Receiving plaudits from Noah Kahan and Elton John, and often called the “Geordie Springsteen,” Sam Fender can and should be playing to bigger crowds in the U.S., but in a selfish way, I’m almost glad ...

The Mercury prize almost always produces surprises – among them, Gomez not The Verve in 1998, and English Teacher not Charli XCX in 2024 – but perhaps the biggest surprise is that the prize has ...