OK Computer loses the Mercury Music Prize to Roni Size

Roni Size and Reprazent, the Bristol collective, won the 1997 Mercury Music Prize and its £25,000 with New Forms at the Grosvenor House Hotel in London on Thursday evening, beating OK Computer. Radiohead had gone into the night as the bookmakers' favourites, having overtaken the Prodigy during the day: OK Computer was 11-8, The Fat of the Land 9-4 and New Forms 16-1.

The chairman of the judges, the critic and academic Simon Frith, said that the panel had argued for five hours before it came down to the two records, and that the Spice Girls had stayed in contention until surprisingly late. We do think that Radiohead's album is a classic¹, he said, but the vote went the other way. It was a majority decision for Roni Size.¹