Artist News Awards

Wolf Alice win 2018 Mercury Prize

By Andy Malt | Published on Friday 21 September 2018

Wolf Alice took this year’s Mercury Prize last night for their album ‘Visions Of A Life’. And that’s fine.

In one of the least adventurous Mercury contests for some time, Wolf Alice beat Arctic Monkeys, Everything Everything, Everything Is Recorded, Florence And The Machine, Jorja Smith, King Krule, Lily Allen, Nadine Shah, Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds, Novelist, and Sons Of Kemet. In doing so, they take home £25,000 in prize money and a lovely trophy.

Accepting the award, frontwoman Ellie Rowsell – a former judge on the prize herself – said: “Thank you so much, this means so much to pick this up with my three best friends”.

Bass player Theo Ellis added: “When we first started as a band, I remember the first label meeting we ever had, we walked into the room and a geezer said, ‘What the fuck? You lot don’t look like a band at all. What are you? What are you supposed to be? All your songs sound different, you don’t look like each other’. We never really figured it out but here we are, so fuck you!”

He went on: “[That label exec] also said he didn’t want to work with women who wore make up cos it was ‘a bunch of fuss’. But here we are, and do you know what, I actually can’t believe it. Noel Gallagher’s fucking sat there looking at me, what are you supposed to say? Big up everyone who was nominated. This means the world. Anyone got a Jägerbomb?”

Praising their chosen album, the judging panel said in a joint statement: “From an incredibly broad list of remarkable music, Wolf Alice emerged as the overall winner due to their ability to deliver an album that combines the epic and intimate in equal measure. It is a journey of a record – with euphoric festival anthems and moments of subtle beauty – it is an album articulated with confidence and adventure. For them, the world awaits!”

The world might have to wait a little while they sleep off those Jägerbombs, though.