This Thursday (November 1, 2012), the winner of the Mercury Music will be announced. As a precursor to the official event, Spotify have taken a look at the streaming figures for all of the nominees, on their online streaming service and Alt-J have attracted more listeners than any of the other Mercury Music Prize nominees.

Of course, this doesn’t necessarily mean that the Mercury judging panel will have the same taste as Spotify’s listeners and Alt-J face fierce competition, even if they have pretty much been tipped as likely winners since the list was announced. Jessie Ware’s another newcomer with a strong chance, as is Lianne La Havas. Plan B and Richard Hawley are among the more experienced artists in there that also stand a strong chance. You should never count on the obvious choice when it comes to the Barclaycard Mercury Music Prize, after all. Remember the year that Dizzee Rascal won? How many of you saw that one coming?

Even Alt-J aren’t counting their chickens just yet. The band’s drummer Thom Green placed his expectations of the band winning the prize at a lowly 8.3% and admitted “We’d been tipped to win before we’d even been nominated, so the pressure was on.” A spokesperson for Spotify, Will Hope, said “We can't predict who the judges will pick to win this Thursday's Mercury Prize, but if it were up to music fans on Spotify, Alt-J would be the band picking up the award. Ben Howard is a close second based on recent streaming habits we've seen. We wish all nominees the best of luck!”

The list of nominees in full:

Alt-J 'An Awesome Wave'

Ben Howard 'Every Kingdom'

Django Django 'Django Django'

Field Music ‘Plumb’

Jessie Ware ‘Devotion’

Lianne La Havas ‘Is Your Love Big Enough?’

Michael Kiwanuka ‘Home Again’

The Maccabees ‘Given to the Wild’

Plan B ‘Ill Manors’

Richard Hawley ‘Standing at the Sky’s Edge’

Roller Trio ‘Roller Trio’

Sam Lee ‘Ground of its Own’