My baby is American made

I live in the United States, and I don't often find myself obsessing over whether a particular song that I hear on the radio is "American" or not. While there have been times in our musical history (e.g. 1964) when people might have worried about non-American content driving out the American stuff, by and large a lot of music that we hear on our radio originates in the United States. In part, this is due to a self-selection that we American radio listeners exercise - if they're singing in some danged incomprehensible language, we don't buy it. But in the end, a lot of the music that we Americans hear is American.

This is not necessarily the case in other countries, which means that they sometimes have to take special steps to promote music that actually originates from within the country's borders.

Hence, the Mercury Prize in the United Kingdom, which will be awarded in September. Stereogum lists the nominees for album of the year, but starts off by listing the qualifications:

In order to be eligible, the album must've been released by a British or Irish artist/band between July 2008 and July 2009....

I wonder how the Irish feel about that? They've been independent for a century give or take, and they're still lumped in with the Brits.

So anyways, here are the Mercury Prize nominees:

Bat for Lashes - Two Suns
Florence & The Machine - Lungs
Friendly Fires - Friendly Fires
Glasvegas - Glasvegas
Kasabian - West Ryder Pauper Lunatic Asylum
La Roux - La Roux
Led Bib - Sensible Shoes
Lisa Hannigan - Sea Sew
Speech Debelle - Speech Therapy
Sweet Billy Pilgrim - Twice Born Men
The Horrors - Primary Colours
The Invisible - The Invisible