It’s funny how the course of pop music runs. On Wednesday I posted a track by Sazzie, a new project from Sarah McIntosh, an artist that I first wrote an introducing post nearly 10 years ago when she was doing a another project. Fast forward to now and she still isn’t any sort of household name. This isn’t ‘failure’ just as becoming very well-known isn't necessarily ‘success’, although society generally views popularity and commercial gain in this way. However, the pressures of that so called 'success' and becoming a public figure can bring their own personal difficulties which aren’t for everyone and might lead them to questioning if it is all it’s made out to be. Within a few days of the Sarah McIntosh post all that time ago I also ran another introducing piece on a new artist. In that blog post the picture of the artist shows her standing in a simple vest top, wearing glasses with long brown-ish hair. If books were judged by covers then she didn’t look like a typical popstar at that time; certainly the piece I wrote talked of her acoustic roots and the fact that she had started to introduce electronic elements to her music. Her name was (and still is) Ellie Goulding. You’ve probably heard of her. At this stage I could probably roll out a bunch of clichés about her ‘journey'; something which so many musicians and journalists talk about in interviews I roll my eyes. Please musicians stop talking about your journeys - everyone has a 'journey' - it's just what you've been doing in life. Instead let’s just take a listen to her new tune. Here are the key facts you need to know: 1. It’s called Flux, but it isn’t a cover of the only really good song Bloc Party put out after their first album. 2. This one is more Freya Ridings than Diplo. It’s a piano ballad, so arguably has more in common with her acoustic singer songwriter roots than her electronic pop, although of course in the UK one of her biggest hits was a cover of a ballad (Your Song). 3. In the video she wears an amazing dress. The sort of thing only popstars and celebrity types can get away with wearing without anyone calling them ridiculous. 4. The “I’m still in love with the idea of loving you, it’s a state of Flux, but it’s not enough,” line will get in your head. 5. If you go back and listen to her music from when she started her career you can hear how her voice as changed – it’s less thin sounding and slightly lower than it used to be. 6. Flux is my favourite Ellie Goulding song for some time. It’s majestic, enchanting and rather lovely. Ellie Goulding - Flux
When this year’s End of the Road Festival line-up was announced, our Twitter feed was full of people we follow tweeting with pant wetting OMG excitement about 1 thing: Sufjan Stevens. We follow a fair few people on the 140 character message social network site who probably consider themselves as ‘serious’ music fans and it seemed that for the vast majority of them this was live music reaching an emotional and orgasmic pinnacle; like their version of One Direction announcing a new tour. Now let’s be clear – we hate the concept of ‘serious’ music fans. Today the Line of Best Fit website posted this article, talking of how End of the Road consisted of “a brilliantly bizarre clash of musical delights filled with curveball surprise and careful regard for quality and the serious music fan.” Now let’s look at that article. There’s a picture there, which we assume was taken at a past End of the Road. Do those people look serious? Do they look like they are wallowing in depth and careful consideration? No; they look like they’re having fun. They’ve got big smiles on their faces. They’re enjoying themselves. Hurrah. ‘Serious music fans’ in not so serious now shocker. You see, ‘serious’ music fans is a term that is frankly bollocks. What we think the term is trying to convey when used by music journalists is people with a certain sort of taste – a taste like their own, that has developed from having a longer, refined, deeper relationship with music over time, rather than a more casual / easy approach to listening. It’s the sort of taste that festivals like End of the Road Festival cater for, rather than say V Festival with a bill that includes the likes of Olly Murs, Ellie Goulding and Calvin Harris. But what if we happen to like Ellie Goulding? (We do). Can we no longer be deemed a ‘serious music fan’ because of our taste? Even if we listen to music in virtually every moment of the day we can, have been to thousands of gigs and over seventy festivals, have purchased thousands of albums and constantly obsess over music in the way that most men obsess over sex. Does that not makes us a 'serious music fan'? What if Sufjan Stevens doesn’t really do anything for us? (He doesn't - his songs are pleasant enough, but they don't move us in any way). Does it mean that we’re cast out of the elite club simply for having a different emotional connection to certain songs? If we are, well we’re fine with that. We prefer the term ‘passionate music fans’, or ‘knowledgeable music fans’ or maybe ‘well informed music fans,’ to ‘serious music fan’. If being a serious music fan means that we can only listen to artists