12 British albums that deserve Mercury nods, according to Dummy

At 5.30pm tomorrow (September 11th), the shortlist for nominations for the annual Mercury Prize will be announced, with a panel of industry types selecting the 12 albums that they feel represent the best that Britain has had to offer from the past 12 months, with one of these albums finally being picked to win the coveted award. We aren't going to sit here and debate the worthiness of the prize or the nominations when they do come in, but instead we're choosing the albums that we think deserve to be in with a shot of winning.

Our criteria for inclusion is simple – like the actual Mercury shortlist, we've chosen 12 albums made by British passport holders that were released between September 11th 2012 and September 9th 2013 that we think are the best that the UK has to offer. We don't want to call this an "alternative" Mercury list, because we're hoping that some of these albums will be on the final, real shortlist. Fingers firmly crossed.