Sam Fender was named the victor of the 2025's Mercury Prize, recognizing his hit album People Watching.
Revealing the award, BBC radio DJ Sian Eleri, one of the judges, stated the album was marked by “ambition, character, and cohesion. It seemed like a iconic release, one that will take pride of place in album archives for years to come.”
Fender, 31, spent his youth in North Shields, not far from where the honors gala was held this year, in the city of Newcastle. He gained prominence quickly with his first record Hypersonic Missiles in 2019, which led the British album charts, then built on its grand yet emotional sound on second album Seventeen Going Under (2021), and once more with People Watching, launched in the month of February. It has brought him to more significant commercial heights, generating two Top 10 singles and prompting a run of large-scale performances.
The 2025 Mercury Prize Nominees
This year's Mercury Prize selection featured a range of chart-topping albums as well as relatively obscure artists.
People Watching, Wolf Alice’s The Clearing and Pulp’s comeback album More all reached number one on the British album charts, while CMAT's Euro-Country, Eusexua by FKA twigs, Fontaines DC's Romance and PinkPantheress’s Fancy That all reached the Top 3. Betting agencies had CMAT as the top pick, followed by Fontaines DC and the group Pulp.
Also nominated were the Scottish artist Jacob Alon, rapper Pa Salieu, jazz-funk artist Emma-Jean Thackray, and Joe Webb, a Welsh jazz pianist.
Notable Contender
The award also had its most senior candidate: Martin Carthy, an English folk singer, eighty-four, honored for his album his record Transform Me Then Into a Fish.
Martin Carthy's career stretches back to the early 1960s in London, where he influenced Bob Dylan, teaching him the classic Scarborough Fair. He subsequently produced albums with his partner, Norma Waterson, and their child Eliza Carthy followed them into the folk genre, garnering two Mercury Prize nods of her own in the year 1998 and 2003.
Award Show Acts
Martin Carthy and Eliza Carthy played a interpretation of Scarborough Fair together, with the sitarist Sheema Mukherjee, at the ceremony. Jacob Alon, Fender, FKA twigs, Pulp, Salieu, Thackray, Joe Webb and Wolf Alice each also gave a live performance.
The artist CMAT was also in attendance, but didn’t perform due to recent treatment to her wisdom teeth. “I was considering making jewellery from them,” she told BBC 6 Music. “I aim to make the remaining contenders touch my teeth for fortune, but without telling them it’s my good luck.”
Mercury Legacy
The band Wolf Alice emerged as the initial artist to be nominated for each of their first four albums. Together they and the band Pulp have a single victory from four nods.
During 2024, the Mercury Prize seemed to be in a somewhat parlous state, after it was unable to find an event sponsor and had to make do with a reduced honors event lacking live performances.
But it has bounced back powerfully in 2025, moving to Newcastle and utilizing the city’s Utilita Arena as a venue. It also hosted an series of “fringe Mercury” events in the days prior to the honors gala, with live showcases, seminars and expert talks. Alon, Martin Carthy, Fender, FKA twigs, Pulp, Pa Salieu, Emma-Jean Thackray, Webb and Wolf Alice each sang a track on stage at the gala.
Geographic Significance
Analysis of recent winners revealed that between 2014 and 2023, all winners hailed from London, with English Teacher from Leeds at last bringing a win from outside the capital in 2024.
The move to Newcastle, which helps to counter a often capital-centered recording business, has thus been applauded. Minister Ian Murray, the arts minister, said the “significant gesture” was “greatly appreciated … For too long different areas have had to play second fiddle to the capital, despite having excellent cultural work in their own capacity.”
Selection Committee
The Mercury Prize is selected by a panel of music experts: jazz musician and broadcaster Jamie Cullum; radio DJs Sian Eleri, Jamz Supernova, Mistajam, and Danielle Perry; journalists Phil Alexander, Will Hodgkinson and Sophie Williams; industry advisor Lea Stonhill; and the chair of the judges, Jeff Smith, head of music at BBC Radio 2 and Radio 6 Music.
The prize, founded in the year 1992, is known as a “recognition of the dozen albums of the year, recognizing creative accomplishment across a range of modern music styles”. The most shortlisted artists are Radiohead and Arctic Monkeys, each with five nods, while the artist PJ Harvey is the sole musician to have won it twice.
Award Remarks
Sam Fender receives £25,000 prize money. The judges’ statement stated that People Watching is “melody-rich and expansive, uniting heartland rock with the truths of ordinary life and the significance of togetherness. These are thoughtful songs with broad appeal, as cinematic as they are intimate.”
