The Klaxons win 2007 Mercury Prize

The Klaxons beat out favorites Amy Winehouse and Bat for Lashes to win the 2007 Mercury Prize on Wednesday. The Southeast London four-piece won the coveted award with their record Myths of the Near Future, the latest example of a sound the musicians call “New Rave.”

The Klaxons—are you kidding me? said the Music Magazine. That band plays “derivative rave revival shit,” they’ve barely been together for two years, and yet they’ve “driven idiotic NME kids and all-around sheep-who-think-they-are-shepherds across the land wild” with this “collection of mediocre ‘Indie’ hits.”

Other than the fact that Bat for Lashes didn’t win, the Mercury awards were great, said Dave C. The “Klaxon album is an excellent one” and the Mercury is the “only decent award ceremony (in the UK anyway)”—they always seem to “short list a really excellent and varied” selection of bands.

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Winning the Mercury Prize isn’t necessarily a good thing, said AlexiaBlogs. “To be honest, if I were a Klaxon I’d be nervous.” Just look at M. People, Gomez, Pulp, Portishead, and Ms. Dynamite. “They all virtually disappeared after winning the Mercury prize” in recent years.

Even though Bat for Lashes didn’t win, more than any other band this year, they benefited the most from the Mercury awards, said Viriconium. A few months ago, “you'd have been hard pressed to find a copy of her album in the high street.” But since being nominated for the Mercury Prize, “Bat For Lashes is suddenly a hot property with music journos”—and that’s “worth a lot more” than a check for 20,000 pounds.

Amy Winehouse probably would have won this year, had she been able to keep her focus on her music, said Alexis Petridis on Music.guardian.co.uk. “It’s hard not to think that the tabloid furor surrounding Amy Winehouse’s personal life might have had some bearing upon the failure of her album Back To Black to clinch the prize.” But the Klaxon’s Myths was a deserving winner. The album blends “effortless songwriting” with “cheering degree of sonic experimentation and a distinctly British psychedelic skew.” Although the Mercury awards are often criticized, this year they “have made another smart decision.”