mercury prize

The annual Mercury Prize awarded to the best British album of the year was held last night, with experimental, ambient artist James Blake taking home the award for his second album Overgrown.  

He beat bookies' favourite soul singer Laura Mvula and the legendary David Bowie to the £20,000 prize, joking "well, I lost the bet".

The prize traditionally celebrates the more unusual and obscure music produced in Britain each year. However, critics claimed that the nominees were too mainstream this year with large acts like Arctic Monkeys, Disclosure, Rudimental and Jake Bugg all on the shortlist.

The smaller acts were however also represented by the likes of folk band Villagers, the all-female punks Savages and electronic musician John Hopkins. 

You can listen to one of the tracks from the winning James Blake album below, or download the entire album here.

This year's Mercury Music Prize nominees have been announced with the usual mixture of well known superstars and obscure jazz musicians. The annual prize is awarded to the best British album of the year as chosen by music industry experts and journalists, and is well known for its diverse choices of winners.

Whilst you will have probably heard of previous winners such as Dizzee Rascal, Arctic Monkeys and Elbow, chances are you haven't heard of acts such as Speech Debelle and Talvin Singh. It is this diversity that marks the Mercury Prize as so unlike most other music awards, and helps create the prestige surrounding it. The winning artist not only gets the glory, but also a cheque for £20,000 and usually a huge boost in album sales.

This year, the nominees are typically varied. Some have had huge number 1 hits, whilst others almost no one will have heard of before. Here we go through the 12 acts nominated, and give you the chance to listen to each one of them.