Mercury Music Prize / Maxliu / 14 August 2010 /

The Mercury Music Prize can change artists' lives overnight, but what would a hat-trick of correct calls do for Max Liu's tipping career? After backing Speech Debelle last year, and before that Elbow, Betfair's resident pop picker offers his take on the 2010 Mercury Prize.

"I like deep, emotional things," said Damon Albarn in a recent documentary. Apparently, the Mercury Music Prize judges do not, otherwise they would have included Gorillaz's Plastic Beach amongst their 2010 nominees. Still, it's futile to debate rights and wrongs, so we might as well try and cash in, as we have done for the last two years, on this most unpredictable of awards.

The XX are worthy front runners but there's no way I'm backing them at [2.82].

I Am Kloot are nicely poised at a mid-market [13.5]. Like Elbow in 2008, Kloot's nomination has been depicted as reward for a decade of struggle; unlike Elbow, Kloot have broken through with their weakest album. Sky at Night sees the perfect structures and lyrical menace of previous efforts supplanted by the platitudes and strings of a band trying to seize the zeitgeist by osmosis. Just because they were unjustly ignored before doesn't mean they deserve to win now.

In picking this year's winner, we must consider the failure of last year's winner, Speech Debelle, to convert the prize into sales. I suspect the judges will play safe(ish) so we can rule out anyone old (Kloot, Paul Weller [36.0]) heavy (Biffy Clyro [24.0]) or obscure (Kit Downes [80.0]). Because he's won before, I'll also shirk Dizzee Rascal [24.0].

A predictable coterie of nu-folk/schmindie comes in behind The XX. Mumford & Sons [6.6] have only got one song - a somewhat constipated listen at that - but Wild Beasts [7.8] are a better bet; they have admirers in high places and the word of mouth success of Two Dancers gives them the momentum to go all the way. I tipped Speech Debelle last year based on patterns of previous winners and if Wild Beasts or Foals [5.9] are to triumph they will be hoping for a Klaxonian anointment a la' 2007.

It could happen, but the prodigiously talented Laura Marling [9.0] appeals from both a punting and a musical perspective. She was nominated for her debut in 2008 but I Speak Because I Can is a ballsier, more realised affair. "No hope in the air/No hope in the water/Not even for me/Your life serving daughter/" she sings with ethereal Englishness. It's an affirming, womanly album, populated by haunting portraits of alienated wives, spinsters, daughters, sisters, quietly burning with indignation at life unlived. I Speak Because I Can - feminist art you can bet on.

Corinne Bailey Rae provides the value at [40.0]. A unit-shifter who's earned critical acclaim with her second album, she won't carry the £20,000 cheque into obscurity and, because The Sea is, in part, about the redemptive power of music following her husband's death, the credibility narks would roll over quicker than you can say 'coalition'. Ultimately, she makes bland, trite music one might listen to while cooking a vegetable curry but, at such a big price, our detoxified times demand that we back the most moderate runner in a most moderate field.

Recommended bets:
Back Laura Marling at [9.0].
Back Corinne Bailey Ray with small stakes at [40.0].

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