Various Artists

We could squabble over the Mercury Music Prize shortlist until the cows come home, but this year has seen some unfathomable omissions. For instance, how come Primal Scream’s Xtrmntr, a career high and easily the equal of 1991’s Mercury-winning Screamadelica, gets ignored in favour of their buddies Death In Vegas muscular but somewhat overrated Contino Sessions. And why is third party in that trinity, David Holmes, getting the cold shoulder in favour of Leftfield’s buzz-ness as usual?

So what are we to make of this compilation? Well, if nothing else, it serves as a means of surveying the empire in its finest new clothes. Does anybody else think Coldplay are fey indie-boys invoking the “we’re not the new Radiohead, we just love Jeff/Tim Buckley too” get-out clause? Elsewhere MJ Cole represents the quality end of the awful scene – faint praise considering that movement constitutes the dullest non-event in British black music in three decades.

The pocket symphonists (many of them from oop north) such as Kathryn Williams, Badly Drawn Boy, Doves and The Delgados fare a little better, the latter act scoring well with The Great Eastern, due in no small part to the talents of producer Dave Fridmann, hot off Deserter’s Songs and The Soft Bulletin.

Is it private prejudice or just plain fact that the most interesting music here lies outside the narrow definitions of post-Britpop? Helicopter Girl Jackie Joyce draws an interesting line between Little Jimmy Scott and Portishead, Nitin Sawhney journeys from Beth’s bedsit to Nusrat’s savannah in a single song, while Nicholas Maw, the token classical romantic, clocks in with the finale from his Violin Concerto; fine stuff for sure, but it sticks out like Big Brother’s Tom at a eunuch support group.

I don’t mean to be dogmatic, but an equivalent compilation from Sweden, France, or just about any American state would throw some perspective on the best of British, circa 2000.

Patchier than alopecia.