The nominations for this year's prestigious Welsh Music Prize have been announced, and if Manic Street Preachers are to have any hope of winning, they'll have to really hope Mumford & Sons aren't ones to hold a grudge.
Manics' latest album, Futurology, lead this year's nominations alongside Cate Le Bon, Gruff Rhys, 9Bach and others. Unfortunately for them, one of the nine judges for this year's awards is Ben Lovett from Mumford & Sons.
Why is that a problem? Well, because Nicky Wire detests Mumford & Sons and he's made zero effort to try and hide it.
First, he told The Quietus, "'We know what’s better' is so all pervading, from the monarchy to fucking Cameron to Mumford & Sons. We’re just told… what did one of Mumford & Sons say the other day? 'Either ignore it or celebrate it.' What a fucking futile attitude. Don’t say anything bad, just ignore it or celebrate it. So what about fascism then? We don’t like it, we’ll just ignore it."
At this point, you may well be thinking, 'That's not so bad!' But it gets worse. He went on to describe Marcus Mumford, in the Guardian Music Weekly podcast, as "that berk with the floor tom on every song."
The final, unequivocal nail in the band's Welsh Music Prize coffin came in an interview with Noisey, though. "It's like Mumford & Sons, they obviously eat really well," he asserted, generously, "and that's why their music's so fucking awful." Oh.
Despite this, we're sure Ben Lovett is going to make sure he's entirely unbiased when he prepares to fill in with his ballot. All we're saying is: Manic Street Preachers winning their first Welsh Music Award isn't a foregone conclusion.
