayed HAIM’s emotions in a raw and candid manner, wimpiii sees the band truly open up through lyrics that cut true for musician and listener alike:‘Days get slow like counting cell towers on the road / I know alone and I don’t wanna talk about it’.
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The record takes time, too, to address wider issues such as sexism: ‘Man From The Magazine’ calls out the misogyny of the music industry, namely in the comments made towards female artists...