deemed to be worthy by the music police, then we’re out. Everyone has different tastes – and that’s cool – but just because someone loves One Direction, Ellie Goulding, Little Mix and Justin Beiber, doesn't necessarily make them any less ‘serious’ about the music they love than someone who adores Sufjan Steven’s records. So will we be watching Sufjan at End of the Road? Possibly, yes. We’re interested to see if, as so many fans of his suggest, that his ‘sad ornate world’ will move us in the flesh. We're also interested in seeing how the songs from his new record, which is clearly a very personal and introspective piece, work on a main stage at a festival - a place that lacks those 2 characteristics of the album. And if it doesn’t move or engage with us, well there’s always the DJ in the forest. Maybe we can go and ask him to play some Ellie Goulding? Sufjan Stevens - No Shade In The Shadow Of The Cross
Here’s Ellie Goulding who it appears is popular with both the teens and the dads. Beating Heart is from the movie Divergent which is a teen movie based on a book of the same name. Kate Winslet stars in the film, so that will keep the dads happy. Like nearly all teen films these days it’s a trilogy for ‘people who liked the Hunger Games’. The Hunger Games starred Jennifer Lawrence who we understand is also popular with both teens and their dads. Next up : The Maze Runner. As Ellie had the song Mirror in the Hunger Games (Catching Fire) will she make it a hat-trick with one in The Maze Runner? And what will there be for the dads to enjoy about it all? Success may rely on these factors. Ellie Goulding - Beating Heart
With its divided futuristic dystopian society and lead teenage female character, if you’re a fan of the Hunger Games films and books then Divergent is another must see / read. The similarity between the two stories doesn’t just end with plot, background and genre though, with both movies sharing some musical personality as well, namely Ellie Goulding. With her British female Brit award under her belt (totally deserved) Ellie shows no sign of stopping her global takeover and silencing all the doubters who said that her move from her early acoustic direction on some of her first demos to full blown electronic goddess was a mistake. On the Hunger Games soundtrack Ellie featured with the song Mirrors and on the forthcoming Divergent one she gets all pitch-shifted and screwed up (in a good way) by London trio I See Monstas. As you would expect the track is suitably brain distorting, but weirdly beautiful at the same time. Ellie Goulding - Hanging On (I See Monstas Remix)
1. Remember when she released her debut LP Lights and all the early adopters positivity got blown away by serious rock hacks negativity (we particularly remember Alexis Petridis of the Guardian giving it 2 out of 5 and calling it ‘quite normal’). That seems like a long time ago now doesn’t it?
2. Right now Ellie Goulding is currently sitting pretty at no.1 in the UK singles chart for the second week running with Burn having shifted nearly 200,000 copies whilst Lady Gaga’s song Applause, rushed released in the same week, dropped down to number 9. Well done British pop music buying public. You have restored our faith in being able to recognise a good pop song against a decidedly average pop song.
3. Now Ellie has a new song called Midas Touch which she has collaborated on with BURNS. This could get quite confusing what with Burn the single as well. We’re hoping that next she collaborates with new artist Emily Burns and calls the song Gold. Do we have to spell out why? It's not really funny if we have to explain it though is it. OK, it's not really funny at all.
4. Even more confusing is that this is a cover, but Ellie covered it because she heard a cover of the cover. Basically the version that grabbed Ellie was Boards of Canada's version of Midas Touch although the original is by Midnight Star.
5. The important thing to us (and the raison d'etrefor what we choose to post on Breaking More Waves; from unknown unsigned act to major label pop person) is that this is a relatively new tune and we like it a lot.
6. Finally, Ellie is touring the UK in October, although all the dates are sold out. So, she’s added arena shows in Nottingham, Liverpool and London next March. Ellie also plays the iTunes Festival at the Camden Roundhouse on the 22nd of September. If anyone has the midas touch (sorry) and fancies winning a ticket to that and taking Breaking More Waves with them to Camden, we’ll buy you champagne or even perform sexual favours. Now there’s an offer that one of you readers just can’t refuse, surely?
A while ago we wondered (and you may have as well) what all these new non-Halcyon LP Ellie Goulding tracks that kept springing up on line were about. It transpired the answer was Halcyon Days, one of those repackaged rereleased album things (released Aug 26th) that major labels like to do to greedily grab even more of hardcore fans cash. Is that fair? Are fans being exploited? That’s a debate for another day (one that we’ve actually tried writing and after 2000 words and tying ourselves up in endless knots we gave up on – maybe another time).
