5/12!

And, er, wrong on two of the four I thought were most obvious.

• Arctic Monkeys - Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not
• Isobel Campbell & Mark Lanegan - Ballad Of The Broken Seas
• Editors - The Back Room
• Guillemots - Through The Windowpane
• Richard Hawley - Coles Corner
• Hot Chip - The Warning
• Muse - Black Holes And Revelations
• Zoe Rahman - Melting Pot
• Lou Rhodes - Beloved One
• Scritti Politti - White Bread, Black Beer
• Sway - This Is My Demo
• Thom Yorke - The Eraser

It's not a bad list, certainly nothing like 2004's shocker (Keane, Snow Patrol, Joss Stone) although for that to be the case it would have taken Sandi Thom being nominated I guess. Lily Allen and Corinne Bailey Rae are the surprising ommisions but while they both had fantastic singles the albums are respectively a little clunky and more than a little boring. It's more the fact that the whole thing looks very short on pop as a result that's the problem, then, and it would have been a nice surprise to see Girls Aloud or Sugababes in there.

Another problem is the continuing trend of ignoring anyone previously nominated unless they're Coldplay or Radiohead (or their singer), which just makes their default nominations seem all the more unfair. I don't think that Under The Iron Sea or Eyes Open among are the best albums of the year, but the first especially is clearly a big improvement on its nominated predecessor. Belle & Sebastian and Elbow can probably feel pretty hard done by on that one.

Of course it does need the big mainstream albums in to attract an audience, and a sales cap on nominees like the US version would be a really bad move. Neither Thom Yorke or Muse's albums feel like anything to strongly get behind at all though, Muse in particular doing little more than treading water for the first time apart from on a couple of songs. Black Holes And Revelations being included feels more of an acknowledgement that ignoring Absolution was stupid than anything. The Back Room has its moments while suffering from the opposite problem of being almost a year old already but I never really loved it much as a whole. Arctic Monkeys obviously don't need a win and would in practise it would probably be rather tiresome, but while not filling in the innovation requirement (like anyone still believes that) their album is actually brilliant, which surely must count a little.

That leaves Hot Chip and Guillemots (yes, in case you were wondering, their album almost lives up to expectations, which is quite something) to really support this time round for now. Plus any of the other six that I haven't heard the whole of yet and still have a chance to impress me, which is where the possible benefit of this whole business other than a chance for me to write this comes in.