ELLIE GOULDING 'S BRIGHTEST BLUE REVIEW-' HER ELLIEST ALBUM'
After a five years hiatius , Ellie Goulding finally dropped her new album, Brightest Blue .
Despite the incredible success of Delirium (2015), it seems like Ellie did not feel herself in her last album. In an interview with The Guardian , she describes it as “A damn good pop album – maybe not an Ellie Goulding record.” . In this one, she wants to make the world know who she is.
This project is a double album, with two sides. The first one is Brightest Blue, her most vulnerable record yet , and the other one is 'EG.O', kind of alter ego side , with her most commercial songs and the one that contains the biggest features.The record is a liberation for Ellie Goulding , who really wants to show her true music, but , in the same time, she is tied to her mainstream artist condition and to the label demands . That explains the second size, titled EG.O, that contains most of the features and the most commercial and chart-successful tracks of the record. Presented as her alter ego songs , maybe it is the price for the liberation.
The opening track, Start (ft. serpentwithfeet) is a five-minute long piece in which Ellie touches R&B . She wanted it to be 'hypnotic',as she said to Apple Music ,and it is in a deep way . The song introduces some strong statements that, maybe, must be analysed as her revolution in order to show her real music and being herself in love relationships ('And you can't even begin to understand // The magic she had before you killed her'). She is fighting for a new beginning , she is kind of revealing how , in her love relationships and maybe, in her music, she was not able to show herself ('Try to be myself, but I'm stuck in your religion'). The feature from serpentwithfeet fits really well on the track. The autotune gives that sense of hypnosis and depth .
The second piece is Power , which incorporates a sample from Dua Lipa's Be the One , that invigorates the song. In the track, Ellie meditates about a past relationship, not based on love ('You just want the power') and currently ending into emptyness. The music video stood out because of Ellie embracing her sexuality.This is also a part of Ellie's revolution , being free to dominate her sexuality in the way she wants .Depth and empty relationships come into another level with How Deep is Too Deep?
Vulnerability has its own place in Ode to Myself , which is like a poem wrote to yourself , the slow-tempo ballad Woman ,the severity of Bleach and the piano beauty of Flux.
Introducing into R&B gets patent in New Heights. While in Tides , she explores retro dance music and alt-pop
The title track closes the first size of the project. It is Ellie's version of joy, full of brightness and it reflects the found of a complete love.
While the first side is full of piano, violins and Ellie's powerful voice and layers, mixed with a little of autotune , the second has a plenty of commercial singles, such the scratchy Close to Me (with Swae Lee and Diplo) and the repetitive Hate Me (ft. Juice WRLD). These songs are devoid of all the emotion Ellie has on the first side.
It seems that Ellie is decided to dominate her music . Maybe , she cannot quit her mainstream and commercial status yet, but she is headed into a new direction, where she prioritises her instrumental essence. Vulnerability is a big part of the record , which is a way of healing too for Goulding and her past. She shows that she triumphs with piano and her voice but also, in the up-tempo , like in Tides , with a more alt-pop sound.
-------------------------------------------------
The Guardian's interview:
loved it
ReplyDelete