To give Ellie’s label credit this one looks pretty decent value – it’s not just two or three dodgy remixes bolted on to the end of the original album (see the full tracklisting here). It will of course include new single Burn (which for some reason never featured on Breaking More Waves so we’re posting it now). It will not however include this remix of said song which is actually a shame because it’s actually rather lovely (we prefer its calmness to the original) and the remixer (Maths Time Joy who is one Timothy James Worthington from Kent in the UK) could probably do with the money from the LP sales a lot more than Ellie could these days. After all we’re reliably informed she’s sold 10 million singles and 3 million albums. Seems that when we named her as One to Watch back in 2009 and asked “will the cool pop indie / blog buzz model work for Ellie or will it be a case of hype over content and a commercial failure?” our concerns were unfounded. The model worked. Why? The answer to that one is simple. Good songs, hard work and a little bit of luck.
Footnote and further question: That promotional photo above. It’s not the best is it? My Drug Hell by Ellie Goulding – we can imagine it being used by the tabloid press for such purposes.
Ellie Goulding is very much a fully-fledged pop star these days isn't she? If you saw her fantastic performance on Radio 1’s Big Weekend a couple of weeks back you’ll know exactly what we mean, although the interview with Greg James afterwards was just a tad on the awkward side.
One of the downsides of becoming a fully-fledged pop star is that everything you do gets analysed. What you do, how you look, who you’re with, every single body movement gets chewed over, judged and scrutinised by those with nothing better to do with their time.
So, as we have nothing better to do with our time can we make a point of mentioning the fact that Ellie Goulding does ‘the hair flick’ just a little too often these days? You’ll spot it in this video at 0.54.
However with that negativity over we’re going to give love to Ellie. (Breaking More Waves, gushing about Ellie Goulding since February 2009). Because although Tessellate may be about sex, when Alt-J performed it, it was never sexy. But for this cover Ellie sets the black and white video in one of the most romantic cities in the world, hooks up with Xaphoon Jones to bless the track with a minimal atmospheric production, adds some sax and by cavorting around in her underwear (thankfully keeping a coat over the top so that she doesn’t get cold) transforms it into something pretty flirtatious.
Now come on Alt-J, let’s have a video of you grinding against lamposts on the streets of Southampton in your boxers to Anything Could Happen to balance things out please.
This is the new video for Ellie Goulding’s new single Explosions. Here is our current take on all things Ellie.
1. Ellie’s second album is called Halcyon. This is a good thing because on her recent tour it gave her the opportunity to use Halcyon and On and On by Orbital as her intro music when walking on stage.
2. It's one of those ‘we can’t really afford another high budget video for the third single so let’s just use some tour footage’ films. In it you get to see Ellie walk on stage. Unfortunately you don’t get to hear Orbital. So for the first few seconds of the video, instead of listening to Ellie listen to this to recreate the full ‘Ellie Goulding walks on stage live experience’. In terms of onstage walking we’d give Ellie 7/10. Her good shoes helped. Otherwise she might have ended up doing 'a Mariah'.
3. To add even further to the experience we suggest turning off the lights, getting a lot of friends to scream in your ears and just as Ellie arrives someone to throw a pint of beer over you and stumble into you with the words 'sorry mate.'
4. Once you’ve done all that put the Ellie Goulding video back on and remind yourself of the following simple facts.
i Her voice is really pretty unique. She’s been around a bit now so it’s easy to forget. So pinch yourself and say three times “her voice is really unique,” just so you remember.
ii This song is one of the best on the album (although the album is actually very good overall). If you’re going to do a modern pop ballad, this is the way to do it. Not like the horrendous cover that will not be mentioned.
iii The bit where she sings “Explosions, on the day you wake up needing somebody,” is a near eargasm holler along moment. It makes us feel a bit squirmy, and emotional, but in a good way.
5. Maybe Ellie’s next album can be called Chime, then she can have a 9/10 walk on moment. Ellie Goulding - Explosions (Video)
For a short while she was the darling of many UK blogs; then the first album came out, a number of critics gave it the thumbs down and quite a few bloggers seemed to distance themselves from their previously excited tips. It seems many of them were expecting something more folky and less pop - her early cover versions of the likes of Bon Iver had thrown them off the scent. For us it was one of those moments when so-called music experts weren’t aligned with our thinking. What we heard was a good pop record full of catchy hooks, modern production and a distinctive feathery vocal – it was one of our ten favourite records of 2010. Thankfully it seemed the public took our view, with the album going on to sell 850,000 copies in the UK and the song Lights has since sold over 2.5 million downloads in the US.
However, further down the road we had to shrug our shoulders and let out a sad sigh when Ellie went for the jugular of the mainstream with her cover version of Your Song. It became her biggest hit and raised her profile further, which is undoubtedly a useful thing to do if you want to sustain a living as a performer in this day and age. It certainly stopped her having to think about a career shelf stacking at Tesco, but the song nearly made us fall out with her – it was too bland, too dull and too sickly.
