So congratulations to Alt-J on winning the 2012 Mercury Music Prize, a well deserved win for one of the most inventive British records of the year which beat off some strong competition from the likes of Jessie Ware, Ben Howard, the Maccabees and Plan B.

To celebrate, we’ve put together a playlist made up of tracks from previous recipients of the prize over the course of its 20 year history, which given the judges tendency to confound early expectations, it naturally a pretty eclectic affair

Previous winners include, PJ Harvey, The XX, Arctic Monkeys, Dizzee Rascal, Roni Size and, er, M People…

Anyway for a crash course in some of the most critically acclaimed music of the past 2 decades, look no further!