Mercury Prize 2025: Sam Fender, Fontaines D.C., PinkPantheress Lead a Bold, Wide-Open Shortlist

A historic Mercury Prize shortlist puts Newcastle in the spotlight

The Mercury Prize has never done this before: after three decades in London, the 2025 ceremony heads north to Newcastle on October 16. It’s a symbolic move that lines up neatly with this year’s map-spanning shortlist and gives hometown star Sam Fender a stage he knows by heart. The 12 nominated albums, announced at a London launch on September 10, form a sharp snapshot of where British and Irish music is right now—confident, restless, and keen to blur borders.

The headline names jump off the page. Fender is in with People Watching, Fontaines D.C. return to the frame with Romance, PinkPantheress is recognized for Fancy That, and Wolf Alice are back with The Clearing, six years after they won for Visions of a Life. FKA Twigs stretches the edges of avant-pop with EUSEXUA, CMAT rides a wave of momentum after last year’s nod, and Pulp’s reunion push lands with a comeback set called More. That alone is a stacked bill. And there’s depth behind it.

Jazz innovator Emma-Jean Thackray makes the cut with Weirdo, while Jacob Alon, Pa Salieu, and pianist-composer Joe Webb round out a field that resists being boxed into genre lanes. Then there’s Martin Carthy—an 84-year-old folk giant and the oldest nominee in Mercury history—whose presence ties the prize back to the roots of British songwriting. Carthy’s family link to past shortlisters Eliza Carthy and the late Norma Waterson adds a quiet sense of continuity to a shortlist otherwise bristling with new directions.

The Mercury has long prided itself on cutting across scenes. This year’s spread covers Leeds to Sheffield, Gloucestershire to Coventry, Kent to Scotland and Wales, across to Ireland, and of course London. That breadth matters. In 2024, English Teacher became the first act from outside the capital to win in a decade. Moving the event to Newcastle feels like the next step—symbolic, but also practical—if the goal is to reflect how music actually travels and takes shape beyond the M25.

If you’re weighing the field, there are clear storylines. Fender has the hometown narrative and a track record of bowling over arenas without sanding down the social bite that made his early work resonate. Fontaines D.C., who haven’t been on the shortlist since 2019’s Dogrel, have built a reputation for albums that evolve rather than repeat. Romance hits the Mercury sweet spot: literate, muscular, and built to last beyond a festival season. Wolf Alice know this stage well; they’ve won it before, and The Clearing arrives with real expectations as a follow-up to a prior champion.

PinkPantheress represents a different kind of momentum. Her rise has been internet-native and hook-forward, but the album format has matured her sound into something that plays in clubs and in headphones without losing personality. FKA Twigs, as ever, tests the limits of pop structure—an artist the Mercury has often rewarded with attention if not the trophy. CMAT, nominated last year for Crazymad, for Me, returns with Euro-Country, a record leaning into the wit and emotional swing that made audiences stick the first time.

Then there’s Pulp—cultural memory meets new material. Reunion albums can feel like victory laps; More reads more like a retooling, a reminder that Jarvis Cocker’s eye for the everyday still cuts. Emma-Jean Thackray’s Weirdo jumps between jazz, electronic pulse, and choral lift in a way that makes sense live and on record. Joe Webb’s reputation from the UK jazz circuit suggests technical finesse married to melody, while Pa Salieu’s inclusion signals a storyteller who brings grit and rhythm to the album form. Jacob Alon is the curveball name for many casual watchers—precisely the kind of left-field pick the Mercury uses to widen the tent.