Tomorrow Ellie releases her second album Halcyon. The single Anything Could Happen, with its slightly odd video is power-pop perfection. So far the record has found critics a little more positive and maybe some of the ‘experts’ who predicted that Goulding’s shelf life was going to be short lived will have to rethink their stance. After all, if there’s one thing that every music expert should know is that nothing in the future of pop music is certain.
We recommend that if you’re buying Halcyon you get the deluxe version. The reason? It features her collaboration with Calvin Harris called I Need Your Love. In that original 2009 New Waves post we quoted Ellie as saying “electronic music won't leave my brain alone and I have a gravitational pull towards electronic producers.” In 2012 that quote still rings very true.(Insert Skrillex and Ellie Goulding joke here if you must)I Need Your Love is a punchy, bouncy electronic number that works equally well on dance floors as in our headphones at home.
It would seem that maybe Goulding’s journey hasn’t been very complex after all; she’s largely stuck to her electronic pop map, maybe just critics, bloggers and so called experts just haven’t been able to read it very well.
Ellie Goulding with Calvin Harris - I Need Your Love
Here are 10 thoughts on the new Ellie Goulding video (below).
1. Triangles: They’ve become mainstream now haven’t they? We blame Alt-J for singing that they are their favourite things.
2. At about 0.40 Ellie actually looks a bit like an all pale version of Skrillex.
3. Talking of Skrillex there is no WUB WUB on this record thankfully, although as one You Tube commentator notes in a rather LOLtastic way: “Brace yourself dubstep remixes are coming.”
4. As we said earlier this morning, two of our favourite things (and almost guaranteeing a blog post) are great music and the sea. Ellie’s obviously been reading, because we get the sea in this video. The beach is a bit weird looking but we’ll take it.
5. The cloud that Ellie hangs from (for example at 3.21) is rubbish. It appears to be a reject from the Olympics opening ceremony.
6. We suspect that this video will get a lot of views. It’s that kind of video.
7. The opening few seconds of the song sounds like Grimes.
8. The song plods along a bit until the choir of Ellies come in (around 1.07) and then it starts to make sense. The glorious moment where she sounds like an elfin Bonnie Tyler at 3.22-3.24 is pretty amazing and the way the glossy but cheesy electronic synth sounds kick back in after that moment is also better than 7/10.
9. As far as we’ve been able to ascertain Ellie does not wear a seat belt in the video. The consequences are shown quite clearly. Remember clunk click every trip kids – just because Jessie Ware made it trendy to go seat beltless doesn’t mean you should. OK?
10. Not specifically about this song but Breaking More Waves still gets hits on old Ellie Goulding posts with people searching for Ellie Goulding Naked. It seems people still want to see her Starry Eye.
This weekend Breaking More Waves home city of Portsmouth will see thousands of people watch a man (or woman) run along its streets with what looks like a giant cheese grater on fire whilst Rizzle Kicks jump around on a stage a bit. All of this will happen near the seafront where there will probably be some waves breaking and maybe even someone attempting to surf. This is our attempt at internet surfing, we call it the Saturday Surf. Our weekly round-up of new music we nearly missed or didn't find time to post, but never more than five songs.
Plant Plants – Embrace The Real (Vision Of Trees Cold Skins Remix)
Plant Plants is London-based electronic duo Stuart Francis and Howard Whatley. The original version of Embrace The Real from their sample driven EP2 was smart enough as it was, but we’re fancying this remix from Visions of Trees even more. Sounding partly like a lost Grimes track with the recognisable tinkles of Visions of Trees raindrops electronica this remix is exotically underground and pleasure giving.
Ellie Goulding featuring Tinie Tempah
Back in 2010 Ellie Goulding guested on Tinie Tempah’s Wonderman. Now Tinie repays the favour on Ellie’s cover version of Active Child’s Hanging On. Our initial thoughts were ‘meh’. Three days later we can’t get enough of it, although we still have some reservations about Mr Tempah’s part. However we’ll forgive him because Ellie’s vocal is just come to bed sumptuous. We still heart Ellie Goulding and it seems America does as well, with Lights recently entering that countries Top 5.
San Zhi – Towards The Sun
Out of Egypt and Bournemouth San Zhi are a boy girl band consisting of Suraya and Peter, who sing intimately of ripping each others throats out, over a gentle keyboard led melancholy dreamy Sunday pop backing. Nice. They’ve named their band after an unfinished futuristic pod-village resort built in Tawain, which if you want to take a break from music for a while you can read about and see some fascinating pictures of on My Several Worlds.
