Mercury prize 2012 shortlist is more easily defined by what is missing

No dance music, no hard rock, no curveball, no Kate Bush and no true pop among this year's nominationsAs with last year, it's one of those Mercury shortlists that somehow contrives to add up to less than the sum of its parts. These are all decent albums, some of them are fantastic, so why does the shortlist feel slightly underwhelming? There's a lot of amiable acoustic singer-songwriters – Lianne La Havas, Ben Howard, Michael Kiwanuka's Sealed Knot Society recreation of early 70s folk-soul –...

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