The Shortlist Music Prize is no longer a boys' club.

Cat Power

Cat Power has been named the winner of the 2007 Shortlist for her 2006 album The Greatest, besting a host of big-name talent and becoming the first woman to win the award in its six-year history. Cat--real name Chan Marshall--had previously been nominated for the Shortlist in 2003 for her album You Are Free.

The Shortlist Music Prize is designed to honor the year's best album that hasn't sold more than 500,000 copies in the US, and Marshall bested the likes of Band of Horses, Beirut, Bonnie Prince Billy, Girl Talk, Hot Chip, Joanna Newsom, Regina Spektor, Spank Rock, and Tom Waits.

Those finalists were culled from a list that also included TV on the Radio, Lupe Fiasco, The Roots, The Knife, Beck, The Decemberists, Neil Young, Editors, and Wolfmother.

As part of a Shortlist digital promotion with the iTunes store, The Greatest is now available there with an exclusive extra track titled "Up and Gone."

The Shortlist Prize launched in 2001 to honor quality music that didn't top the Billboard charts. Sigur Ros won the first prize, with N*E*R*D, Damien Rice, and TV on the Radio taking it home in subsequent years. Last year, the Shortlist morphed into the New Pantheon Award, after a dispute between former Shortlist partners Tom Sarig and Greg Spotts. Sufjan Stevens' Illinois claimed the 2006 New Pantheon Award, although no public ceremony was ever held.

The Shortlist nominees are picked each year by a handful of musicians, critics, and celebrities. Among the artists voting for this year's winner were Snow Patrol's Gary Lightbody, the Killers' Ronnie Vannucci, Franz Ferdinand, KT Tunstall, Panic! At the Disco, and the Flaming Lips' Wayne Coyne.