Around the end of 2008 and start of 2009 a whole gang of new UK based female singers crashed into the world of pop, like an agreeable hurricane. With colour, glamour, style and fashion they blasted away the landfill indie of the Frattellilightrazordetectives like dead leaves on the ground with music that was commercial enough to find a place on the radio and in the charts but had just enough edge and pizazz to attract the sort who normally thought that pop music was just for children. The likes of Florence & The Machine, Little Boots, La Roux, Marina & The Diamonds and Ellie Goulding all became Breaking More Waves regulars and are now returning (or have recently returned) with second albums.
Ellie Goulding lost quite a lot of love from both blogs and the ‘serious’ music press around the time of her album. It seemed that Lights wasn’t quite what most journo types wanted or expected. Alex Petridis of The Guardian in his two stars out of five review called the record ‘quite normal’, but it didn’t stop Lights selling a huge amount of copies. For the record we placed it at number 10 in our top ten albums of the year – we liked it a lot. In just over 12 months we watched Ellie Goulding go from playing to 50 people in an empty basement club in Brighton to a sold out show of 1800 people in the same city.
Now after a period of silence Ellie returns, with a cover of High For This by The Weeknd. It’s a clever choice of song, repositioning her back as the cool pop girl that it’s ok for the journalists and bloggers to like, rather than the sold-out blandness Elton John Lewis Christmas advert lady.
What the future holds for Ellie’s own material remains to be seen, but this chilled jam (which picked up 70,000 plays in the first 24 hours on Soundcloud) is arrestingly seductive in all the right ways. Welcome back Miss Goulding, Hereford’s finest!
This is the penultimate post in the Music That Made Me series. Over the last 41 weeks I’ve written about some of the songs that I associate with particular people, moments in life as well as some that I love simply because they are great tunes, and nothing more.
Amongst those that I’ve mentioned, I’ve said very little about the two most important people in my life; my children. ( I’m sure my girlfriend won’t mind being third in the pecking order - in your role as a parent it’s something that you have to take on).
I sometimes feel a bit sorry for them, living with dad means being constantly exposed to music; the radio is on in our house a lot. However whilst I would probably prefer to listen to 6 Music for most of the day, in the world of a near teenager’s eyes it’s ‘boring’. Therefore the sounds of Chris Moyles, Scott Mills and the like are often heard booming from the numerous radios in our house, because daytime Radio 1 is king.
Someone once said to me that if you go abroad and then come back to the UK and want to quickly tap into what mainstream youth culture is listening to, then expose yourself to Radio 1 for a week and you’ll be up to speed. He was probably right.
It’s very easy as you get older to switch to Radio 2, 6 Music, Radio 4 or the like and before you know it you’ll be grumbling that ‘music isn’t as good as it was in previous decades.’ My kids know who The Beatles are but they probably couldn’t name any of their songs. They don’t mean anything to them. They could however name all of the songs on Ed Sheeran’s album or Rizzle Kicks debut long player. When I asked my eldest daughter (pictured above) what her favourite band was she replied “the sort of things they play on Radio 1.”
As you get older it’s very easy to sneer at today’s pop music. There's a sizeable number of times that I’ve had conversations with people in their twenties, thirties and forties who suggest that ‘pop music is the kind of music that just 14 year old girls buy,’ as if 14 year old girls are not able to be good judges of music. Yet surely good music is what you as an individual relate to emotionally, rather than a list of so-called ‘must have’ songs that have been featured by Pitchfork or that have been agreed by committee as being the best. What’s good to you as an individual isn’t necessarily what’s good to someone else. It’s why in many respects teenagers are actually the best judges of music because many teens have a huge emotional connection to the pop music that fills their lives at that time, far greater than at any other point in their future. It’s why people often say that ‘music isn’t as good as when I was growing up,’ because for a lot of people once parenthood, work and the like take up much of your time, the opportunities for developing those big connections to music lessens.
It’s why I’m really grateful to my children for moaning if I wallow in the middle-class middle-aged smugness of 6 Music for too long (great station that it is). I secretly love the fact that we listen to Radio 1 an awful lot. Because it keeps my love of music fresh, enables me to challenge my own tastes and ideas about what is ‘good’ and ‘bad’ and stops me ever becoming too snobbish and self righteous about pop music.
