The Verdict: Ellie Goulding – Lights
I felt the need to flog this dead horse just a little more. As has been painstakingly recorded, “Lights” is nothing special. In short, yeah, it’s a decent pop album, but the trouble with investing in a very precise and unvaried (perhaps gimmicky) style is that, in effect, you end up with 10 songs, 4 of which are very good, and the other 6 won’t be given the time of day by anyone with two ears connected to a brain. That said, this approach is bound to bring Ellie Goulding enormous success beyond anything that even the most optimistic bloggers imagined early last year. Bit of a depressing paradox; banality = success.
There’s a slightly uneasy feeling throughout that the whole electro-pop cliché has become far too forced. Ironically, it also brings the album some of its more original moments thanks to the exceptional production of Starsmith (see new version of “Wish I Stayed”), but it slowly becomes tired when laboured over the entire album.
Without sounding too presumptuous, “This Love” is going to destroy this year in commercial terms, “Wish I Stayed” and Starsmith’s stuttering chorus production has similar potential, and we always knew that “Starry Eyed” and “Under The Sheets” were decent pop songs, but…. beyond that? Quite literally, beyond that there’s very little to waste your seconds on, except 6 slightly inferior, but never bad, variations on a theme du jour.
I wouldn’t call it a backlash… In actual fact, all anyone really predicted was that Ms Goulding has a lot of talent. And she does, you’d be a fool to argue against that, however the emphasis of “Lights” is clearly fixated on commercial success over a full realisation of her enormous potential, and for that reason, “Lights” is bound to be forgotten. The debut album that never happened.
Adapted from something that I wrote here. Yes, I really am that lazy, and no, I wasn’t joking.
By the way, I hope you appreciate that I avoided the two stock introductions to Ellie Goulding reviews:
- “I am very very clever and first wrote about Ellie Goulding in the year 150BC, here.”
- “Due to recently being named the BBC Sound of 2010 and winning a Brit Award, there was always going to be a lot of hype surrounding Ellie Goulding. The question is, though, has she lived up to the hype?!?!?!?!?!”. Cue disappointing review in which they will probably conclude that, no, she has not.
If you are very well mannered, old fashioned or intrigued then you can buy the album here. I’ll be honest, I can think of a lot worse ways to spend £10 and at no point did I say it was a bad album; just disappointing. But you know… music’s subjective and all that so part with your cash and see what you think.
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March 2nd, 2010 at 7:13 pm
Sorry to go off topic here, but can you pleassssseee put a favicon.ico in the root of your website (or fix it any other way)?? Would be nice so I can distinct your website in my favorites. Thanks.
March 2nd, 2010 at 10:28 pm
I’m embarrassed to admit I had no idea what one of these was… Just done a bit of googling and it seems pretty easy so I’ll get on it for you!
March 5th, 2010 at 10:57 pm
name an album that every song is top class nowadays last one i haerd was the music or the charlatans but maybe i`m getting to old(sound like my dad fucking nightmare)
March 2nd, 2010 at 8:51 pm
Ah… the stock Ellie Goulding introduction to a review. Well, I’m sure I’ve been guilty of doing that. In fact I know I have. Actually I admitted to it last year on this blog.
http://breakingmorewaves.blogspot.com/2009/10/ellie-goulding-under-sheets.html
Sigh, I guess there’s a kind of double irony in what I have just done there, as I’ve pointed you towards something I wrote a while back, only for it to say that this is what the stock Ellie Goulding review does to appear credible. Layer upon layer.
So lets add another layer. Like yourself I have also been wondering if the whole electro-pop thing is becoming a bit worn out and a bit of a cliche. But then pop music doesn’t ‘wear out’, it ‘goes out’. It has to in order to survive. It’s a luxury commodity that relies on high media profile to excite and fascinate buyers to buy it. In order to do this it requires continuous stylistic change to excite. This is where it becomes a cliche and ‘goes out’ of fashion. Maybe electro-pop will do this at some point. But then as I suggested in a previous blog I wrote at the very start of the year (apologies but here comes more of my blog posts) trying to avoid cliche often becomes cliche itself. This is part of my philosophy. I set it out here.
http://breakingmorewaves.blogspot.com/2010/01/breaking-more-waves-2010.html
That’s how I’ve tried to wrap things up.
