Wolf Alice felt "guilty" about winning the Mercury Prize.
Wolf Alice
The 'Beautifully Unconventional' hitmakers - comprised of Ellie Rowsell, Joff Oddie, Joel Amey and Theo Ellis - were awarded the prestigious accolade for their second LP, 'Visions of a Life', in September and though they were "proud" to be recognised, they were quickly "deflated" following a backlash that accused the panel of making a "safe" choice.
Ellie said: "It's hard. Because winning was great -- we celebrated. I felt proud. Then you read all these things and you deflate. I felt guilty. 'I'm sorry I won this, please give it to someone else.' And I don't want to do that."
And the quartet don't understand why they were seen as the "safe" choice and think they were actually chosen because they represented a middle ground that wasn't too mainstream to be obvious or so leftfield that the vote would alienate the public.
Joff recalled in an interview with the Sunday Times Culture magazine: "People were angry. They thought we were the safe option."
Ellie - who was on the 2016 judging panel - added: "But the safe option is always the left-field choice, because nobody can be angry. They go, 'Oh, it's nice to give them a boost!' "
But Joff mused: "I don't know. The award was in a position of losing public interest had they done that again."
Ellie admitted: "We were the middle thing. So, basically, we didn't win because we were good. But critics were more annoyed with the prize than with us. 'No offence to Wolf Alice, they seem nice, but f*** the Mercurys!' "
Wolf Alice - whose debut album 'My Love is Cool' was nominated for the 2015 Mercury Prize - beat off the likes of Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds, Arctic Monkeys, Florence and the Machine, Lily Allen, and Jorja Smith to be crowned the winners of the iconic award.
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