It’s why I’ve chosen to include Starry Eyed by Ellie Goulding as a choice in Music That Made Me. It’s not a ‘classic’, indie snobs will laugh at it being ‘pop music for 14 year old girls’, but it’s a song that simply makes me and my children happy. When I’m away from them and hear it, it makes me think of them. Simple pleasures and emotions like that that are as important to our make up as any sort of deep intellectual worthiness. They make us the people we are.
This weekend just gone a minor twitter storm in a tea cup brewed. “What’s on your iPod?” Ellie Goulding was asked in an interview. “I really love the alternative music scene and people like Fleet Foxes and Wild Beasts, but I’ve also got Friendly Fires to Rihanna and Beyonce. I’ve even got Don’t Stop Believing,” Ellie answered.
It didn’t find favour with the controversial hormonal punk-pop London four-piece Pris who tweeted Ellie’s answer to their followers with the statement “Why Ellie Goulding is a massive wang.” Pris you may remember have previously (and somewhat hilariously) rubbished Guillemots, Adele, Jessie J (relating her to Mystic Meg) and Noah and the Whale.
Pris have been picking up support from the likes of Eddie Argos (Art Brut), Nicky Wire (Manic Street Preachers), Everett True (music critic) and a number of UK music blogs including Just Music That I Like, Sweeping The Nation, Von Pip Musical Express as well as ourselves over the last few months. It was one of these bloggers – Von Pip who re-tweeted the Pris tweet. Then the fun began.
Before you knew it the war of the wangs had broken out, with potential-pop-starlet-but-no-hits-yet Spark and her manager responding to Von Pip. “Fucking annoying people being nasty for no reason. I think it's fair to say that both Von Pip & Pris are huge fucking wangs. HUGE WANGS,” retorted Spark. Then her manager threw at Von Pip “Write about things you like then, eh? Otherwise, that makes YOU the wang.”
The irony in this miniscule wangate was that neither Pris, Spark or her manager were probably aware that Twitter has a new head of operations in Europe. His name? Mr Wang. We wonder what he would have thought of his name being used in this context.
The day that modern society loses the freedom of speech, in any form from twitter to protest, will be an incredibly depressing one. All we would be left with would be one sided sycophantic opinion – and that doesn’t help form any sort of wisdom, on-going intelligent debate about issues or give any context to form views about what is ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ in the world. Von Pip’s politely restrained response to Spark’s manager sums it up neatly. “Actually I think I'll decide what I write about if that's ok with you. But thanks for the advice.”
So for Mr Wang here’s the debut single from Pris – The Better You Look The More You See - streaming courtesy of Von Pip on Soundcloud. He’s one of the most credible (and funniest) UK bloggers out there, wang or not. That’s not sycophancy from Breaking More Waves – just what we think. Likewise we love the music of Ellie Goulding. We enjoy a fair amount of Spark’s as well. We’re kind of hoping that Pris will call us wangs for doing so and even if they do, we’ll still love them as well.
Pris play a variety of shows in London in the next few weeks and have also been confirmed for Breaking More Waves hometown multi-gig multi-venue festival in September, Southseafest, alongside the likes of Johnny Foreigner, Die! Die! Die!, Trophy Wife, The Miserable Rich, Bleeding Heart Narrative, Dry The River and My First Tooth with plenty more to follow. Catch Pris live then and enjoy their sassy-pouting-splenetic-indie-punk-pop whilst you can.
For six years now the superbly intelligent and literate Sweeping The Nation blog has been running the UK Bloggers Album of the Year poll, with each blog submitting (or in some cases Sweeping The Nation filching) their top ten LP’s of the year for some sort of points scoring contest that smooths out any idiosyncrasies of potential and arguable ‘poor taste.' For examplethe Breaking More Waves choice of Ellie Goulding in the top 10 was hardly likely to be replicated by the rest of the blogosphere – mainstream commercial female fronted pop music albums have nearly always received short change in end of year polls from anything outside ‘true pop’ blogs.
The poll gives us a good aggregation of what LP’s have been collectively floating UK bloggers boats over the past 12 months. The list shows some of the differences in UK bloggers tastes to our American cousins over the pond – for example there is very little hip hop on the list – but then maybe that’s because of the sample of blogs chosen to compile the list.
From the Breaking More Waves perspective it’s also interesting to see where we fall in line with our UK music blog peer group and it seems there’s a fair degree of commonality (Ellie Goulding being an exception) with 7 of our 10 albums of the year featuring in the Top 75 and 3 of our 10 being in the Top 10. The full list of 75 albums can be found at Sweeping the Nation – the link is below. We raised a little cheer when we saw that Hurts came above Crystal Castles and Gorillaz in the poll, were a little disappointed to find that Stornoway haven’t picked up the love from bloggers that we hoped they would and are startled to see that Midlake’s preposterous sleep inducing dirge of prog-folk got any votes at all, but that is the beauty of opinion and taste.
