Music / Ellie Goulding

You show the lights that stop me turn to stone
You shine it when I'm alone
And so I tell myself that I'll be strong
And dreaming when they're gone
Cause they're calling, calling, calling me home
Calling, calling, calling home
You show the lights that stop me turn to stone
You shine it when I'm alone

—"Lights"

Elena Jane "Ellie" Goulding (born 30 December 1986) is a British singer-songwriter. She first started playing the clarinet at age 9, learned guitar at 14 and got into songwriting soon afterwards. After spending two years studying at the University of Kent, she took a gap year to focus on singing. Originally interested in making folk music, her meeting with electronic record producer Starsmith broadened her sonic horizons, and his influence was greatly left on her debut album Lights.

Her follow-up album, Halcyon, went farther away from the folktronica tag that was slapped on her first album, creating epic electronica soundscapes that were widely regarded as an improvement from her first album. It also contained a few forays into Dubstep, likely thanks to her then-boyfriend Skrillex.

Her third album, Delirium combines all the elements that came before: Several songs have folk influence, some have electronica soundscape while some have element of mainstream pop music.

Discography

• Lights (2010)
  Singles: "Under the Sheets", "Starry Eyed", "Guns & Horses"
  • Bright Lights (2010)
  Singles: "Your Song", "Lights"
• Halcyon (2012)
  Singles: "Anything Could Happen", "Figure Eight", "Explosions"
  • Halycon Days (2013)
  Singles: "Burn", "Goodness Gracious"
• Delirium (2015)
  Singles: "On My Mind", "Army", "Something in the Way You Move"
• Brightest Blue (2020)
  Singles: "Hate Me", "Power", "Slow Grenade"

Ellie is a featured vocalist on:

• Tinie Tempah - "Wonderman" (2010)
• Skrillex - "Summit" (2011)
• Calvin Harris - "I Need Your Love" (2012), "Outside" (2014)
• Zedd - "Fall into the Sky" (2012)
• Major Lazer - "Powerful" (2015)

Associated tropes:

• Broken Record: At about 2:16 in, "Lights"' name is repeated in the background fourteen times. Also, "Anything Could Happen".
• Concept Album: Halcyon is filled with Breakup Songs; as Goulding herself has said:
  I didn't set out to write a break-up record, but I think it became one.
• Cover Version:
  • Ellie's been known to do quite a few of these, the most well-known probably being her rendition of Elton John's classic "Your Song". Additional ones include: "High for This" by The Weeknd, "Hanging On" by Active Child, "Tessellate" by AltJ, "Midas Touch" by Midnight Star, and "Vincent" by Don McLean.
  • Most of them don't deviate much from the original versions, but her take on "Midas Touch" is drastically different, turning the upbeat 1980s Funk song into a moody Dubstep-flavored one.
• Darker and Edgier: Halcyon is much darker, lyrically and sonically, than Lights and its re-release were.
• Did You Just Romance Cthulhu?: Ellie's boyfriend in the music video of "Starry Eyed" is revealed to be a being with a Celestial Body. This certainly explained a lot of the Mind Screw elements of the video.

• Genre Mashup: Her music is a mix of Pop, Electronic and Folk. Later ditching the folk in favor of Alternative Dance and Dream Pop.
• Gosh Dang It to Heck!: All of her songs are notably devoid of swearing. The closest she gets to doing so is in "Burn" which features the use of the word "hell". Averted in Iggy Azalea's "Heavy Crown", where she uses the word "bitch" to the surprise of some listeners. Finally averted once and for all in Delirium, which features her using light swearing like "damn" in songs like "Codes", while "Army" drops the only use of the word "fuck" in her music. However the song Start from her fourth album Brightest Blue, utters “fuck” 3 times (which is found in the last verse of the song).
• Gratuitous Spanish: "Burn" gives us this line:
  And what we see is everybody's on the floor acting crazy getting loco till the light's out
• Helium Speech: Implemented as electronic babble in "Only You".

• Mind Screw: The "Anything Could Happen" video. It begins with her waking up with long flowing hair and gown on a beach with crashing waves. She parades around in the sand while cylindrical and pyramid-shaped mirrors spin the air around her. Then her nose starts bleeding profusely and she stumbles upon a bloody dead body. Then the scene cuts to her in a car with her boyfriend, which quickly collides with another car. She then stands on top of the crashed car with her dead boyfriend inside while the sun rises behind her. Hanging above her from a harness on her shoulders is a cloud made out of felt. She sings the last lines of the songs and smiles into the camera before it cuts to black.
• New Sound Album: Halcyon ditches the folk sound from Lights and brings in elements of Gospel, Alternative Dance, Dream Pop, and even Dubstep, likely thanks to her then-boyfriend Skrillex.

• Precision F-Strike: Not herself, but Tinie Tempah provides the only cursing on Halcyon during the song "Hanging On".
  • She uses the word "fuck" once in "Army".
  • In the song Start, she uses the word “fuck” 3 times
• Record Producer: Starsmith produced most of Lights, while Jim Eliot was the main driving force behind Halcyon.
• Self-Backing Vocalist: Double tracks her vocals often.
• Sensible Heroes, Skimpy Villains: The attacking female soldiers in the "Guns and Horses" music video are wearing short shorts, wide-open jackets, and tall boots. Meanwhile, Ellie is clad in a buttoned blue flannel, black shirt, and jeans.
• Sexy Whatever Outfit: The "Guns and Horses" music video features dancers in sexy soldier costumes.
• Silly Love Songs: Most notable with "Still Falling For You". Not surprising considering it's featured in a "Bridget Jones" movie.
  And just like that, all I breathe, all I feel, you are all for me.
  I'm in.
  And just like that, all I breathe, all I feel, you are all for me.
  No one can lift me, catch me the way that you do.
  I'm still falling for you.
• Surreal Music Video: "Figure Eight" contains a chockload of symbolism and unclear imagery.
• Three Minutes of Writhing:
  • The "Lights" video. Ellie gyrating around in a short dress? Check.

• The video for "On My Mind" takes it even further, with shots of Ellie's Toplessness from the Back, plus a few dresses with generous sideboob.

• Title Track: Subverted by "Lights", which was originally not featured on the standard edition of the album it named, but ended up on its re-release; it was subsequently released as a single and became a huge hit in the United States. Played straight on Halcyon, which is named after the track of the same name.

• A Wild Rapper Appears!: Tinie Tempah on "Hanging On", a song that originally didn't have a rap verse.
  • Swae Lee of Rae Sremmurd on "Close to Me".

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Burn, burn, burn

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