All Sparks live at the Mercury Music Awards 2006 (video/audio)

On the 5th of September 2006, Editors were shortlisted for the Mercury Music Prize. Their album The Back Room was doing really well and it looked like there may be some recognition on a large and very public scale. Unfortunately, Arctic Monkeys scooped up all the glory on the night.

The event inevitably brings up some "What if?" questions. Would the band have continued to have success on the scale they have if they'd actually won the award? If The Back Room had been hailed as the best British album released in the 12 months prior, would the weight of expectation on An End Has A Start been too much pressure to endure? Would AEHAS have turned out as a different record to the one that was released, either in sound or subject matter due to the additional scrutiny? Personally, I reckon that the way things turned out were for the best. Since September 5th 2006 Editors have continued to build up momentum through their live shows and it's allowed them to grow slower but more steadily. They have what a lot of bands would love for themselves, and that is a solid fanbase who are very much into social networking and bringing in new fans through word of mouth. But then this is all just speculation really, isn't it? It's blog-babble from a person with an obvious unfair bias, but it's still nice to ponder these things once in a while.

As an amusing sideline, let's not forget about the semi-infamous "Mercury Music Prize Curse" that has befallen a few of the prize winners in the past (google it for more spooky details, it's funny stuff).

So back to the video. Some wonderful moments to look out for in the clip:-

1. Tom "stealing" the trophy at the end of the performance

2. Quite possibly the grumpiest person in an Editors audience...ever (at 2 minutes and 22 seconds)

Video
stream it here


MP3
download here

brought to you with lots and lots of lemming-love :) x