Here’s a summary of our top ten which we voted for with links to each individual blog, followed by a couple of tracks from Sweeping The Nation’s own number 1 album of the year (and number 10 in the poll) Romance Is Boring by Los Campesinos!
We said “In a world where 'alternative' often means recording some fuzzy guitar and wailing vocals and doing a blurred photo shoot, by doing something so uncool and opposite to what most music fans expect, Hurts are in an odd way a real alternative.”
Ellie Goulding’s debut LP is the first of two albums on our end of year top 10 that probably won’t be appearing in many other media top 10’s. For pop music usually gets short changed in end of year lists; possibly because it’s not deemed worthy or real enough to be given consideration. It’s a real shame - because Lights is a quality pop album that stands up to the weight of hype.
What makes it quality? All those things that we want from a good pop record – good tunes, catchy hooks, moments that make you feel happy, moments that make you feel a little melancholy, moments that make you want to dance, moments that just make you feel good about life, moments that make you want to turn around to a complete stranger and tell them that you love them. Cap it off with Starsmith’s modern electro-whizz pop production and Goulding’s lovely feathery fluttering vocal and you have something that doesn’t lose anything with repeated listens. Much pop music is highly disposable, here today, forgotten tomorrow, yet since its release in early spring Lights has been on regular repeat wherever we are.
Back in March when we published our original review of the album, we expected to get a lot of negative comments, but instead the reaction from readers was highly favourable. With over 300,000 sales of the album now registered it seems that the difference between the so called ‘serious music critics’ (who weren't enamoured with Lights) and the public is significant.
As a music blogger, it gives a great sense of satisfaction to write about a new artist very early on in their career (in this case February 2009) and see them follow through with an album that becomes one of your favourites nearly two years later. Consider book one of the Ellie Goulding story closed with a happy ending.
“No one cares about your 'best of 2010' list,” Josh Weller recently tweeted. He may be correct, but that won’t stop hundreds of the things appearing throughout December and Breaking More Waves isn’t going to be any different. We’ll be running down our top ten albums of 2010 from the middle of December – but before that, at the start of the month we’re looking forward and posting our annual 10 Ones to Watch for 2011.
Prior to looking forward, here’s a recap of our 2010 selections from last year.
Ellie Goulding
We said
“With her quivering girlish vocal, an acoustic guitar, neat lyrical phrasing and stuttering laptop electro beats, Goulding could deliver commercially.”
What happened?
Goulding delivered commercially. A number one album in the UK, two top five hits and two further songs that went top thirty, sold out tours - it’s been a highly successful year for Ellie Goulding.
“….threaten to bring an ostentatious, stern, eastern European look back into fashion for bands.”
What happened?
It was Europe that really warmed to Hurts, with the band enjoying charts success in Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Greece, Sweden and Finland and even an appearance on German X Factor. In the UK the band took a little longer to find their true audience, but by the time their album Happiness was released it achieved a very respectable chart placing of number four with mixed critical reaction (8/10 in the NME, 2/5 in the Guardian, 5/10 in Drowned In Sound, 3/5 in the Independent and most tellingly 9/10 by Popmatters), they also played one of our favourite gigs of the year way back in February at Wiltons Music Hall in London (here). By the end of the year they were playing sold out gigs, supporting the Scissor Sisters on their UK tour and next year are playing a tour of larger concert halls.
Beth Jeans Houghton
We said
“Quite where Beth Jeans Houghton will fit in 2010 we’re not exactly sure, but she has the voice and the songs to ensure that she can carve out her own space”
What happened?
Houghton toured with another of our Ones to Watch – Stornoway and played a string of UK festival dates. However she didn’t release any material. With her Ben Hillier (Blur, The Maccabees, Elbow) produced album now in the bag ready for release next year, Houghton can continue to carve her space in 2011.
Unicorn Kid
We said
“To the uneducated ears of an over twenty five year old or a solemn indie rock purist, the sounds of Unicorn Kid will just be considered bad music, but for his growing army of fans his electronic urgency is simply something that makes you happy.”
What happened?
In April Unicorn Kid released Dream Catcher a stunningly dirty, glitchy and energetic piece of work that became one of our favourite tracks of the year then followed it up in October with another track – Wild Life. An album is due in 2011 – it’s likely to make his growing army of hyperactive fans very happy indeed.
