Mercury Prize Magic.

As the Mercury Prize 'Albums of the Year' shortlist came out recently, I figured this could finally be the jumping off point for this blog. I'm going to really try to cover all twelve albums but I'm well aware that I'm a procratinator, (for example, my whole Tuesday consisted of finishing seasons 3 & 4 of 'The O.C' instead of actually starting any of my college assignments) so by the time I really do do them all, the shortlist for 2011 will have probably been released.

I've spent all day listening to Laura Marling's second album' 'I Speak Because I Can' with a totally fresh and blank mind. I hadn't heard one of these tracks in full apart from seeing her live at Hop Farm Festival which, to be honest, made me not want to listen to the whole album. To put it bluntly, I find Laura Marling pretentious.

PRETENTIOUS -adj

1. full of pretense of pretension.
2. characterised by assumption of dignity or importance.
3. making an exaggerated outward show; ostentatious.

Number 2 and 3 anyone? Seriously, this girl is the Kristen Stewart of folk music. The fact that Marling acts passive as hell all the time and didn't play 'New Romantic' at Hop Farm got to me a little, I can admit that. What, you're too good to play that song now? You're too mature for it? No, not in my books. However, instead of holding a scathing grudge against her, I cannot help but fall to her feet in awe due to the pure euphoria that came over me throughout this album.

The truth is, Laura Marling's come a long way from her first album 'Alas I Cannot Swim'. The original fear of the album seeming 'samey' were dashed after the first two songs; she's not resting on her laurels, she's figured herself out. The lyrics are so hauntingly beautiful that she easily creates a whole feeling in a song. The vulnerability of a girl who's only just left her teens seeps through with harmonies and crescendos that just didn't feel as real as the last album.

The albums had some help from personal favourites, Mumford & Sons and some kid from Noah & The Whale but it would be wrong to hand them all the credit for 'the difficult second album' because the allurement is in the words, the stories.

That was less of a review/opinion and more of a rant of my newfound love of Laura Marling but I'm okay with that. To finish, the whole album has no lame but always obvious filler tracks but the certain one that spoke to me most was 'What He Wrote'. I can't sum up the amazingness of it with my poor vocabulary so I'll let NME do it instead...

"Inspired by wartime love letters that Laura read in a magazine, 'What He Wrote' seems to detail the forbidden love of writing to a man other than your husband- she appeals to the Greek goddess Hera, goddess of women and marriage, for forgiveness for speaking to this man when she's 'spoken for'. The whole song, just vocals and guitar, trembles in its waltz rhythm, but the most effecting line has to be the unqualified frankness of, 'I miss his smell.'"

Completely in love.

C.