RECORD stores counted the cost yesterday of an obscure winner of the Nationwide Mercury Music Prize as it emerged that Antony and the Johnsons were given the award after a furious judging dispute.

The prize for album of the year is intended to provide a much-needed summer sales boost, but the shock choice of the New York-based cross-dressing torch singer disappointed the music industry. Record company executives left the Grosvenor House event saying they were baffled by the choice, a sentiment shared onstage by the winner himself.

I Am a Bird Now is a collection of haunting, piano-led ballads performed by Antony Hegarty, who was born in Chichester but is based in New York. Released by the independent label Rough Trade, which discovered the Smiths, the album is expected to enjoy only a modest sales boost.

A spokesman for HMV said: “If KT Tunstall or the Magic Numbers had won, it would have catapulted their album to No 1. Antony and the Johnsons does not have that potential but it might make it into the top 40 this week.”

However, Amazon, the online retailer, recorded a 900 per cent sales increase for I Am a Bird Now yesterday, putting the record at No 1 on its Hot 100 music chart.

Sources on the Mercury judging panel said that Hegarty had been a compromise choice made under the pressure of a television deadline after the panel split. The panel is chaired by Simon Frith, a professor of film and media studies at the University of Stirling. He mainly listens to Radio 3, does not own an iPod and says that the Mercury Music Prize has never got its winner wrong in 14 years. Judges include Lauren Laverne, the television presenter, Ian Parkinson, the head of live music at Radio 1 and the head of 1Xtra, and Colin Irwin, of Folk Roots magazine.

The source said: “One camp insisted the award had to go to Kaiser Chiefs or Hard-Fi because their albums reflect the vitality of the British music scene today. Others refused, saying that would be too predictable. There were very few advocates for Antony and the Johnsons but it emerged as a compromise. His record is essentially about the East Village cabaret scene and says nothing about Britain. It makes a mockery of an award which is supposed to be for the best UK record of the year.”

Alexia Loundras, a music writer on the panel, acknowledged: “This final stage of the judging can get vicious. A final show of hands determines who walks away with the prize.”

Last year’s award honoured the debut album by Franz Ferdinand, which was already on its way to becoming a million-seller. But some previous winners, such as Dizzee Rascal, failed to excite record-buyers.

ON THE PANEL

Simon Frith, author, academic and music critic
Alexia Loundras, The Independent
Lauren Laverne, musician and broadcaster
Dean Jackson, radio presenter
John Lewis, Time Out
Margherita Taylor, broadcaster
Colin Irwin, author, music journalist and broadcaster
John Williamson, journalist and record store owner
Mark Findlay, head of music, GCap radio network
Adrian Thrills, Daily Mail
Ian Parkinson, head of live music at Radio1and head of 1Xtra

www.timesonline.co.uk/music
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