Can Duckworth Lewis bowl out Dizzee to claim the 'new Mercury'

REVOLVER:With Mercury Music Prize folks still wondering where it all went wrong with last year's winner Speech Debelle (the lowest-selling Mercury winner ever), there's a lot more musical guidance over at the Ivor Novello Awards.

Usually a bit on the margins, the awards have stepped into the limelight in recent years with some headline-grabbing nominations. The reason the Novellos were ignored by the media over the years was that there was no record company or publishing company input – the awards are decided upon by songwriters. They're supposed to be British, but U2 have been up for one before, and this year one of only three albums up for the prestigious best album award is The Duckworth Lewis Methodby Neil Hannon and Pugwash's Thomas Walsh. The latter, by the way, should have been up 10 years ago for Almond Tea.

There was a bit of a kerfuffle last year when the Novellos, which usually favour the really big hitters, gave an almost unheard of band, The Leisure Society, a nomination in the Best Song Musically and Lyrically category. This unprecedented move was put down to the fact that the writers who vote were picking up on new, unheralded music via the likes of YouTube and MySpace.

The nomination alone (they eventually lost out to Elbow's One Day Like This) transformed their career, and Brian Eno became a fully-signed-up member of their fan club, saying: "The only thing I've been listening to lately with enthusiasm is The Leisure Society". A sold-out European tour quickly followed. Such was the momentum that one of their new songs, Save It For Someone Who Cares, is up again this year in the same category. It's up against Lily Allen's The Fearand this year's Leisure Society, another hitherto virtually unheard-of band called Patch William with their The Last Bussong. For the longest time it seemed Patch William only had one fan. But that fan's name was Stephen Fry, and he's got a much-followed Twitter site (with a lot of songwriters signed up) and last year he tweeted "Might Patch William be the next big thing? They seem rather wonderful to me." The London band are somewhat in the Mumford Sons vein.

It’s nominations for acts such as Patch Williams and The Duckworth Lewis Method that make the Novellos the new Mercury prize. And instead of letting a bunch of raggedy “music industry professionals” decide the nominations and winners, the big-name songwriters do it. And as some indication of how far ahead of the flock the Novellos are, this year they’ve introduced a new category for the best original video game score, an acknowledgment of the huge sales figures racked up by video games and how important the musical soundtrack is to them. Talk to anybody who composes for videogames and you’ll realise that it’s a harder gig than it sounds. Unlike traditional score work, you have to be all “non-linear and multilayered”.

It would, of course, be a splendid thing if The Duckworth Lewis Method carried off the album award on May 20th. But they're up against Dizzee Rascal for Tongue n' Cheekand that horrid little boy Paolo Nutini. But waving the flag for The Duckworth duo at the Novellos on May 20th comes with an important caveat. If Neil Hannon persists with statements such as: "We, the Duckworth Lewis Method, are politely jubilant to be nominated in the best album category of this year's Ivor Novello awards. What joy! What honour! Our hippopotamusly titled debut album really was as fun to make as it sounds. And it is to the eternal credit of this august, nay, July institution that 'a record about cricket' should be afforded the same opportunities as its less niche compatriots", he might find himself worrying more about dodging cricket bats than bouquets.

I’m still a bit concerned about the Ivor Novellos. They are supposed to be for British acts only. With U2, the point could have been argued that they’re signed to a UK record label, but you can’t use that as an excuse with The Duckworth Lewis album. Neil Hannon being Northern Irish can use the “I swing both ways” argument, but Thomas Walsh is from Drimnagh. Better keep this quiet until May 20th.

bboyd@irishtimes.com

-theivors.com