A formidable array of chart-topping A-listers feature in a competitive shortlist for the 2026 Mercury prize, the prestigious award that honours the best album of the year by a British or Irish artist. Dave won the Mercury prize with his debut album Psychodrama in 2019, though didn’t make the shortlist for its follow-up We’re All in This Together. Florence + the Machine earns her fourth Mercury nomination, for her sixth album Everybody Scream, which was also strongly acclaimed in the Guardian and described as “rounded musically and emotionally”. It is the sequel to 1995’s The Help Album, the only other compilation to be nominated in Mercury history. Charli xcx’s Wuthering Heights soundtrack wasn’t nominated, though her new album Music, Fashion, Film was just outside the eligibility period.