The xx won it! YAY! After last year's failure in giving the award to Speech Debelle, they finally got it right. If not them, Laura Marling or Paul Weller, so i'm glad it was them.

i saw a picture of them accepting the award, they so made the "suck it up losers that told us we would suck and our music wouldn't go anywhere" face. love them

Pessimist that I am, I was predicting another disaster. Great to see them win though, most deserving winners in a while.

Eh. The xx is the sort of indie band I don't get. The sort with a liberal amount of noise and random sound effects and wavery off-key vocals but not much in terms of hooks, instrumental skill, song structure, lyrics, melodies or harmonies. With this sort of band I often get the feeling they just played with their mixing boards until they could say 'Hey, this sounds cool', and just threw it right in the song.

I feel the same way about Girls and most of the stuff Spencer Krug puts out.

I guess they could have done worse.

Liberal amount of noise, yes; not much else, no. Crystalised has a great hook. What's more, with them being quiet and noise-stingy and all, they manage to make up for it by not wasting one squeak. Every note sounds carefully considered, finely-tuned, and it all blends perfectly.

I can definitely understand you not liking this record; I'm going against type in loving it. It just seems to me like a beautifully crafted sign of the times album (minus the synths). Now all we need is The Strokes Mark 2 to come along blast Lady Gaga away with some two minute hook-filled rockers.