Arctic Monkeys claim their fifth nomination for the Mercury Prize for there 7th album The Car, making them joint most nominated artists in the award history along side Radiohead.

A popular fan favourite single from the album The Car by Arctic Monkeys “There better be a mirror ball.”  along with singles such as “Perfect sense” and “Hello you” could see a second time win for the band.

Mercury Prize Awards celebrates its 32nd year, although last years show was cancelled out of respect, for Queen Elizabeth’s II death.

This years show will go ahead in all its glory on September 7th at 9pm and will be played on BBC 4 and on iPlayer, along with full coverage, from BBC Radio 6, as well as all BBC online and social media outlets. Showcasing some amazing artists, and their latest albums, viewers and listeners will have a whole host of talent to look forward to.

London’s Eventim Apollo in Hammersmith, will hold this years award show and tickets are available to purchase. Hosting this years Mercury Awards is DJ and Television presenter Lauren Laverne. There is no further announcement as to whether she will have a guest presenter along side her.

Each performer announced will feature 10 live and two pre-recorded performances at the award show; however, both Arctic Monkeys and Fred Again will be touring in September and unable to attend this years show. Instead, a special film will be shown, to celebrate both of their award nominated albums.

Mercury awards see’s four nominations for the second time, from acts Jhus, Loyle Carner, Young Father and Jessie Ware.

Jessie Ware on release of her album That! Feels Good! which is the title track to the first song, wrote on her official Instagram page to say, “This album is no longer mine, its all yours!”

Jessie Ware in an interview with NME, commented on how she felt to be nominated for her album That! Feels Good!, a decade on since her last Mercury nomination. She said, “It’s nice to see brilliant artists and lovely to be amongst them. It’s amazing to be up for my second Mercury a decade on, and I feel proud of myself.”

This highly sort after award has previously been won by the likes of Portishead in 1995 with their album Dummy, Badly Drawn Boy in 2000 with album The Hour of Bewilderbeast and Arctic Monkeys in 2006 with album Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not.

Mercury Prize Award has no categories, and is open to all musical genres, with 12 shortlisted ‘Album of the Year’ with 1 winner. The artist to win the award will take home, not only the ‘Album of the Year’ trophy, but also a cash prize of £25,000 pounds. Not to mention blow up their social media and public awareness.

Albarn confirmed the news of his opera project on the Broken Record Podcast, sharing his plans to put Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s 1807 “The Magic Flute Part II” to music for the first time. He said, “I’m doing an opera at the moment, using Goethe’s fragment he wrote about The Magic Flute Part II, which is fascinating. You’ve heard of Mozart’s ‘Magic Flute’? Well, Goethe, who is a contemporary of Mozart, wrote ‘Part II’ of that — the sequel — but it never got put to music. It’s this legendary lost thing.”

Albarn admitted to feeling less confident when delving into the world of opera, saying, “I don’t really know what I’m doing. I never know what I’m doing in that world, I’m a complete idiot. I don’t know if it’s any good. With songs, I’m more confident about that.”

On the podcast, Albarn also confirmed that he is working more within his comfort zone by creating a new Gorillaz album.

Bon voyage, Stuart, Matlock, Rusty, and Nödel.
सुरक्षित प्रवास ✈️ pic.twitter.com/n5j6D2V160

— gorillaz (@gorillaz) June 21, 2023

Speaking on the direction that the new Gorillaz album will take, Albarn said, “It’s not going to be as dramatic as a quantum shift, it will be a paradigm shift, it will be very different. It will be an entirely different approach to everything — to the band, to everything.”

He continued, “We’re at a point where we’re going to change. Why? Because it was always just Jamie and I. Although it is a very big thing now, it is still, in essence, just two people. If we decided between us that we want to do something unrecognisable then we will. You need that for it to stay alive, really.”

Albarn has not yet confirmed release dates for either his opera or his new Gorillaz project, but has confirmed plans for Blur. Blur recently announced a special gig in which they will play their newest album, The Ballad of Darren, in full.

