The 2013 shortlist for the Barclaycard Mercury Prize UK album of the year has finally been released, and there are some great names up there.

The shortlist is as follows:

Arctic Monkeys ‘AM’

David Bowie ‘The Next Day’

Disclosure ‘Settle’

Foals ‘Holy Fire’

Jake Bugg ‘Jake Bugg’

James Blake ‘Overgrown’

Jon Hopkins ‘Immunity’

Laura Marling ‘Once I Was An Eagle’

Laura Mvula ‘Sing To The Moon’

Rudimental ‘Home’

Savages ‘Silence Yourself’

Villagers ‘Awayland’

Last year’s winners were Alt-J with their revolutionary album An Awesome Wave (read my review of the album here).  The Mercury Prize aims to draw attention to dynamic and groundbreaking music, giving voices to both the non-mainstream and well-known artists that deserve acclaim of the highest level.

There are some interesting nominees this year; David Bowie’s The Next Day is a favourite to win while personally I have faith that Jon Hopkins’ Immunity could be the unlikely underdog.

There are also some surprises regarding who WASN’T nominated, who could forget Bastille’s groundbreaking debut Bad Blood? And The 1975’s self titled debut that is quickly picking up momentum to be one of the UKs biggest albums of the year?

What seems to be worse is the controversy surrounding My Bloody Valentine’s banned submission ‘m b v’, the album being illegible for the prize as they decided to release the album independently, the album was unavailable on iTunes, Spotify or Amazon. This questions the award committee’s core principles, surely we should be celebrating an artist or bands bravery in being independence of record labels rather than chastising it?

Despite the controversy the shortlist is a collection of some of the UKs most impressive releases over the past 12 months and will hopefully bring recognition to lesser-known artists that deserve accreditation for their phenomenal contribution to the UK music scene.

The winner will be announced October 30^th.