The East Angles Music Prize

The Kermodes are the excellent film critic Mark Kermode's alternative to The Oscars. The twist is they're awarded to films and actors that haven't been shortlisted. And to be honest, they're usually a better indication of that year's cinema than the Academy's picks.

So having been slightly bemused by the Brits nominations yesterday (er, Pixie Lott for Best Female Solo Artist?), I've stolen the Kermode template to use for music. I'll be taking on a Brit category per blog and announcing the winners of the inaugural and pretentiously named East Angles Music Prize on the day of the Brits, on February 16. There might even be a winner-of-winners award, Costa Book Prize style...

You can even vote if you like, by leaving comments! Anyway, on with category No.1:

Best Female Solo Artist

(Brits: Bat For Lashes, Florence & The Machine, Leona Lewis, Lily Allen, Pixie Lott)

This is where the concept falls apart slightly, as I might have gone for Florence & The Machine too, if only for the brilliant Hurricane Drunk. I can see why Lily Allen and Leona Lewis made the five, even though, really, they only made competent albums that sold well. But Bat For Lashes second album was hugely over-rated, and Pixie Lott is just baffling.

So, here's the East Angles nominations...

Little Boots

I had a love-hate relationship with Victoria Hesketh - the artist we were all told to like this time last year. Of course, she could never live up to the hype and lost out, in the end, to La Roux and Florence in the Great Electro-Influenced Pop Poppets Race Of 2009. Hands does have some great sounds on it - particularly the the gurgling electronics on Click - and Symmetry has Hesketh doing her best Kylie impression. But that was just the point: it was a bit too poppy and eager to please. Still, if you could actually see Hesketh live (she's tiny) then it was all good fun.

La Roux

Anyone growing up in the 1980s had to check there wasn't a DeLorean parked outside every time Elly Jackson's throwback electronic-pop came on the radio - which was a lot. But despite making you feel trapped in an episode of Back To The Future, once the irritation factor of the ubiquitous In For The Kill and Bulletproof had subsided, her debut was a soulful and surprisingly reflective (if rather shrill) album. Last 1980s reference for now (and for my uncle if no-one else), Elly Jackson (pictured above) would have been on the cover of The Face every month, no?

Micachu And The Shapes

At the time, Micachu's Jewellery passed me by. I must admit I was baffled by The Guardian's insistence that the debut album by Mica Levy should have been on the Mercury list last year, and having really enjoyed it since realising that a million end of year polls probably weren't wrong, I've realised why. I was listening to it at work, on headphones, trying to write at the same time. It was absolutely maddening in that context, in the way that one song could be a fuzzily riotous pop song and the next a cut-up, bleepy, beat-heavy experiment in music. Oh, and then there's the vacuum cleaner song. But listen to it properly and it's incredible - adventurous and grimy yet somehow rather pretty and melodic.

Speech Debelle

Poor Speech Debelle, destined forever to be characterised as the victim of the Mercury curse that has afflicted Gomez, Roni Size and Talvin Singh. It's true that winning the prize last year was such a surprise it flummoxed even her record label, who weren't able to capitalise on the exposure in time. She ended up ditching them, and good for her. But enough about the industry. The reason she won was presumably because Speech Therapy was a great, innovative and individual debut - a jazz-inspired hip hop record imbued with proper emotion. It just didn't have any hit singles on it: no bad thing really.

Susan Boyle

Joke. Kind of. I really did like her version of Wild Horses, and while I don't think I'd want to listen to an entire record of SuBo warbling through the classics, as the artist behind the best selling album of 2009 she certainly deserved a nomination far more than Pixie Lott.

Next up: Male Solo Artist. Can I find five better than Calvin Harris, Dizzee Rascal, Mika, Paolo Nutini and Robbie FLIPPING Williams?