Initial favourites Arctic Monkeys and Amy Winehouse, and late running favourite Bat For Lashes, all lost out in the end when London based 'new rave' outfit (do we write that 'nu rave', I can't remember) Klaxons were last night awarded the Mercury Music Prize. They win the £20,000 prize for their debut long player 'Myths Of The Near Future'.
Commenting on the win, Klaxons' Jamie Reynolds told reporters that he felt his band deserved the prize more than rival Winehouse because she made a "retro record and we've made the most forward-thinking record". Which is a bit bitchy. Perhaps he was pissed off that despite them winning Winehouse kind of stole the show at the Mercury Prize event last night (and the front pages of the papers this morning) with an acclaimed performance of her song 'Love Is A Losing Game' from her nominated album 'Back To Black'. There had, of course, been much speculation as to whether Winehouse would perform at, or even attend, the award event given the string of recent gig cancellations following her much publicised run in with a stomach pump.
Commenting on Winehouse's performance, and the overall winners, NME editor bloke and Mercury judge Conor McNicholas told the Beeb: "[Winehouse was] amazing. I've never been to an awards ceremony where somebody has performed and the room has been genuinely silent, proper pin-drop stuff. But we have to take into account an awful lot and at the end of the day the Klaxons was felt to be the right decision. It's an album that could only ever have been made in Britain, could only ever have been made at this moment in time and it's a multi-layered album".
Klaxons' win was good news for the bookies, because a Bat For Lashes win would have been an expensive pay out for them, given she started out as a 10:1 outsider before becoming favourite to win in the final weeks.