Which artist won the 2000 Mercury Prize for the album The Hour of Bewilderbeast?

Badly Drawn Boy won the 2000 Mercury Prize for The Hour of Bewilderbeast.

The Hour of Bewilderbeast was the debut studio album by English musician Damon Gough, who performs under the name Badly Drawn Boy. Released in 2000, it combines indie rock, folk, electronic textures, orchestration and spoken or sampled material. Gough wrote, performed and produced much of the album himself.

The Mercury Prize is an annual award for the best album by an act from the United Kingdom or Ireland. Badly Drawn Boy’s win placed an idiosyncratic, home-produced singer-songwriter record alongside more conventionally band-led alternative releases. The album’s title and artwork reflect Gough’s deliberately handmade, collage-like artistic style.

The award is sometimes confused with the 2000 Mercury Prize shortlist or with Gough’s later soundtrack work. In 2001, he wrote the music for the film About a Boy, but that soundtrack was not the album that won the 2000 prize.