The xx were apt winners for old-fashioned Mercury

From the 12 albums shortlisted for the 2010 Barclaycard Mercury Music Prize the judges made the right decision last night in picking south Londoners The xx as the ultimate winners.

The Mercurys - awarded to the best UK and Ireland albums - are a bit different to other award shows in that every act there already feels like a winner, having benefited from the attention (and sales upsurge) of being nominated. It's nicer, more civilised.

Jools Holland for all his archaic bumbling (is there anyone in the world who thinks calling pounds "guineas" - as he did in his tension diffusing announcement of the winner - is amusing?) is a great choice of host as the prize has that same disgusting air of mutual musical respect as his music show Later With Jools Holland.

Modelled on the Booker Prize it is the only musical ceremony where you enter the evening having no idea who's going to win - apart, of course, from the token jazz entry, the inclusion of which is utterly pointless.

It’s time to rename the Mercury Prize The MOMCOs (Music Of Middle Class Origin)

Last night's contest was the hardest to call in the award's 18-year history. All the albums were critical successes and all equally deserving. But one imagines that last year's disastrous choice (Speech Debelle’s freeform rap may have pleased some, but her album only reached number 66 despite all the hype) steered the 12 judges away from outsiders and the more challenging albums of Foals or Villagers.

Friends since the age of three, The xx make the kind of atmospheric rock that sounds simple but could come across as pompous and pretentious in the wrong hands. A broad range of influences from hip hop and dub step to 80s lo-fi have resulted in a minimalist sound that broods with melancholy - apparently the hushed tones of singers Romy Madley Croft and Oliver Sim were born out of rehearsals in their parents' living rooms where they were forced to keep the volume down.

Their self-titled debut is remarkably self assured for a group who are so young. It's the perfect 3am album and the kind of calming balm that's seen their music used on numerous TV shows (most notably the BBC’s election coverage) and could dangerously see them classed as coffee table rock. It's miserable, beautifully miserable.

Interestingly, all three of the band attended the Elliot School in Putney - an arts-leaning school also attended by previous Mercury nominees Burial and Hot Chip.

However any journalists looking for a Brit School Part 2 angle had it quickly nipped in the bud by the articulate and charming Sim who said: "I don't want to give them too much credit because technically they just neglected us.”

What happens next is going to be interesting: how The xx develop musically and, importantly, how they cope with the pressure of the attention - not immediately, but in years to come. Humble and shy last night it doesn't appear as if the success will go to their heads but this award has a history.

Winning the Mercury (how many other prizes are named after companies that no longer exist, by the way? It's almost like football retaining the Watney's Cup) does come with something of a curse. Roni Size was barely heard of again in mainstream music circles after winning in 1997; other winners including Gomez, Badly Drawn Boy and Antony and the Johnsons have been far from prolific, while the pressure of following up their 2007 winning album took Klaxons three years.

The £20,000 cheque seems a rather backwards element to the prize - especially when awarded to wealthy artists obviously not short of a few bob - and one that's ridiculed by the website Popjustice, who tonight will be handing over £20 to the artist of their favourite single.

Although it's an easy ceremony to mock - the Mercury Prize does feel a little like it should be rechristened The MOMCOs (Music Of Middle Class Origin) - at least it doesn't have that taint of industry lobbying and turn-up-and-win-a-gong that the Brits has.

Plus it's keeping the notion of 'the album', alive which is a good thing in the era of iTunes downloads and as with last night it helps gives a bunch of misfits a leg up into the mainstream. Well done to The xx. ·