James Blake wins the Mercury Prize

A total upset, if you believe bookmakers.

James Blake has won the Mercury Prize, awarded each year to the best album from the UK and Ireland. His second album, Overgrown, bested offerings by Arctic Monkeys, David Bowie, Disclosure, Foals, Jake Bugg, Jon Hopkins, Laura Marling, Laura Mvula, Rudimental, Savages, and Villagers. This all despite the fact that he had 20/1 odds as recently as yesterday and that he was introduced as “James Blunt” at the ceremony.

Blake’s self-titled debut was nominated in 2011 but lost to PJ Harvey’s Let England Shake. Last year, indie act Alt-J won the award before promptly falling off the face of the Earth; we don’t see that happening for the UK star.

In our Mercury Prize preview, we joked that he was “more likely to sing on Drake’s new album than to take home an award,” and that he’d be working on “a proper follow-up to that James Drake mash-up album” by next year. We barely missed the mark: Blake just released his version of Drake’s ‘Come Thru’.

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