Here’s the full shortlist as announced at the launch event:

• Sam Fender — People Watching
• Fontaines D.C. — Romance
• PinkPantheress — Fancy That
• Wolf Alice — The Clearing
• FKA Twigs — EUSEXUA
• CMAT — Euro-Country
• Pulp — More
• Emma-Jean Thackray — Weirdo
• Jacob Alon — album title not specified in launch materials
• Pa Salieu — album title not specified in launch materials
• Joe Webb — album title not specified in launch materials
• Martin Carthy — album title not specified in launch materials

The Mercury is judged by a rotating panel of artists, producers, journalists, and industry figures who keep their debates behind closed doors. That secrecy fuels the prize’s mystique and the annual arguments about what “the British and Irish album of the year” should mean. Some years lean adventurous, others mainstream. What’s consistent is the prize’s tight focus on the album as a form—cohesion, sequencing, and ideas that hold from the first track to the last. In the streaming era, that’s not a trivial bar to clear.

The winner gets a sales bump, a touring boost, and a permanent line in the career summary. It doesn’t make or break an artist, but it’s a marker. Recent runs—Michael Kiwanuka in 2020, Arlo Parks in 2021, Little Simz in 2022, Ezra Collective in 2023, English Teacher in 2024—show how the prize often meets artists right as they’re stepping up from critical favorite to full-spectrum headline contender.

Expect the live show at the Utilita Arena to lean into that moment. Each nominee performs—usually a single song, sometimes two—before the panel’s decision is announced on the night. In Newcastle, that stagecraft will feel personal. Fender’s appearance will be the talking point, but the out-of-London setting should tilt the evening toward discovery, the kind of setting where Emma-Jean Thackray can turn heads or Martin Carthy can hush a massive room with a single ballad.

There’s also the optics. Taking a flagship music prize on the road plants a flag: the industry can go where audiences are. Northern venues have carried UK music for generations; making the ceremony travel feels overdue. If this becomes a pattern, it could open doors for cities across the UK and Ireland to host, draw investment, and build scenes that don’t always have to migrate south to be seen.

As for who’s “favorite,” it’s too close to call without a spreadsheet of data and odds. The panel rarely follows the most obvious storyline. A returning winner like Wolf Alice has the pedigree; a narrative center like Fender has the crowd; an auteur like FKA Twigs has the innovation case; a resurgent band like Pulp has the headlines. Fontaines D.C. sit right in the middle—critically trusted, commercially strong, and album-focused. That’s usually a healthy place to be.

One overlooked thread is age and continuity. With Carthy at one end and a wave of under-30 artists at the other, the shortlist reads like a conversation across generations about what an album can do. Folk traditions, jazz craft, pop instincts, indie tension, rap’s storytelling spine—they’re all modes for the same job: making 40-ish minutes feel like a single thought.

That’s why the Mercury still matters. It’s not just a trophy night. It’s an annual check-in on the health of the album. And this year, with a new city, a broadened map, and a field that refuses to settle for one sound, the check-up looks robust. Come October 16, Newcastle hosts the argument. The rest of us get to discover a few new favorites along the way.

Key dates, context, and what to watch

Shortlist announced: Wednesday, September 10, at a central London launch for the British press. Ceremony: Thursday, October 16, Utilita Arena, Newcastle—first time the event has left London in its 33-year run. Format: performances from all 12 nominees, followed by the winner reveal.

Geography and genre are the talking points. The shortlist stretches across England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland, with strong showings from artists rooted in Leeds and Sheffield as well as London. Stylistically, it’s restless: indie rock sits beside avant-pop, trad folk, jazz fusion, and club-ready alt-pop. The judges will be weighing tightness, point of view, and how these records breathe as albums, not just playlists.

If you’re catching up before the show, start with these anchors: Fender’s People Watching for scale and storytelling; Fontaines D.C.’s Romance for mood and muscle; PinkPantheress’s Fancy That for pure hookcraft; Wolf Alice’s The Clearing for a veteran band’s second act; CMAT’s Euro-Country for heart and wit; FKA Twigs’s EUSEXUA for a reminder that pop still has unexplored corners. Then dip into Emma-Jean Thackray’s Weirdo to hear where jazz and electronics meet, and carve time for Martin Carthy to trace the oldest line in the room.

The prize has changed careers before, and it will again. However the panel lands, the shortlist is the point: a dozen records that tell you what the British and Irish album can sound like in 2025. That’s the real headline for the Mercury Prize 2025.