The Xx

The xx are a Mercury Prize-winning trio formed in 2005 in London, England. The band members are Romy Madley Croft (vocals, lead guitar), Oliver Sim (vocals, bass guitar), and Jamie Smith (Jamie xx) (beats, MPC sampler). Second guitarist and keyboardist Baria Qureshi is no longer a member of the group. Bonding over a shared love of dark, emotive 80s guitar sounds and the high-end sheen of American R&B, The xx’s unique sound befits a band whose wide range of influences combine beautiful, hushed vocal duets and a brilliantly inventive use of samples and low-end frequencies to produce stark, sweet, melancholic pop. The group released their debut album xx on 17 August 2009. The album was recorded in a small garage and produced by the band. It garnered critical acclaim and has been generally well-received, scoring an average of 86/100 based on 24 professional reviews. Also it ranked on "best of the year" lists with Rolling Stone placing it at #9 and NME placing it at #2. CNN recently did a profile package piece on the band. The group won the 2010 Mercury Prize for their album on 7th September 2010. The bookies' favourites for many of the weeks leading up to the announcement, they beat eleven other acts in a year that had a lot of strong albums from their fellow competitors. Sim said following their win "I don't know what we were expecting but we weren't expecting this." He went on to say "Thank you so much. We've had the most incredible year and it has just felt like every day we've just woken up to something incredible we just weren't expecting. It has felt just like a haze. Being here is like a moment of clarity in all that's happening." Four singles were released from their debut album: Crystalised, Basic Space, Islands and VCR. The xx remixed the classic song You've Got the Love originally written by The Source and covered by Florence + the Machine. They also added their own vocals on the song.