Sam Fender was declared the winner of the 2025's Mercury Prize, recognizing his chart-topping album People Watching.
Announcing the honor, judge Sian Eleri, one of the judges, said the album was defined by “cohesion, character and ambition. It felt like a iconic release, one that will take pride of place in album archives for many future years.”
Fender, thirty-one, spent his youth in North Shields, near where the prize event was held this year, in Newcastle. He gained prominence quickly with his first record Hypersonic Missiles in 2019, which reached number one on the UK album chart, then consolidated its sweeping yet heartfelt sound on sophomore release Seventeen Going Under (2021), and again with People Watching, issued in February. It has propelled him to more significant success levels, producing two singles in the Top Ten and inspiring a run of arena shows.
This Year’s Mercury Prize Nominees
This year's Mercury Prize shortlist featured a number of commercially successful albums as well as somewhat lesser-known acts.
People Watching, Wolf Alice's The Clearing and the return album by Pulp More all topped the British album charts, while CMAT's Euro-Country, FKA twigs' Eusexua, Fontaines DC's Romance and PinkPantheress’s Fancy That all attained the Top Three. Bookmakers had CMAT as the frontrunner, then Fontaines DC and Pulp.
Also nominated were Scottish singer-songwriter Jacob Alon, the rapper Pa Salieu, the jazz-funk performer Emma-Jean Thackray, and the Welsh pianist Joe Webb.
Record-Breaking Contender
The prize also had its oldest ever nominee: English folk singer Martin Carthy, in his eighties, recognized for his album his record Transform Me Then Into a Fish.
Carthy’s career goes back to the early 1960s based in London, where he impacted the legendary Bob Dylan, instructing him in the classic the song Scarborough Fair. He subsequently recorded music with his spouse, Norma Waterson, and their child Eliza Carthy pursued a similar path into folk music, garnering two Mercury prize nominations of her own in 1998 and 2003.
Award Show Acts
The father-daughter duo delivered a interpretation of the song Scarborough Fair together, with Sheema Mukherjee on sitar, at the gala. Alon, Sam Fender, FKA twigs, Pulp, Pa Salieu, Emma-Jean Thackray, Joe Webb and Wolf Alice each also gave a live performance.
CMAT was also in attendance, but didn’t perform due to recent treatment to two wisdom teeth. “I was considering making jewellery from them,” she informed a BBC radio station. “I plan to make the remaining contenders touch my teeth for fortune, but without telling them it’s my good luck.”
Prize History
Wolf Alice was the first act to be nominated for all of their first four records. Together they and the band Pulp have a single victory from four nominations.
During 2024, the Mercury Prize seemed to be in a rather precarious condition, after it failed to secure an ceremony backer and had to manage with a reduced honors event minus concert segments.
However it has made a strong comeback in 2025, shifting to Newcastle and using the city’s Utilita Arena as a venue. It also hosted an array of “Mercury fringe” programs in the days prior to the award ceremony, with artist showcases, workshops and expert talks. Alon, Martin Carthy, Sam Fender, FKA twigs, Pulp, Pa Salieu, Thackray, Webb and Wolf Alice each sang a track on stage at the event.
Location Change
Study of recent winners showed that between 2014 and 2023, all winners hailed from the capital, with the Leeds group English Teacher finally securing a victory from outside the capital in 2024.
The relocation to Newcastle, which helps to counter a often capital-centered recording business, has accordingly been praised. Ian Murray, minister for creative industries, media and arts, said the “meaningful move” was “hugely welcome … For too long other regions have had to be secondary to London, even though having top-tier creative output in their own capacity.”
Selection Committee
The Mercury Prize is selected by a panel of music industry figures: jazz musician and broadcaster Jamie Cullum; radio DJs Sian Eleri, Jamz Supernova, Mistajam, and Danielle Perry; writers 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 honor, created in 1992, is referred to as a “honoring of the dozen albums of the year, celebrating artistic achievement across a range of contemporary music genres”. The most nominated musicians are Radiohead and Arctic Monkeys, each with five nominations, while PJ Harvey is the only artist to have claimed it two times.
Judges’ Comments
Sam Fender receives £25,000 in award funds. The jury's remarks added that People Watching is “melody-rich and expansive, marrying American rock with the truths of daily existence and the importance of community spirit. These are thoughtful songs with mass attraction, as epic as they are close.”
