New talent adds fizz to Mercury shortlist: judges highlight health of homegrown British talent by selecting debuts for three-quarters of nominations. (Talent).

The Panasonic Mercury Music Prize helped rebut claims of a lack of exciting new homegrown acts, with debut releases claiming nine of the 12 shortlist slots.

Parlophone's Coldplay and Radiohead stand as comparative veterans on the list announced last Tuesday, as emerging talent ranging from the old-fashioned rock of East West's The Darkness to the edgy garage beats of XL's 18-year-old MC/producer Dizzee Rascal fight it out for the 20,000 [pounds sterling] prize.

"The British music industry is as healthy as it's ever been," suggests Independiente managing director Mark Richardson, whose own act Martina Topley-Bird's debut album Quixotic is also among the 12. "The record industry has its issues in how it sells and develops music to the public, but in terms of creativity there is a lot of great music out there."

David Joseph, co-managing director of Polydor, whose Ms Dynamite's album A Little Deeper won the prize last September, has south London's US-signed DreamWorks act Floetry in contention this time. Although the band's first album Floetic grabbed two Grammy nominations this year and has sold more than 550,000 copies in the US, it has yet to make a commercial mark here.

"It's had some press so far but it's not across the board, even in the specialist press," says Joseph. He adds that the nomination is "exactly what we needed".

Athlete's Vehicles And Animals is one of three albums on the list from Parlophone, whose managing director Miles Leonard says the band's success so far has largely been from word of mouth. "Something like the Mercury Music Prize is really important to us, because the focus it brings in the media will help us to take Athlete to the next level," he adds.

Another EMI debuting act, Virgin-signed The Thrills, also make it onto the list with their album So Much For The City.