Last week the world found out the news that Speech Debelle had beat off artists such as La Roux, Florence And The Machine amongst others to win a Mercury music award. The thing is when it comes to the Mercury's themselves they seem to think people like to see a shock result, that people will gasp in amazement and will be curious to check out the winner because the panel (which contains people such as Radio one's playlist controller... less said about THAT the better) feel they'll be edgy. The Problem is with the Mercury Music Awards is that the edgy winners [at least from I can remember] don't work, 1996- M People, 2001- Miss Dynamite. There is one exception to this though in Dizzee Rascal winning a Mercury for his first album.

With Speech Debelle I have to give credit to her idea of using jazz style beats mixed with hip-hop of a more early 80's style similar to Guru, A Tribe Called Quest and such (so in a way kind of 'safe' and a world away from when Dizzee was picked as a winner). 'Spinnin'' does have a nice beat to it and the lyrics reflect the fact that Speech Debelle seems to have had a rough few years but it just sounds too radio friendly. The remixes on the single aren't the best either. The dance one by DVA just doesn't fit, however the Camelot one I do like because it gives 'Spinnin'' a bit of an edge.

So to be fair when I read that the ALBUM hasn't had a sales increase since the Mercury Music win I can't say I'm surprised (while Kasabian etc have). A good song, but not great... style over substance.