In the wake of Adele's success in early 2011, multiple artists from across the pond have had their way with the mainstream US market--Ed Sheeran, Sam Smith, Marina and the Diamonds, One Direction, Chvrches, Katy B, Disclosure, Calvin Harris--the list is endless, but few of those names were as distinctive in their pure artistry as Ellie Goulding. She recalled the early 2000s when Dido's acoustic/folk leanings mixed with electronic sheen and made an intoxicating sound fit for either the clubs or small cottages in the countryside. Goulding's first two albums "Lights" and "Halcyon" exploited this successful fusion to the hilt, and even when 2013's "Burn" took the re-vamped "Halcyon Days" into a dancier direction, the progression felt natural and unforced. It's not odd to think that Goulding has so much intrinsic quirkiness, that anything she touches bears the stamp of a true individual, like Grimes or FKA Twigs. However, what happens when an artist decides that a niche audience is nice, but anonymity in the mainstream is not? No matter how many times "Lights" or "Burn" were played on the radio (and it was quite a lot, mind you), nobody outside of the UK could really connect those songs with Ellie Goulding, the pop star. She seeks to formally define her sound and rectify the indie-trappings of her earlier work with 2015's "Delirium", an album built to be the sum of Taylor Swift's "1989" and Carly Rae Jepsen's "Emotion". Though "Delrium" is far less 80s-crazy than either of those albums, it never-the-less plays like the chilly, calculated dance-pop of "Shake It Off" or the hard-working bubble-gum of "All That" or "Run Away With Me". This isn't by accident: Goulding recruited Max Martin, the mastermind behind Swift's pop makeover, and Carl Falk, a major collaborator on Jepsen's sophomore set, to be her song smiths this time around, as well as the perennial hit-maker for big budget pop makeovers, Greg Kurstin.
It may be disarming at first to see a roster of producers that aren't Jim Eliot (though he does contribute to one track, the pretty good "Scream It Out"), but Goulding has had hits with Kurstin and Martin before, and both turned out quite well (the aforementioned "Burn", and 2015's definitive ballad "Love Me Like You Do"). It should come as no surprise, then, to hear "Delirium" as an anthology of sorts; everything going right in pop and dance all condensed into sixteen tracks. Lead single "On My Mind" certainly feels like a Swift anthem, "Holding On For Life" mixes soul with EDM nuance not unlike Jess Glynne, "Don't Need Nobody" could've fit well on AlunaGeorge's debut, and when hip-hop inflected dance isn't at the fore (like in "Keep on Dancin", an ode to Ke$ha perhaps?), then we get more classic Goulding tracks (both "Army" and "Something in the Way You Move" fit perfectly in her back catalog of folk-tronica hits). Although, as diverse as this reads on paper, the unfortunate setback to "Delirium" is that like so many other modern pop albums, any distinctive characteristics in the writing or production have all been scrubbed clean, making each track imperceptible on the first listen. Especially with such a large number of songs here, it's quite frightening trying to discern which hook is which, what songs are products of genuine creativity or just expertly crafted filler. There aren't any tracks here that are sub-par, but even the best tracks feel more like plateaus that mountain peaks. Taken altogether, "Delirium" may not be Goulding's best work, but despite its flaws, you have to admire the fact that she has ambition. Her perpetually unique, airy voice separate this record from the countless other canned and bland LPs of 2015 (here's looking at you, "Mobile Orchestra"). Goulding's peers might be trying to pass off their underwhelming efforts as ground-breaking and state of the art, but "Delirium" rises above them all because there's no pretense that this record is anything but what it really is: fun, simple pop.
Recommended Tracks in Bold:
1. Intro 2. Aftertaste 3. Something in the Way You Move
4. Keep on
Dancin 5. On My Mind 6. Around U
7. Codes 8. Holding on for Life 9. Love Me Like You Do
10. Don’t Need Nobody 11. Don’t Panic 12. We Can’t Move to This
13. Army 14. Lost and Found 15. Devotion
16. Scream It
Out