The show will take place at London’s Eventim Apollo on 25th July 2023 and will see the band perform the album in full for the first and only time. Physical tickets are only available to those who pre-ordered The Ballad of Darren, and are on sale from 18th July 2023. Fans can order tickets to watch a livestream of the show however, with these available to purchase here.

Listen to Albarn’s Broken Record Podcast episode here.

blur presents The Ballad of Darren live at @EventimApollo London on 25th July. The only full album live performance. Plus global livestream.

Pre-order the album via the blur official shop for access to the ticket sale on 18th July. Livestream on sale now.https://t.co/wBEARrfq3g pic.twitter.com/kaCVrRaXK7

— blur (@blurofficial) July 11, 2023

The unique show will see the English Britpop icons perform the highly-anticipated The Ballad Of Darren, in its entirety, for the first and only time. The event will also be live-streamed via specialists Driift, allowing fans worldwide the chance to witness and experience the new album live along with those who can make it to the live event in London.

Listen to “The Narcissist” below:

Additionally, the livestream will rebroadcasted three times, allowing fans of differing timezones the opportunity to witness Blur in their live glory, and the show will also be available on demand for a further two days.

The timings for the broadcasts are as follows:

Live: Tuesday, July 25th 9.00pm BST
Rebroadcast #1: Tuesday, July 25th 8.00pm EDT
Rebroadcast #2: Tuesday, July 25th 8.00pm PDT
Rebroadcast #3: Wednesday, July 26th 8.00pm AEST
On Demand: Wednesday, July 26th at 1.00pm BST – Friday, July  28th at 1.00pm BST

Blur will go into the live album performance on the back of a truly wondrous weekend that saw them perform two consecutive dates in front of a combined 150,000 fans at Wembley. The weekend at Wembley, combined with a preceding run of English and European dates along with the announcing of a brand new album with a live performance of it in its entirety to boot, has well and truly seen Blur come storming back into the limelight of the UK music scene and their productivity since their reunion back in November has, no doubt, left fans of the Britpop legends in dumbstruck awe.

Watch the music video for “Song 2” below:

Formed in 1988, Blur have released eight studio albums in total, with The Ballad Of Darren set to be their ninth. Six of these albums have reached number 1 on the UK Albums Chart, cementing Blur’s status as a pioneering band of the Britpop sound and as one of the UK’s most successful and formidable groups of the last 30 years.

Tickets for the live show are will be available from 10am on Tuesday 18th July to those who pre-order the album.

You can pre-order The Ballad Of Darren here.

Tickets for the live show will be available here.

Tickets for the livestream are available to purchase here.

Image: Raymond Flotat

We’re honoured to be able to play these shows over two nights for three outstanding organisations. They’re out there delivering vital services time after time for the most vulnerable people in society, both in the UK and abroad. Tickets on sale Wed 9am BST https://t.co/6xLVVMtql4 pic.twitter.com/zeoOhtoMF1

— muse (@muse) March 28, 2022

Another consistency for the band, at least in the last few years anyway, has been putting on these more intimate shows for charity. War Child are a charity that the band have worked with before, they even feature on War Child’s last compilation album with a weird cover The Animals’ “House Of The Rising Sun” listen below, but the first night (set to take place Monday 9^th May) will also have its proceeds split with Médecins Sans Frontières. Both charities will be using the money to assist relief efforts in Ukraine. The 2^nd night (the day after on Tuesday 10^th May) will celebrate the 30^th anniversary of British street magazine ‘The Big Issue’, the night will also feature support from Razorlight.

Fan pre-sale starts tomorrow and 9AM (Tuesday 29^th), but is only accessible with a code from the Muse mailing list. General sale will take place here, the next day again at 9AM (Wednesday 30^th). So far, we don’t know of any particular quirks to make this a once in a lifetime concert – no requests or weird sets laid in advance or anything like that – but that being said, an intimate Muse gig has been something to marvel at since the very beginning of their career. So throw in a few live debuts, and hopefully some spaceships or something as a part of the set-up, and you’ve got yourself a pretty solid concert.

See here for full details on Muse’s gigs on the festival circuit, plus any further information you might need on the Eventim Apollo gigs, see here.