Radiohead fight Puppets for Mercury

22-07-2008This Month 22nd Jul 15:00

Radiohead, The Last Shadow Puppets and Adele will battle it out for this year's Nationwide Mercury Prize.A shortlist of 12 albums were selected today (22.07.08) with over 240 UK albums being considered on their musical merits.Both Adele's '19' and 'The Age Of The Understatement' by The Last Shadow Puppets - Arctic Monkeys star Alex Turner's side project - are debut efforts. Radiohead's 'In Rainbows' broke new ground when it was released on a pay-what-it's-worth basis.Other nominees include 'Shine' by Estelle who relaunched her career in America after being dropped by her British record label and folk quartet Rachel Unthank and The Winterset's album 'The Bairns', which was nominated for a BBC Folk award earlier this year.Newcomer Laura Marling - whose nominated LP 'Alas I Cannot Swim' reached number 45 in the UK album chart on release in February - is also in contention.Simon Frith, Chair of Judges, praised the quality of this year's entries, saying: "This turns out to be a remarkably rich year for British music.