Andrew Eaton: Who's in and who's not . . . but who cares?

SO, congratulations to the Kit Downes Trio, who follow in the footsteps of Courtney Pine, Nitin Sawhney and others to win the curious honour of "token jazz nominee on the Mercury Prize shortlist".

The token folk nominee was presumably easier to pick this year, since Mercury favourite Laura Marling had an album out, sparing the panel the arduous task of actually listening to too much folk music.

Thankfully the token classical entry, a staple of the Mercury's early years, remains absent, sparing us the weird spectacle of Oasis competing for a cash prize with James MacMillan.

As for the rest, it's as difficult as ever to judge whether this is a "good" list or not, because it's as difficult as ever to tell what the Mercury Prize's criteria are.

It's meaningless to ask whether Dizzee Rascal (once edgy British hip-hop star now making cartoonish pop) deserves to win more than The XX (sombre, slow-burning guitar rock) because they're trying to achieve entirely different things.

The Mercury's stated aim is to celebrate the diversity of music made in this country, but since any of us could do that by picking 12 albums at random from the shelves of Fopp, its choices say far more about how the Mercury wants to be regarded than about music.

The Mercury wants to be seen as a cool, edgy arbiter of good taste, across all forms of music, equally capable of judging folk and electronica.

Its target audience is obvious - those of us who think of ourselves as switched on and cultured but are overwhelmed by the sheer amount of music now out there, and the instant accessibility of it, so resort to randomly name-dropping bands, or scenes, or genres, in order not to feel ignorant.

Which is why so many arguments about the Mercury are basically just lists of other albums that "should" have been nominated. This year, why weren't Gorillaz or Marina and the Diamonds on the shortlist? Who knows? Perhaps they followed Speech Debelle's career after winning last year and decided not to enter.