number one "Burn" and Top Three single "How Long Will I Love You," became some of her biggest hits. The next year, a deluxe reissue featuring ten extra songs was released entitled Halcyon Days, it acted as a supplement to the original release. chart-topper and the one to break her into the U.S. Home to the single "Anything Can Happen," it was her second straight U.K. In 2012, Goulding returned with her sophomore album, Halcyon, which pushed her into more adventurous sonic territory with darker lyrical content and experimental electronic sounds. and peaked at number two on the Billboard Hot 100. In addition to a hit cover of Elton John's "Your Song," the set included the international smash "Lights," which was certified five times platinum in the U.S. Later that year, the album was re-released as Bright Lights. charts during its first week and spun off "Starry Eyed" as a Top Five single (it also charted well in Ireland and New Zealand). Building on that momentum, she blended acoustic and synthesized instruments on her first studio full-length, Lights, which was released in March 2010.
In the meantime, she penned songs for Diana Vickers, Gabriella Climi, and others.ĭuring the final weeks of 2009, Goulding topped the BBC's Sound of 2010, a poll conducted by British music critics and industry insiders to identify new talent. She ultimately signed a major-label deal with Polydor Records and began preparing her debut album. Goulding soon graduated from the blogosphere to print media, gaining praise from mainstream publications like The Guardian and fielding offers from record labels. In 2009, Goulding began building an online audience, where early tracks like "Starry Eyed" and a cover of Sam Sparro's "Black & Gold" were posted on taste-making websites. After two years, she took a break from her studies and moved to West London, where she pursued a career as an alternative singer/songwriter and befriended producers like Starsmith and Frankmusik, who gave her songs an electro-pop twist. She had developed a love for folk music as a teenager, and her time at university also exposed her to electronica. Goulding has continued to expand her sound, releasing the 2020 holiday EP Songbook for Christmas and collaborating with rapper Big Sean for 2022's "Easy Lover."īorn in Hereford, England, Goulding later moved to the country's east coast to study drama at the University of Kent. number one with her fourth set, the introspective Brightest Blue. Her folk-inflected pop sound increasingly drew from electronic influences - heard on 2012's dubstep-influenced Halcyon - and later touched upon dance music and ambient synth pop for her third studio album, 2015's Delirium. charts with her breakthrough 2010 debut, Lights. With her unique soprano and knack for writing catchy yet emotionally earnest songs, Goulding quickly rose to the top of the U.K. The only thing I would have wished for is a Gatefold cover.Much like her predecessors Kate Bush and Imogen Heap, British vocalist Ellie Goulding stands at the forefront of independent-minded mainstream pop. The Heavy discs come in printed inner sleeves, which is ok, since I use replacement sleeves for every record I own. The packaging is beautiful (even though my cover has some water damage). I’ve been very hesitant on spending 30 bucks on this, but it‘s worth every single penny.
I fell in love with this album again, the WHOLE album.īarely any surface noise (maybe 5 seconds all together - which isn‘t a lot for the amount of music on this record), dead flat and brilliant sound. This isn‘t one of my favorites, but it blew me away on this pressing! Another example would be ‚Lights‘: I can‘t listen to it anymore, but on this release, it‘s an absolute banger. The songs sound super dynamic and even quite 3D-ish, for example: ,The Writer‘. And since it‘s the album of my teenage years, I‘ve listened to it quite a lot. Wow! I can‘t believe how good this album can sound.