charts during its first week and spun off 'Starry Eyed' as a Top Five single (it also charted well in Ireland and New Zealand). Building on that momentum, she blended acoustic and synthesized instruments on her first studio full-length, Lights, which was released in March 2010. In the meantime, she penned songs for Diana Vickers, Gabriella Climi, and others.ĭuring the final weeks of 2009, Goulding topped the BBC's Sound of 2010, a poll conducted by British music critics and industry insiders to identify new talent. She ultimately signed a major-label deal with Polydor Records and began preparing her debut album. Goulding soon graduated from the blogosphere to print media, gaining praise from mainstream publications like The Guardian and fielding offers from record labels. In 2009, Goulding began building an online audience, where early tracks like 'Starry Eyed' and a cover of Sam Sparro's 'Black & Gold' were posted on taste-making websites. After two years, she took a break from her studies and moved to West London, where she pursued a career as an alternative singer/songwriter and befriended producers like Starsmith and Frankmusik, who gave her songs an electro-pop twist. She had developed a love for folk music as a teenager, and her time at university also exposed her to electronica.

Goulding has continued to expand her sound, releasing the 2020 holiday EP Songbook for Christmas and collaborating with rapper Big Sean for 2022's 'Easy Lover.'īorn in Hereford, England, Goulding later moved to the country's east coast to study drama at the University of Kent. number one with her fourth set, the introspective Brightest Blue. Her folk-inflected pop sound increasingly drew from electronic influences - heard on 2012's dubstep-influenced Halcyon - and later touched upon dance music and ambient synth pop for her third studio album, 2015's Delirium. charts with her breakthrough 2010 debut, Lights. With her unique soprano and knack for writing catchy yet emotionally earnest songs, Goulding quickly rose to the top of the U.K. Much like her predecessors Kate Bush and Imogen Heap, British vocalist Ellie Goulding stands at the forefront of independent-minded mainstream pop.

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