Ellie Goulding: Lights
Friday, 05, Mar 2010 06:09
By Matthew Champion.
Polydor, out March 8th.
What's it all about?
Debut album from celebrated newcomer Ellie Goulding, including two of the tracks from 2009 EP An Introduction to Ellie Goulding and new single Starry Eyed.
Who's it by?
23-year-old Welsh-English hybrid folktronica pioneer Ellie Goulding enjoyed the dubious honour of double critical acclaim in the shape of the BBC sound of 2010 and Brits critics choice awards before her first album was even out. She hates being compared to any of the raft of talented female singer songwriters who have emerged in the last year or so. like Adele, Florence + the Machine, Littleboots and Marina and the Diamonds.
As an example.
"This is our luck, baby, running out/Her clothes were never off/We still have hours to run about/To scale the map, scale the map, to get us back on track/I've seen you in a fight you lost, I've seen you in a fight." - Under the Sheets.
"You're as sharp as a knife and you fit like a glove/That is no way to live that is no way to love/Full of fear in your skin and the weakness in giving in/Stabbed in the back but you feel no pain/Push the heaviest doors that you can't open/Yeah they tied me up and my body lies still, again." - Salt Skin.
What the others say
"Goulding says that she hates being compared with other female solo artists - and you can see why. Next to far superior recent albums by, say, Joanna Newsom, Laura Veirs and Marina & the Diamonds, this sort of craven playlist pandering holds up about as well as a soufflé in a snowstorm." - Pete Paphides, the Times.
"This notion that the 23-year-old artist is somehow edgy begins and ends with her enticing first single from last November, Under the Sheets. Its fabulous introductory chorus "Like all the boys before." echoes and fades into left-field. Starry Eyed, her current single, features some subtle backwards hiccups but ultimately it is a giddy dose of pop which will have no trouble selling in quantity." - Kitty Empire, the Guardian.
So is it any good?
There are too many parables to make in the apparent eight-week-long rise and fall of Ellie Goulding, feted at the turn of the year and almost appearing embarrassed to collect her critics choice award at the Brits, which came weeks after beating Marina and the Diamonds to the top of the BBC sound of 2010 poll.
Reviews for Goulding's debut album have been unkind, however, with critics suddenly aghast at her faux edginess and feathery light vocals, no matter how gorgeous the Fin Dow-Smith (Starsmith) production sounds.
It's unkind but not unfair criticism as well, the buzzy quality of album opener Guns and Horses giving way to the so-so Starry Eyed, inexplicably chosen as her first single.
This Love (will be your downfall) has one of the best lyrical narratives on the disc and we already knew how strong Under the Sheets and Wish I Stayed were from last year's EP, while decade-bending combo The Writer and Everytime You Go are delights.
Your Biggest Mistake and I'll Hold My Breath seem out of place and vacuum-like on an otherwise engaging album, a very bad close saved only by that so-far invisible weirdness on Salt Skin, which is so immersive that it pushes the entire disc from bad to good.
Overall Lights tastes too sugary, and while its name suggests it dazzles, instead it just lacks substance.
I stand by my claim that it's a better album than Family Jewels, but Marina and the Diamonds suddenly looks like a much better prospect.
7/10