Arctic Monkeys favourites for Mercury Award

The Arctic Monkeys are favourites to pick up this year's Mercury Award for British album of the year.

LONDON - The Arctic Monkeys are even money favourites to scoop the Mercury Music Award for the best British album of the year, according to bookmakers.

But the Sheffield band will have to see off strong contenders like the Guillemots and Richard Hawley, William Hill said.

Editors, Muse and Sway are also on the shortlist for the annual awards, as is Thom Yorke, lead singer of Radiohead who went solo with The Eraser.

The Arctic Monkeys' Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not became the fastest-selling debut album in British chart history, with more than 360,000 copies sold in the first week.

"Great songs astonishingly performed. Essential," the Mercury judging panel said of the record, which includes hits I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor and When The Sun Goes Down.

"Above all, this year's shortlist for the Nationwide Mercury Prize is about the art of the songwriter -- if you want to know what life is like in Britain today, listen to the country's musicians," panel chairman Simon Frith has said.

The prize has regularly courted controversy since it began in 1992.

Seen as an alternative to the annual Brit awards, it has been criticised for ignoring breakthrough acts in a bid to maintain the element of surprise.

In 1994, M People's Elegant Slumming beat competition from Blur's Parklife, Pulp's His'n'Hers and The Prodigy's Music For The Jilted Generation, to the consternation of the music press.

Last year, Antony and the Johnsons won the top prize for I Am A Bird Now. Lead singer Antony Hegarty, while born in England, has spent more than 20 years in the United States, raising questions about his eligibility for the prize.

Following is the list of nominated albums for the Nationwide Mercury Prize, the winner of which will be announced early tomorrow NZT:

Arctic Monkeys - Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not.
Isobel Campbell & Mark Lanegan - Ballad of the Broken Seas.
Editors - The Back Room.
Guillemots - Through the Windowpane.
Richard Hawley - Coles Corner.
Hot Chip - The Warning.
Muse - Black Holes & Revelations.
Zoe Rahman - Melting Pot.
Lou Rhodes - Beloved One.
Scritti Politti - White Bread Black Beer.
Sway - This is My Demo.
Thom Yorke - The Eraser.

- REUTERS