“It is for this reason we have selected them for our ones to watch list. Not because of musical uniqueness or commercial crossover, but because we can imagine Delphic creating a perfect indie dance summer vibe in fields across the UK.”
What happened?
Delphic didn’t achieve massive commercial success – their album charted at number 8 in the UK, but then quickly disappeared. However as we predicted their moment really came in the summer – their storming set at Bestival hit all the right spots (see our review here).
If a 2010 release from Clare Maguire arrives and it comes anywhere near the quality of those demos, we predict she could win a lot of fans.
What happened?
It took a while but finally in October Maguire released her thunderous debut single Ain’t Nobody, that found extra love through the heavily spacious Breakage Remix. Having played Latitude this summer and supported Hurts and Plan B on tour this autumn, Clare Maguire will release an album in 2011.
When Stornoway appeared on our ones to watch list they were still unsigned. After significant label interest they inked a deal with 4AD allowing them to open their suitcase and share their wonderful songs, releasing their debut album Beachcomber’s Windowsill. The album surprised many (but not us) by sneaking into the UK top 20 album chart. They ended the year selling out the 2,000 capacity Shepherds Bush Empire in London, a far cry from when we first saw them perform to a small crowd at the Wychwood Festival in 2009. On a more personal note, Zorbing and I Saw You Blink are two of our favourite songs this year.
Mirrors
We said
"The dense ambient pulse-pop of the Mirrors reflects the sounds of early OMD"
What happened?
Having signed a deal with their hometown label of Skint, Mirrors released the singles Ways to an End and Hide and Seek and played a number of gigs including support slots with OMD themselves on their 2010 European tour. The band will release an album next year and in the meantime have packaged up their early singles into a mini album which is available to purchase directly from Skints website.
“Her dreamily atmospheric guitar based songs are certainly not the kind of tunes that are going to infiltrate the pop charts, but provide for a smouldering and sleepy listening experience.”
What happened?
Miranda’s David Sitek produced album The Magician’s Private Library was seductively warm and as sleepy as a pillow and duvet set with titles such as Sweet Dreams, Every time I Go To Sleep and Sleep On Fire combined with even more shut eye lyrical content such as “Dreamt of you again last night,” from the slow burning trumpet laden Joints and “Wake up and you’re next to nothing,” from Slow Burn Treason.
Clock Opera
We said
"We love Clock Opera more than our own children."
What happened?
Clock Opera released a number of low key singles during the year including the transcendent Once and for All, toured with Marina & The Diamonds and hope to release an album in 2011. They remain one to watch.
Ellie Goulding possesses star quality, but not in the hugely overwhelming sense that so many of today’s modern pop crop do. There’s no performance art costumes, no hugely powerful vocal, no over inflated ego. Gaga, Florence or Kanye she is not. Admitting that she misses her home town “where nothing ever happened,” and appearing astonished at the size of the audience, which she describes as “insane,” Goulding is a star because she’s the slightly awkward-girl-next-door-turned-good that every teenage girl in the room screaming her name can identify with. She represents the hopes and aspirations of the ordinary and is evidently thankful for her success; at one point in the show a huge screen shows a film of Goulding, with her spoken words announcing how grateful she is, how all this has happened to just a normal person.
Yet Goulding is not normal – she has talent that puts her a long way from the middle of the bell curve. It’s an ability to write simple, honest, hooky songs and a sweet wispy vocal that flutters and floats over whatever she plays; from the electronic dance pop of Lights and This Love (Will Be Your Downfall) to the lampshade lit solo-acoustic mid set interlude of boy-hating The End. It’s the simplicity of these quiet moments - just a girl, a guitar and some emotions, the kind of emotions everyone feels - love, hate, fear - that work the best. “I would give my life to be human,” she sings later on new song Human, and irrespective of her artistry you have to wonder if maybe Ellie would prefer to be at home with a cup of tea, her songs and a cosy duvet rather than all this pop star shenanigans.
This is not to say that Goulding’s endearingly real and pure character on stage means that she’s not capable of a bit of showmanship when required. The set opens with her at the back of the stage, beating out the opening rhythm of Under the Sheets with fervour on drums. Later during her pleasurable but hardly inspiring John Lewis approved cover version of Elton John’s Your Song she sings the line “this one’s for you,” whilst pointing at the audience, eliciting big screams from the excitable pit. For the encore and Starry Eyed she even gets a bit naughty-girl sexy, hip-grinding and shaking her booty across the stage.
Success has brought an increasing confidence to her performance– she’s gone a long way since she first played to a half empty basement in Brighton just over a year ago (here). It’s been a golden year for Goulding.
