Reunited Blur collect their Mojo award

The band helped define and popularise the Britpop sound in the 1990s, and wrote some of the decade's best-loved songs, including Parklife, Country House, The Universal, and Song 2.

Seven years after guitarist Graham Coxon left, the original line-up of Coxon, Damon Albarn, Alex James and Dave Rowntree were back together last night to collect the Mojo Inspiration Award.

Phil Alexander, Mojo magazine's editor in chief, said: "Blur are the greatest band of their generation.

"They're one of the few bands that have inspired their heroes, as well as their peers and those that have come after them."

Blur are due to play sell-out gigs in Hyde Park in next month, nine years after their last concert as a four-piece band.

The magazine's sixth annual awards ceremony at The Brewery in London saw US indie act Fleet Foxes beat stiff competition from Paul Weller, Leonard Cohen, Radiohead and Seasick Steve to take the Best Live Act award.

Weller could take comfort from winning the Best Album prize for his latest work 22 Dreams, particularly as the award means he has now won more Mojos - three - than anyone else.

He said of his latest gong: "I didn't think the album would get the recognition it has, so I'm more than pleasantly surprised."

John Lennon's widow Yoko Ono was also given a Lifetime Achievement award for her challenging and innovative approach to music.

The artist said her late husband would not have been surprised by the award.

"He would have said 'I told you so, man', to all of you," she said.

"Because he was the only person who was promoting my work, and without that I might have been discouraged."

Alexander paid tribute to Ono, saying: "She may have been married to one of the most famous men in the world, but she also helped change music as we know it in her own right: first, by introducing avant-garde sensibilities to her husband and secondly, just as significantly, by continuing to push the boundaries of what was deemed the norm way after that.

"She is a huge influence on modern music and this award recognises her inspirational qualities and ongoing questing. Yoko Ono is unique and we are thrilled to commemorate her lifetime on the front line."

Mojo readers voted Elbow's One Day Like This as Song of the Year, adding to the Manchester-based band's already impressive haul of awards.

In the last 12 months their album The Seldom Seen Kid has helped them win two Ivor Novello awards, the Brit award for best British group and the Mercury Prize.

Another band reuniting this year are 70s rockers Mott the Hoople, who were honoured by Mojo with a Hall of Fame award.