Half and half

Well, six out of twelve ain't bad. And Neil McCormack thinks the list is rubbish, which proves how well the judges have done, doesn't it? And shouldn't inflation have increased the prize pot from £20,000 long ago?

Arctic Monkeys - Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not
Well, of course. Another two months of They Were Off Myspace They Were articles ahead, then. Not a lot of hype around their new single as yet, is there?

Isobel Campbell & Mark Lanegan - Ballad Of The Broken Seas
Campbell's songs, but watch for the 'but he's American!' bandwagon grow should it come anywhere near bookmaker favouritism. At least she of all people can becalm him.

Editors - The Back Room
Isn't Edith Bowman on the judging panel? Anyway, it's not going to win and we found this a hugely inconsistent record bar the singles, although last track Distance is a corker.

Guillemots - Through The Windowpane
Let Iain F and ourselves dance arm in arm amongst the lilies! On reflection maybe extending Blue Will Still Be Blue to five minutes still unaccompanied by anything but Fyfe's battery powered keyboard wasn't a great idea, but what an avalanche of ideas there is at work here.

Richard Hawley - Coles Corner
The most South Yorkshire man in Britain's elegant balladry caused national outbreaks of wistfulness across much of last year and landed him a top 20 position in our blogger poll. Romance is what it used to be.

Hot Chip - The Warning
Only just realised the subtly simplistic greatness of Over And Over round here, so must check this out at some stage despite not being overly keen on the earlier stuff. Could this be the supposed outsider that ends up second favourite come the announcement?

Muse - Black Holes And Revelations
So much for our idea that this would somehow be too obvious. There seems to be a substantial amount of Bliss-type sequencing going on on the tracks we've heard, which we suppose counts as advancement.

Zoe Rahman - Melting Pot
Ah, 2006's Seth Lakeman/Joanna McGregor. A jazz pianist who won Best Jazz Album at the Parliamentary Jazz Awards - is that your doing, Kenneth Clarke? - we're going to have to hear her before passing further comment. Won't win, obviously.

Lou Rhodes - Beloved One
Oh, you have, she used to be in Lamb. This is this year's self-financed entry as well as this year's folk nominee, pastoral pickings over her spectral voice. Won't win, but will pick up plenty of other support.

Scritti Politti - White Bread, Black Beer
Ooh, we look forward to seeing how Radio 1 plays this one on the night, assuming they don't recall Green Gartside's guest spot on the last Kylie album. We've been shamefully late to this, and what an extraordinarily put together work it is. Go on, play live on the night.

Sway - This Is My Demo
Simon Frith, up your speed! Everyone thought Plan B would get the urban nod, but instead it's the Mobo winner who has far more prestige than sales or wider publicity (cf all British rappers ever). Confusing title, deeply disturbing single in Little Derek, clearly something interesting going on here.

Thom Yorke - The Eraser
So much for the low-key aspect. If this wins, does Yorke himself or the whole band, who've been nominated three times before, suffer The Curse? This is his electronic meanderings side project, an angle which does suggest the next Radiohead album might be ten three minute sunny, hook-laden pop songs.

So there you go. Reading back through all the previous nominees always kills a good five minutes, we find. Meanwhile Popjustice, of course, have their own Twenty Quid Music Prize nominee list out. G'wan the Biology!