Mercury Music Prize race wide open

By Ian Youngs
BBC News entertainment reporter

The Nationwide Mercury Music Prize for best British or Irish album of the year will be awarded on Tuesday - and this year's race is one of the most exciting in the prize's history.

Kaiser Chiefs have been favourites since the shortlist was announced

Even in the most predictable times, the Mercury Prize is notoriously difficult to predict - but there are usually a few nominees that stand head and shoulders above the pack.

This year, though, almost all of the 12 shortlisted albums are in with a shout.

Kaiser Chiefs' Employment has been the bookmakers' favourite throughout - and they are currently riding high in the eyes of the critics, industry and fans alike.

And if the award was for the most catchy guitar-pop single or most exuberant live performance, they would win hands down.

But when it comes to album of the year, there are a few factors in their way.

VOTE

Who should win the Mercury Prize?

Antony and the Johnsons

Bloc Party

Coldplay

The Go! Team

Hard-Fi

Kaiser Chiefs

Seth Lakeman

The Magic Numbers

Maximo Park

MIA

Polar Bear

KT Tunstall

Results are indicative and may not reflect public opinion

For one thing, they are the favourites - and the Mercury judges hate plumping for the obvious candidate unless they have no choice. This year, they have lots of choice.

Employment may be too similar to last year's winning album by Franz Ferdinand, and the Chiefs' influences - namely Blur - may be too recent to be considered sufficiently cool and cutting edge.

And apart from anything else, the stonking singles and knees-up interludes cannot disguise the fact that as a complete work, Employment may prove a bit too thin to win.

Hard-Fi, whose debut Stars of CCTV has been puzzlingly ranked as an outsider by bookmakers, could upset the odds.

It has had rave reviews and sounds like neither Franz Ferdinand nor Coldplay - which makes it pretty radical these days, and is likely to endear it to the judges.

It actually sounds like The Happy Mondays remixing The Jam for the hoodie generation. With 11 anthems about suffocating in suburbia, it has the tunes and the depth to demand attention.

Hard-Fi have been ranked as outsiders by bookmakers

But it may sound a bit too polished - as if Hard-Fi are already marching towards fame and not asking to be afforded alternative acclaim by the Mercury.

As for Coldplay, they are nominated for their third album, X&Y, which many consider to be their best.

But the simple fact that they are Coldplay may be held against them.

Since the award was first handed out 13 years ago, the UK's most successful and influential rock bands - Radiohead, Oasis, Blur, Coldplay - have never won.

But sooner or later, the panel must accept that an album is not automatically rubbish just because it sells a million copies and spawns top five singles.

Among the other rock nominees, Bloc Party are one of the other favourites with Silent Alarm - a fresh, inventive and assured indie debut that will be a strong contender.

A Certain Trigger by Maximo Park offers deft jerky-pop gems from start to finish - but may lack enough originality and depth to win.

And The Magic Numbers are in the running with their eponymous debut, which is full of delicate, harmonic, uplifting rock.

This year's dance nominees are The Go! Team with Thunder, Lighting, Strike. It is fun and funky but similar to recent unsuccessful dance nominees - and if Basement Jaxx cannot win, then neither can The Go! Team.

Singer-songwriter KT Tunstall is nominated for Eye to the Telescope - a good album that may be just too far into the middle of the road for the judges' liking.

Two albums by more unconventional creators are being talked up in some quarters - I am a Bird Now by Antony and the Johnsons and Arular by MIA.

Antony and the Johnsons' album has been hotly-tipped

MIA is a hard-edged female rapper whose father was a Tamil revolutionary in Sri Lanka, while Antony is an androgynous New York-based singer-songwriter with a haunting falsetto.

If the Mercury Prize is awarded for originality and distinctiveness - which it often is - then one of this pair could well win.

They would give the award some much-needed publicity and controversy, but it is hard to argue that - on musical terms alone - theirs are the best albums of the past 12 months.

The heated debates in the judges' room could see a compromise winner emerge from one of the "token" genres - if the panel cannot decide on anything else and want to prove that jazz and folk albums do win sometimes.

Folk artist Seth Lakeman, a singer-songwriter with violins, is nominated for Kitty Jay, while jazz outfit Polar Bear are in the running with Held on the Tips of Fingers.

They are both good albums - but neither has quite enough crossover appeal to be embraced by the music-loving public at large.

But this is an award that has previously chosen M People's Elegant Slumming over Blur's Parklife and Roni Size's New Forms over Radiohead's OK Computer - so anything could happen.