5. Super Furry Animals - Rings Around The World (2001)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQ9HcV4kD8c 2001's Mercury Prize ceremony coincided with the terrorist attacks in New York City, so understandably things were overshadowed by events elsewhere. What should ordinarily have been a triumphant night for PJ Harvey, who won for her fifth album Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea, was instead a sombre, and in her words "surreal day". With all flights grounded, Harvey was stuck in Washington DC and could only accept her award by telephone. While admitting it was monumental for her career, she would later say that in the context of the day, winning "didn't have much importance in the grand scheme of things". An apt winner, given the album spoke much of her love for New York, it was nevertheless part of one of the prize's stronger shortlists. Radiohead, Basement Jaxx, Goldfrapp and Gorillaz had all made critically-acclaimed albums, with the latter actually resigning from consideration. Damon Albarn's cartoon band had said winning would be "like carrying a dead albatross round your neck for eternity", hence their self-imposed withdrawal. But it also included one of the UK's most inventive and intriguing groups, Super Furry Animals, with their album Rings Around The World. For their fifth album - and their first for a major label - SFA decided to go big, and the cinematic Rings was the result. It was hailed as one of the best releases of their career, heady praise given how high a bar the Welsh group have maintained throughout their existence. It was the first album to simultaneously released on CD and DVD, and the latter was mixed in surround sound. Receiving near-universal praise, it even features Paul McCartney on "carrot and celery", a nod to his work thirty years earlier on the Beach Boys' Smiley Smile.