Music / Paloma Faith

Only love can hurt like this

Paloma Faith (born Paloma Faith Blomfield, 21 July 1981 in Hackney, London) is a British singer, actress and model.

Widely known for her powerful voice, loopy personality and flashy wardrobe, Paloma initially found herself in the post-Amy Winehouse group of 2000's British soul, joining the good company of Adele, Florence Welch and Duffy.

Acting-wise, she's best known as the henchwoman Bet Sykes in Pennyworth.

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Discography:

• Do You Want The Truth or Something Beautiful? (2009)
• Fall to Grace (2012)
• A Perfect Contradiction (2014)
• The Architect (2017)
• Infinite Things (2020)

Selected filmography:

• St Trinians (2007) as Andrea
• The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus (2009) as Sally
• Dread (2009) as Clara Thornhill
• The Voice UK (2012, 2016) as herself
• Pennyworth (2019-2022) as Elizabeth "Bet" Sykes

Paloma provides examples of:

• Album Title Drop:
  • "Do You Want The Truth or Something Beautiful?", the title track of the album it's found on.
  • "Freedom" contains this for her sophomore album:
    I fall to grace and into your arms
• Anti-Love Song: "Can't Rely On You", "Trouble With My Baby."
• Ambiguous Situation: The "she" who stole Paloma's lover away from her in "New York"; it's not clear if she's talking about a woman, the city itself or even both.
• Break-Up Song: "Smoke & Mirrors", "Let Me Down Easy", "Beauty of the End", "When You're Gone".
• Big Ol' Eyebrows: They're quite strikingly defined, which helps her vintage-inspired imagery.
• Bilingual Bonus: 'Paloma' means 'dove' in Spanish, so it's probably no surprise that the cover of ''Do You Want The Truth or Something Beautiful" features a pair of doves on it.
• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Very much like Lady Gaga in this regard, actually. Paloma definitely does enjoy wearing strange outfits on stage, but she really can sing.
• Celebrity Resemblance: To Billie Piper. Observe.
• The Chanteuse: Plays one in the "30 Minute Love Affair" video.
• Cloudcuckoolander: Just watch any of her interviews or appearances on Nevermind The Buzzcocks!
• Cover Version:
  • Her cover of David Guetta's "Sexy Bitch" transforms the song into a slinky piano ballad, replacing 'bitch' with 'minx' as well as making some lyrical changes that are a bit more tasteful than the original ones.
  • Additionally, she covers the soul classic "Let Me Down Easy" on Fall to Grace, as well as tackling the INXS hit "Never Tear Us Apart" for a John Lewis advert.
• Distaff Counterpart: She's basically like a female Noel Fielding: childish, an eccentric sense of fashion (two words: granny titties), a constant smile, and an off-beat personality. Then again, at some points on Buzzcocks, she's actually made Noel seem perfectly ordinary.
• Early-Installment Weirdness: Before she became famous for a music career with technicolour outfits, she was in St Trinians - as the leader of the goths.
• The Edwardian Era / The Roaring '20s:
  • Were the main eras of inspiration behind the look and sound behind her first album.
  • Following up on that token, her second album seems to take inspiration from The '40s, at least in its look.
• Evil Laugh: Lets one out on "Technicolor".
• Fading into the Next Song: "New York" fades into "Stargazer" on her first album.
• Gorgeous Period Dress: Her dress sense borrows numerous elements from 1940's glamour.
• Grow Old with Me: Played with on "Just Be";
  Let's get old together / let's be unhappy forever / cause there's no one else who that i'd rather be unhappy with
• Impractically Fancy Outfit: Many, but she definitely took it up to eleven with this little ensemble that had her flanked by two gigantic balloons.
• Mind Screw: Paloma plays a melting wax figure in her "Picking Up The Pieces" video.
• New Sound Album: While not a huge departure from her debut, Fall to Grace has been said to be influenced by everything from Hip-Hop to Disco to Dupstep to "Chinese romantic cinema", of all things.
• Record Producer: Feeling that her first album was a bit scattershot in sound because of its varied producers, Paloma enlisted Nellee Hooper (Björk, Massive Attack) to produce the bulk of Fall to Grace.
• Retreaux: Her first album, mostly.
• Precision F-Strike : On her more recently release album Infinite Things, the song "If Loving You Was Easy" had the lines
  I'm self destructive, you wanna say fuck this and go
• Stage Name: Subverted. Paloma Faith is part of her full name, which is Paloma Faith Blomfield.
  Must have been a deadly kiss

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