Mercury Music Prize 2011: The shortlist

The Mercurys have a knack of choosing terrible days for their big announcements, don't they? Obviously, holding your shortlist launch on the same day as the Murdoch-Murdoch-Brooks fibathon isn't quite on a par with the eclipsing of the 2001 prize giving, but even so, it's hardly the best time to do it.

Here's the shortlist:

Adele - 21
Anna Calvi - Anna Calvi
Elbow - Build A Rocket Boys!
Everything Everything - Man Alive
Ghostpoet - Peanut Butter Blues and Melancholy Jam
Gwilym Simcock - Good Days At Schloss Elmau
James Blake - James Blake
Katy B - On A Mission
King Creosote & Jon Hopkins - Diamond Mine
Metronomy - The English Riviera
PJ Harvey - Let England Shake
Tinie Tempah - Disc-Overy

There's the usual mix of acts on there - couple of previous winners, couple of smarter indie acts, couple of "urban" acts, the one jazz guy hoping that this will be the year that they decide to give it to the jazz guy to prove the award's credentials in the face of generating disappointment.

And, as ever, there's obvious titles missing - you'd have thought Aidan Moffat & Bill Wells would have been right up the shortlist's favourite street, and the only plausible explanation for it not showing up is that - under the unwritten quota system - King Creosote & Jon Hopkins would have had to move over to make room.

I'm guessing Cornershop didn't remember or didn't care to enter themselves.

Still: Metronomy, surely? Surely?