The Mercury Music Prize - doomed forever to be lumbered with the name of a defunct teleco - has announced its shortlist for the 2004 award. And if that doesn't sound like a very exciting introduction, the actual list itself is even duller - although not without its highlights:

Amy Winehouse Frank
Basement Jaxx Kish Kash
Belle & Sebastian Dear Catastrophe Waitress
Franz Ferdinand Franz Ferdinand
Jamelia Thank You
Joss Stone The Soul Sessions
Keane Hopes and Fears
Robert Wyatt Cuckooland
Snow Patrol Final Straw
The Streets A Grand Don't Come for Free
Ty Upwards
The Zutons Who Killed... The Zutons

From the top, then, we've got Whiney Almshouse, a stablemate of the Spice Girls, delivering the sort of polite jazz that your local church senior's group would condemn as being a little too tame; Basement Jaxx's not entirely satisfactory house party - featuring a surprisingly sprightly Siouxsie Sioux cameo; Belle & Sebastian's supposed "breakthrough" album - although for a band like B&S, every extra piece of critical praise undermines their whole pitch of being more left field than a bunch Communists making camp; Franz Ferdinand's sprightly debut - probably the best album to make the short list, and certainly the early favourite, which means almost certainly it won't win - and, equally certainly, they'll get a consolation prize in a few years for a less striking release; Jamelia, this year's "rising home-grown R&B talent" - we believe she doesn't actually have the words "see also: Shola Ama, Samantha Mumba" tattooed on her arse, but she might as well have; Joss Stone, who has surely used up the five minutes of wonderment generated by being That Girl Singing Jazzlite Who Covered The White Stripes and then some; Keane, who start out with the not entirely inspiring "influenced by Coldplay" tag but somehow rise above it; Robert Wyatt, who would almost certainly pummell me into a thin paste if he caught me calling him The Grand Old Man of British Curmudgeon Agit-Prop; Snow Patrol's most recent attempt to differentiate themselves from other, similar acts - most people still don't know their Elbow from their Patrol; Mike Skinner's engaging street-rap concept album; Ty's largely-ignored-outside-his-genre London braggard rap and The Zutons, this year's quirky scouse offerings.

Oddly, this year, nothing classical has been deemed worthy of the shortlist, which might mean that either the judges have got pissed off with being ridiculed for including a token title from the little side-room of the megastore every year, or else they've just sniffily decided that nothing good enough has been produced.

So, winners? Franz probably deserve it, but the way the Mercury runs means The Streets has got to be in with the best shout. Not only does A Grand sound like a coherent album, it's attempted to provide some sort of structure and shows a fairly innovative approach to getting round the usual problem for rap acts - how can you still sing about life on the street for your post-success album when you've moved up to First Class and VIP areas? Skinner's soap-opera-as-album could earn a prize as a just reward for dealing with that one.