Wolf Alice win Mercury Prize, “Now I know what overwhelmed feels like”
In the first win for an alt-rock album since 2012, Wolf Alice’s sophomore album Visions Of A Life won the Hyundai Mercury Prize for most creative British album in the past 12 months.
Released a year ago, it peaked at #2 on the UK charts and officially sold 57,214 units.
The band looked visibly stunned when they went onstage to pick up their £25,000 (A$44, 847) prize, over the likes of Noel Gallagher, Arctic Monkeys and Lily Allen.
“It means so much to pick this up with my three best friends,” said singer Ellie Rowsell.
But there was also a sense of vindication as they recounted the early years of being turned down by labels.
Bassist Theo Ellis said, “The first label meeting we ever had, we walked into a room, and the geezer said, ‘You don’t look like a band at all. What are you? What are you supposed to be? All your songs sound different. You don’t look like each other.’
“We never really figured it out, but here we are, so fuck you!” he added.
But at a winners’ press conference immediately after in the backstage area, Ellis had a change of heart.
“I almost instantly regretted those words – I think I told a lot of labels that never signed us to fuck off,” he said.
“But you can still fuck off! We won a Mercury, this is mad. I’m going to have so many Jagerbombs in a minute.”
Rowsell elaborated, “I now know what overwhelmed feels like, I’m so overwhelmed – but it feels good.”
Their performance of the song at the ceremony Don’t Delete The Kisses, got them a standing ovation from the invited guests.
The band’s debut album, My Love Is Cool, was nominated for the Mercury Prize in 2015.
They will use their prize money for a recording studio, in which to make their third album.
The bookies favourite had been Nadine Shah, the 31-year-old daughter of a Pakistani father and an English-Norwegian mother, whose third album Holiday Destination, explores her “mostly horrible” experiences as a second-generation immigrant, and the UK’s attitudes to refugees.
Shah was the star of the telecast with her powerful rendition of Out The Way.
Others who performed were Everything Everything, The Arctic Monkeys (via an exclusive performance video) Lily Allen, Florence + The Machine (who flew back from the US for the event), Jorja Smith, King Krule, Novelist, jazz group Sons Of Kemet, and Everything Is Recorded – the project by XL Recordings boss Richard Russell where he triggered electro beats with a group of players including Scritti Politti’s Green Gartside on guitar, sitting around a table on the stage.