English Teacher Are Worthy Mercury Winners – But The Question Of The Prize’s Future Hangs Heavy

The smart, strange Leeds quartet clearly have a bright future ahead of them. But with no sponsor and a straitened ceremony, the same can’t be said for the Mercury

The members of Leeds quartet English Teacher looked understandably startled to have won the 2024 Mercury prize. The bookies – who invariably go for the most commercially successful album – thought it would be Charli xcx, while the smart money was probably on Corinne Bailey Rae’s daringly eclectic Black Rainbows. It’s a long time since an alt-rock band won the prize – the last was Wolf Alice six years ago – but you can see why the judges were charmed by This Could Be Texas.

In a world of heavy-handed sermonising, the lyrics deal with serious topics – racism, inequality, mental health, penury – with a light touch, sharp, smart and funny in equal measure; you can detect the faint ghost of the Fall in the surrealism and caustic wit of The World’s Biggest Paving Slab or Nearly Daffodils.