Florence + The Machine

[Selryam]

Florence and the Machine is an alternative rock (More like Art Rock, which is usually a Folk/Rock mixture) band. It is the recording name of Florence Welch and a collaboration of other artists who provide backing music for her voice. Musically Florence and the Machine's sound is generally referred to as soul-inspired indie. Florence and The Machine's music has received praise across the British music media, especially from the BBC who played a large part in Florence and The Machine's rise to prominence by promoting her as part of BBC Introducing. This led to her playing a number of music festivals in 2008, including Glastonbury as well as Reading and Leeds and T in the Park. The band's debut album, Lungs was released on 6 July 2009, and was at the number 2 position for its first five weeks in the charts, behind Michael Jackson.

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Albums

Lungs [2009.07.06]

Singles

Kiss With A Fist [2008.07.09]
Dog Days Are Over [2008.12.01]
Rabbit Heart (Raise It Up) [2009.06.21]
Drumming Song [2009.09.13]
You've Got The Love [2009.11.16]

Samples (In Order of Recommendation; Only Drumming Song and Rabbit Heart from these four have videos, though the other singles have MV's, too.)

Cosmic Love
Drumming Song
Rabbit Heart (Raise It Up)
Howl

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I haven't said that her debut album is the best album I've ever heard for no reason. I had it recommended to me from someone a while ago, and from the first time I'd listened to it (about eight days ago by now), I haven't stopped. According to last.fm, there's about 500 or so plays of Lungs on my account within those eight days, which is rather odd for me. While it is rather dark, her music is an amazing mixture of different genres and sounds, and there isn't one song of hers that I don't like.

As such, I'm spreading the love. Any takers?

[torika]

I haven't heard that much of her/their music, but I really like Drumming Song. I quite like Cosmic Love as well.
Rabbit Heart plays on the radio quite a lot still, I'm not really that keen on it.

I like her music in theory, but I guess she sounds too much like Adele et al for me. But then I also think she sounds like a female Morrissey.   Can't deny the skill though, her songs are hard to sing.

I'm going to ask my friend to borrow the CD (he's bound to have it), we'll see how it goes from there!

[torika]

Like I mentioned in the electronica thread, I've been listening to a lot of Florence lately.
I found your blog posts interesting actually, you seem to take a different approach. I (as an easily influenced person ) decided to give her quieter songs a chance... and I have to say that I'm still not a massive fan, but most of her songs are growing on me.

My favourites are probably:
Drumming Song
Rabbit Heart / Cosmic Love
My Boy Builds Coffins

Least Favourites:
You've Got The Love
Dog Days Are Over
Blinding

I'm still trying to work out what "Hurricane Drunk" reminds me of... it sounds SO FAMILIAR! The melody, at least. I quite like that one.

Also, in terms of Florence herself I'm really impressed by her lyric-writing skills! She manages to write things that are easy to understand, but often so different to the norm.
Of course, her voice is pretty stunning too. I'm really sick of the soul/diva thing going on in female britpop, but I reckon she's the exception.

(her dancing though... I'm sorry, Florence, but I think this is probably another Aira/Winehouse scenario - you can't dance! just don't do it!)