'I think the best pop is always subversive in its nature," says James Righton over the phone from London a few days after his band Klaxons beat the bookies' odds to win the Mercury Music Prize, a major award that gives $40,000 to the "best" British or Irish album of the year. "Even things like Abba — I think it's always got a dark, subversive element to it," says the keyboardist/ vocalist. "You've got these four blonde Swedish people singing about their relationships breaking up while they're all going out with each other."

Klaxons practice their own mild form of subversion themselves. Over the past 18 months, they've got the public hooked on a musical genre that they invented, made a pop hit about a black-magic practitioner ("Magick") and rehabilitated that most ridiculous of accessories, the glowstick.

Not for nothing are these pranksters frequently compared to The KLF, the sonic terrorists who enjoyed an anarchic reign at the top of international charts in 1990 and 1991 before abruptly splitting up. And much like that band — whose influence they've openly acknowledged — it's almost impossible to separate the music from the hype, the genuine substance from the double bluff.