Key takeaways:
- Harry Styles’ top-of-the-line lockdown collection is shocking of a piece with other longlisted supplies by artisans such as Joy Crookes and Gwenno.
- Maybe inescapably, countless such records brought into the world of the most recent few years ought to have a specific interiority.
Visits stopped, scenes shut, the world on rest. In the mean time, Britain was in a time of self-assessment: it’s set of experiences of bondage, its mentalities to orientation, its post-Brexit retribution, and repositioning.
As needs be, a significant number of the collections shortlisted during the current year’s Mercury prize mirror this time: engrossing themselves with thoughts of having a place, character, or home.
From Little Simz’s Sometimes I Might Be Introvert to Joy Crookes’ Skin, Fergus McCreadie’s Forest Floor to Sam Fender’s Seventeen Going Under, they have caught some of our regulations and examination. They bring us south London, Cornwall, North Shields, country Caledonia; improvement, race, the Department for Work and Pensions.
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Kojey Radical breezes his collection down with the voice of his mom. Gwenno opens Tresor with a simple greeting: “Welcome, plunk down/Fancy a cuppa?” These are tunes that move close, closer, even closer.
For Harry Styles, this was maybe a taller undertaking. Where does a global pop star have a place? In London? In Los Angeles? Or, on the other hand, some place mid-air, in that odd, un-landed space between field visit and centerfold banner, think piece and TikTok pattern? We need to feel near our megastars – to realize who they’re dating, their #1 variety, and what they had for breakfast.
