THE Arctic Monkeys, who shot to fame on the internet and broke all records with their debut last night won the prestigious annual Mercury Music Prize, the music industry's equivalent of the literary world's Booker prize.
The Sheffield-based band beat 11 other nominees, including Muse and former Radiohead's Thom Yorke to scoop the £20,000 prize.
The group which released Britain's fastest selling debut album after building up a cult internet following beat off a di
verse range of musicians with their album Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not to win the Best British album of the year.
"It's good tunes - that's what we try to do," said the band's frontman Alex Turner after the group accepted the award.
But even Turner admitted to being surprised that they had won. "Normally it doesn't go to a band that has sold as many albums as we have. But we are very pleased with it," he said.
The band made music history when the album became the UK's fastest-ever selling debut album on its release in January 2006.
Judges of the prize, which has honoured the best album of the year by a British or Irish band since 1992, tends to court controversy every year and has been previously renowned for overlooking chart-topping blockbusters in favour of obscure artists.
This year was a glaring exception with the prize going to the Arctic Monkeys who in January smashed the British record for the fastest-selling debut album which sold over 363,700 copies in its first week.
This success may be seen as a consequence of the four-piece band's already burgeoning reputation, built through live shows and online even before signing to Domino Records in June 2005.
The Arctic Monkeys handed out free CDs of their music at early gigs which were in turn downloaded onto the Internet by fans and sent across cyberspace.
Bookmakers put the Arctic Monkeys the 5-6 favourites to take the title, despite the fact that the judges usually confound public expectations.
The prize is awarded on the basis of innovation, rather than commercial sales.
Nominated artists included unlikely duo Isobel Campbell and Mark Lanegan, the former singer and cellist with Scots indie pop band Belle & Sebastian and the ex-frontman of Seattle grunge group Screaming Trees, who collaborated on album "Ballad of the Broken Seas."
Yorke's introspective solo album "The Eraser" was also listed, along with "Melting Pot" by British jazz pianist Zoe Rahman, a former student at Boston's Berklee College of Music.
Richard Hawley, whose sweeping ballads chronicle toil and loss in Britain's industrial towns, was shortlisted ten years after Pulp - the band with whom he toured as a guitarist - claimed the award.
Other nominees were rock and indie acts the Editors, the Guillemots, Hot Chip and Muse.
Revived 1980s band Scritti Politti, rapper Sway and folk singer Lou Rhodes were also listed.
Professor Simon Frith, who has been chair of the judges panel since 1992, said: "Above all, this year's shortlist for the Nationwide Mercury Prize is about the art of the songwriter - if you want to know what life is like in Britain today, listen to the country's musicians!"
"The list contains songs that are witty, sad, angry and reflective; songs exploring emotions and debating attitudes; songs about love lost and love found; songs both personal and political, happy and anxious; songs using a wonderful variety of genres, beats, sound and moods."
Last year Antony and the Johnsons won the prize for "I Am A Bird Now". Lead singer Antony Hegarty, while born in England, spent more than 20 years in the United States, raising questions about his eligibility for the award.
Previous winners include rapper Dizzee Rascal, Scottish rockers Franz Ferdinand.
In 1994, M People's "Elegant Slumming" beat competition from Blur, Pulp and the Prodigy -much to the surprise of the music press.
