The Mercury Prize: The Courier predictions

The Mercury Prize is a well-recognised award celebrating the incredible albums of those we know and love. With the awards being held in Newcastle for the first time ever, we decided it would only be right if we made our own predictions before the event. We uploaded a poll on The Courier Instagram story asking, “Who’s your winner?” and here’s what we found:

Fontaines D.C. - 'Romance' - 43 votes
Sam Fender - 'People Watching' - 38 votes
Pulp - 'More' - 17 votes
CMAT - 'Euro-Country' - 13 votes
PinkPantheress - 'Fancy That' - 12 votes
Wolf Alice - 'The Clearing' - 12 votes
FKA Twigs - 'Eusexua' - 7 votes
Jacob Alon - 'In Limerence' - 3 votes
Martin Carthy - 'Transform Me Then Into a Fish' - 3 votes
Pa Salieu - 'Afrikan Alien' - 2 votes
Emma-Jean Thackray - 'Weirdo' - 2 votes
Joe Webb - 'Hamstrings and Hurricanes' - 1 vote

Sam Fender went home with the award at the end of the night, with his show-stopping third album 'People Watching.' With his discography heavily influenced by Newcastle, it felt like a truly deserved, close-to-home win. However, with Fontaines D.C. winning our predictions with a whopping 43 votes, did they truly deserve this highly commended award?