Ellie Goulding
Guns and Horses (Polydor)
Another in the seemingly endless procession of female singer-songwriters (I suppose it’s no bad thing, compared for example to endless Autotuned American r n b “artists” or faceless landfill indie-mongers), Ellie Goulding shot to the top with ‘Starry-Eyed’, a fairly distinctive piece of pop which showcased her distinct voice and quite unusual chord changes and instrumentation.
‘Guns and Horses’ is I think the second or maybe even third track from the debut album release and although it starts with an acoustic intro it quickly builds into another pop epic which again lets the voice soar and the electronics hum. This is really no bad thing and without being too deliberately “quirky”, “kooky” or any another of the extremely annoying things that certain females try to exude as an image, it does the business. The involvement of Stargate (Scandinavian uber-producer) in her career has I think got something to do with the slight weirdness of the sound while still being fairly standard modern folk/pop.
The lyrics are a bit all over the place but the tune and delivery are pretty classy, in a way more along the lines of KT Tunstall than the Pixies (no not these ones…) and the Lilys of this neck of the woods.
So fair play to Ellie, let’s just see what happens next.
Betty Mayonnaise
