The lauded girlband, who previously won with ‘Move’ in 2014 and ‘Black Magic’ in 2015, took their third victory at the annual bash tonight – with their Top 5 anthem ‘Touch’.
The track came out on top of a list of twelve nominees to bag the honour – which was created by the country’s most high-profile pop music blog as an alternative to the more straight-faced Mercury Music Prize; taking place on the same night every year.
Steps polled second place with ‘Scared of the Dark’, with Charli XCX’s new single ‘Boys’ coming third.
The best Non-British Single award, meanwhile, was handed to Lorde’s ‘Green Light’ – trumping MUNA’s ‘I Know A Place’ and Carly Rae Jepsen’s ‘Cut To The Feeling’.
Elsewhere, the Twenty Quid Invoice – handed to the worst pop song of the last year – was given to Ed Sheeran’s ‘Galway Girl’.
It wasn’t all bad news for Sheeran, however: he was also up for the main prize with ‘Shape Of You’, although it was the first of the twelve contenders to be eliminated.
Others that made the shortlist but failed to go the whole way were Clean Bandit’s ‘Rockabye’, Niall Horan’s ‘Slow Hands’, Louisa Johnson’s ‘Best Behaviour’, Danny L Harle’s ‘1UL’, KDA and Tinashe’s ‘Just Say’, Disciples’ ‘On My Mind’, Rae Morris’ ‘Reborn’ and Calvin Harris, Big Sean, Katy Perry and Pharrell Williams’ ‘Feels’.
Little Mix’s third win cements them as the act with the second most victories at the annual event since its inception in 2003.
The record-holders are Girls Aloud with five successes: they aced it in 2003 with ‘No Good Advice’, 2005 with ‘Wake Me Up’, 2006 with ‘Biology’, 2008 with ‘Call The Shots’ and 2009 with ‘The Promise’.
Other winners over the years have been Rachel Stevens (2004, ‘Some Girls’), Amy Winehouse (2007, ‘Rehab’), Example (2010, ‘Kickstarts’), The Saturdays (2011, ‘Higher’), Will Young (2012, ‘Jealousy’), Chvrches (2013, ‘The Mother We Share’) and Zayn (2016, ‘Pillow Talk’).
Elsewhere the Mercury Music Prize was won by Sampha.