Incidentally, although the critical press have been pretty “Meh” over the album if you have a look at a ‘pop’ audience such as the Ellie Goulding thread on the Popjustice forum Lights is getting a REALLY good reaction – an almost “Wow this is much better than expected” type reaction and some people are questioning why the critics are being negative about it.
So I guess to a certain extent it depends with Ellie what camp you are in (true pop or not) and what your expectations are.
I straddle all of these camps and have always tried to moderate my expectations and hence come somewhere in between. In my opinion Lights is a good (verging on very good) mainstream pop album, nothing more nothing less. It makes us feel slightly (but not fully) exhilarated when we put it on. That is all.
Phew, that was a bit of a comment and a half. Apologies !!!
March 2nd, 2010 at 10:24 pm
Comment and a half to say the least, inclined just to delete my post and replace it with your comment
Well, to be honest, if you did do that then I didn’t notice and the other post on “Under The Sheets” atones for your sins by cynically poking fun at those many reviews that start by saying, “Look, I really am pretty good”. Although, ironically (I’ve never come across so much irony in one day) that post on “Under The Sheets” that you made does actually show how “in touch” you are, because you suggested at the end “Ellie Goulding; sound of 2010″? BBC proved you right just over a month later!
Aside from that, I found your comment very interesting. I couldn’t agree more with your observations on avoiding cliché becoming cliché – musicians today are so pre-occupied with being “genuine” that they’ll stretch themselves to any length of fake just to appear so.
As for trends in pop music, they seem to just reflect general trends in music. The late 2000s show a swing towards electronic music, partly as a result of how easy it is to produce & publicise with computers and the internet, and pop loyally follows. Who knows what will be next? Whatever it is, I’m guessing it’s going to have to start slowly happening soon, because, as you say, the whole electro-pop thing is starting to become irritatingly hackneyed.
March 2nd, 2010 at 11:49 pm
The biggest irony was after writing “Ellie Goulding Sound of 2010″ I was asked by the BBC to vote on the Sound of 2010 poll ! Layer upon layer….
And yes I did pick Ellie as one of my 3 choices.
Who knows where music will go next. It will be fun watching, that’s for sure…..
March 4th, 2010 at 5:55 am
Personally I much preferred Starsmith’s original mix of Wish I Stayed. The album version is too busy for me. There’s too much delay and verb on the vocals that interfere with what was previously a pretty song in its simplicity.
March 4th, 2010 at 5:32 pm
Sounds like this is most certainly not the album for you! You are, however, right that the initial demos were a lot more stripped down. It’s interesting to wonder what the album might have sounded like if she hadn’t have received so much hype and had signed to XL or someone…
March 5th, 2010 at 1:31 am
This is the best thing I’ve read all week. You’ve expressed my thoughts on both the album and unimaginative approaches to reviewing. Thanks for that.
March 5th, 2010 at 5:10 pm
Quite accidental, but anytime
March 5th, 2010 at 8:26 am
“the other 6 won’t be given the time of day by anyone with two ears connected to a brain”
“6 slightly inferior, but never bad, variations on a theme du jour”
Aren’t these two statements inherently contradictory? The harshness of the first statement definitely implies that those 6 songs are indeed bad. Just found that confusing…
Anyhow, I really enjoy the album for the pop goodness that it is. I will admit though that I would have loved if she had included some songs with the simplicity and bareness of her cover of “Roscoe.”
March 5th, 2010 at 5:12 pm
No I wouldn’t have said it was a contradiction at all… I suppose it depends on how demanding you are of your music. I won’t listen to anything that’s average or “OK”, as I said those songs were, therefore I won’t give them the time of day. Why waste your time listening to the mundane when there’s so much great stuff out there?
That’s what I was trying to get at
Should have made myself more clear I guess.
March 5th, 2010 at 8:54 am
i agree.banal, bad songs.
March 18th, 2010 at 10:51 pm
I enjoyed the whole album but to each their own!
I was actually more disappointed with Marina & The Diamonds’ album.
May 11th, 2010 at 11:45 am
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