


Helping Goulding to achieve this are a handful of uber-pop producer/songwriters, including Sweden's Max Martin (Britney Spears, Taylor Swift) and Carl Falk (One Direction, Nicki Minaj), Savan Kotecha (Ariana Grande, One Direction), Greg Kurstin (Sia, P!nk), and others. While Delirium isn't devoid of this electronic atmosphere, it's somewhat more mainstream in its tone, and finds Goulding expanding her sonic palette with a melodically catchy set of more R&B-infused songs. Goulding's previous effort, 2012's Halcyon, was a hypnotically ambient, lightly experimental album that balanced catchy pop hooks with textural electronic soundscapes. “ British chanteuse Ellie Goulding returns with her highly anticipated third studio album, 2015's expertly produced Delirium.

Whilst not entirely glowing, I feel that it is a little more balanced and fairer towards an album that has plenty of merit and positives: I am going to wrap things up by sourcing from AllMusic. It's difficult to find anything else in 'Delirium' that'll make it worthy of your time though”. Put one of the singles on in a club at 2am when you've imbibed enough vodka to tranquilise a small horse and it's a sufficient distraction from the cruel realities of life. If you like listening to fey exhaling over the same uninspiring backing track 16 times in a row, then you're in luck, but for the rest of us, it's a largely fruitless exercise. On top of this, 'Delirium' just hasn't got the songs. Throughout 'Delirium', her vocals are often double-tracked in an attempt to circumvent this, but it largely fails, and the singing is forever fighting for attention amid a swamp of crashing beats and over-zealous synths. The main problem with this is that her voice is too wispy to hold its own versus the maximalist rave-pop of the day. Previous album, 'Halcyon', featured zeitgeist-chasing dance-pop in abundance, and then she went through the 2010s pop act rite of passage that is a guest vocal spot on a Calvin Harris club-friendly banger. However, as time has gone on, her idiosyncrasies have been stealthily expunged, and she's gradually morphed into just the kind of artist she initially seemed to be the welcome antidote to. Her songs sparkled and shimmered rather than bludgeoned you through the speakers, and she quickly won fans and plaudits. “ After winning the BBC Sound of 2010 poll, it quickly became clear that Ellie Goulding wasn't your typical popstar. This is what CLASH wrote in their review: There is one that is fairly negative, whilst the other is more positive. I want to bring in a couple of different reviews. It has a few weak tracks, though most of them are pretty solid. For those who feel the lyrical scope is narrow and Goulding did not bring too much in the way of substance and surprise, I feel people need to give the album another listen. More Synth-Pop than anything that had come before, it is a necessary and welcomed evolution and transformation. One can feel a different look and sound on Delirium compared to 2013’s Halcyon Days. One can certainly hear her hand and voice in the writing. Goulding co-wrote most of the tracks on Delirium. The singles Something in the Way You Move and Love Me Like You Do are among her best releases. One reason why I feel it warrants a new spin is because it has some great tracks in the mix. One cannot fault Delirium for a lack of energy and bangers. Maybe that is what critics noted: other people moulding her and making some generic and commercial, rather than individual and brimming with original personality. You get so many cooks in the kitchen one wonders how much of Ellie Goulding is in there. It is a problem that afflicts genres like Pop and R&B. Goulding seems to have recorded every song in a new studio! There are a lot of producers listed for Delirium too. Released on 6th November, 2015, one of the biggest problems with Delirium is the number of studios listed. In Australia, Delirium charted at number three, becoming her second album to end up within the top ten, and her highest-charting album in the country. It debuted at number three on the UK Albums Chart and at number one on the UK Album Downloads Chart. In terms of its commercial performance, Delirium fared well. Some noted how Delirium is not the most original album – one that could been made by any other artist. It is an album where critics were split and there was a real divide. I feel that one or two of her album have been scored quite low and have not got the sort of exposure and acclaim as they should have. She is someone I listen to but would not consider myself to be a massive fan of.

For this Second Spin, I arrived at the feet of Ellie Goulding.
