Producing the album, Jamie Smith of the xx created electronic beats for the songs on his laptop and mixed them in a detailed process with the audio engineer Rodaidh McDonald, who attempted to reproduce the intimate, unembellished quality of the band's original demos.

Released to widespread acclaim, xx was named one of 2009's best records and received praise for the band's atmospheric style of indie rock and pop as well as the interpersonal dimension of the performances.

Shortly after the album's release, and with differences between Qureshi and the rest of the group leading to her dismissal, the xx continued to play as a trio on a protracted concert tour that helped increase their fanbase, reputation in the press and confidence as performers.

One of the most acclaimed records of its era, it has been regarded as one of the greatest albums of the 21st century by NME, Rolling Stone and The Guardian While students at South London's Elliott School in 2005, childhood friends Romy Madley Croft and Oliver Sim formed the xx with Jamie Smith and Baria Qureshi.

[1] Croft and Sim played guitar and bass, respectively, and dueted as the band's vocalists, while Smith programmed electronic beats for their songs and Qureshi doubled as a keyboardist and additional guitarist.

[3] The xx were greatly influenced by American R&B producers such as The Neptunes and Timbaland, whose minimalist productions incorporated vocal harmonies, clapping percussion, unconventional samples and pronounced beats.

For her lead guitar parts, Croft used a delay pedal and a Roland Micro Cube amplifier with a reverb setting, which McDonald felt would best replicate her "icy", echo-filled sound on the demos.

[2] Despite McDonald's close involvement, the xx had been encouraged to self-produce their album by Russell; he believed it would remain faithful to both the band's distinctive live sound and the DIY ethic practised at XL since its beginnings as a rave label.

[2] Croft trusted that Smith, who did not want to conceal any imperfections by overproducing xx, would make it practical for them to perform live rather than layer the songs with several guitar or vocal elements.

[2] The songs on xx are composed around a framework of basslines and beats, while incorporating simple guitar riffs for melody, rhythm and texture; their melodic notes are separated by rests.

[13] Croft said the band's style of instrumentation became defined by the limited equipment they originally used: "My guitar sound pretty much came from discovering there was reverb on my little practice amp and really loving the mood it created.

[17] While McDonald observes a predominant R&B element, Russell feels the xx's music evokes the early hip hop records he listened to when he was young, as they are often limited to vocals, samples and beats.

[2] Music journalists, however, infer from xx that their influences are alternative rock acts such as Portishead, Young Marble Giants and Cocteau Twins, the last of which Croft said she had never heard before the album was released.

[18] According to Sarah Boden of The Observer, the album's unadorned, dream pop love songs are reminiscent of Cocteau Twins and Mazzy Star, because they feature low tempos, moody melodies and rhythms influenced by R&B and dubstep.

[19] Their arrangements have what Neil McCormick calls "a very British, industrial aspect", somewhat similar to the dub-inflected post-punk sound of the English producer Martin Hannett and his work with the band Joy Division.

[21] Because of their reserved personalities, Robert Christgau believes they rely on a low-key, vulnerable style and exchange "ideas about intimacy as contemporaries, comrades, prospects, lovers, ex-lovers and friends".

[22] According to NME magazine's Emily Mackay, all of the songs deal with the consuming emotions associated with first love, including the tacit intimacy on "VCR", the yearning expressed on "Heart Skipped a Beat" and the premature affection warned of on "Crystalised".

[23] Petra Davis from The Quietus argues that the thematic crux of xx is in the succession of songs from "Islands" to "Shelter", each of which sees "a radical shift in perspective on a similar – perhaps a single – love story.

[1] Philip Sherburne writes in Spin that xx brims with a "young lust" often found in rock music, and recordings such as "Fantasy" and "Shelter" express a jaded yearning, particularly in a lyric from the latter song: "Can I make it better with the lights turned on".

[31] In the United States, the group benefited from the word-of-mouth marketing of blogs, beginning when they performed six consecutive sold-out shows at New York City clubs such as Pianos and the Mercury Lounge months prior to the album's release.

"Intro" became widely used as theme music in television, including sports highlights, episodes of series such as Law & Order and Cold Case, an advertisement for AT&T and BBC's coverage of the 2010 British general election.

[38] Reviewing for The New Yorker, Sasha Frere-Jones remarked that the album rewards repeated listens because of the band's disciplined playing, while Mark Edwards of The Sunday Times said it succeeds with simple but "very near perfect" pop songs.

[1] Before the nominations shortlist had been announced, bookmakers and critics considered the xx as favourites to win the award over the more high-profile artists Corinne Bailey Rae, Paul Weller and Dizzee Rascal.

[58] McCormick, one of the critics who predicted its victory, explained that it "seemed the record that most represented Britain" with its charmingly intimate style and unique take on modern pop tastes, while citing its win as "a rare example of the Mercury Prize doing music lovers a service".

[31] In the US, the album reached 350,000 copies sold by June 2012 with consistent weekly sales during its first two years of release, which Time magazine's Melissa Locker said was "quite a feat" in an era of music piracy, media streaming and YouTube.

[65] In subsequent years, xx proved highly influential as many indie bands and mainstream pop acts incorporated the record's distinctive musical characteristics into their own songs.

Petridis later wrote that to his surprise much of 2016's best-selling singles "sounded oddly but irrefutably" like the album: "You can hear its muted, echoing guitars on everything from the Chainsmokers' 'Don't Let Me Down' to Shawn Mendes' 'Stitches' to Zara Larsson's 'Lush Life'."

Ryan Tedder, who wrote hit songs for such top-selling singers as Beyoncé, Taylor Swift and Ariana Grande, said the xx's "hauntingness" on the record "gets referenced in at least every other [writing] session".

[70] When Pitchfork's positive review of the album elicited greater interest among American listeners, the xx were booked as the supporting act for the Friendly Fires's tour of larger club venues in the US.

"[21] In June 2010, the band played the Glastonbury Festival in Somerset and, according to the journalist Jude Rogers, displayed a newfound confidence through the rest of their summer and "post-Mercury [Prize] autumn" concerts: "Croft would sing more boldly, Sim developed an onstage swagger and Smith began experimenting with different rhythms and textures.