With her cotton candy colored pale pink hair and undeniably unique sound, 25-year-old British songstress Ellie Goulding rose to international, chart-topping fame over the last two years. Her latest record, Halcyon, was released on October 9in the U.S. and is a reflection of the whirlwind stardom she’s experienced, a time in her life that even included singing at the reception of the highly publicized wedding between Prince William and Kate Middleton.
A pop force on either side of the pond, Goulding is intent on showing a more intimate side of her musical talents on her sophomore album. This time around she relies less on the pulsing synth beats that carried her debut album, Lights, and its title track to the top on Billboard’s Hot 100 this past summer. Instead she’s venturing into bolder, more personal territory.
“This album is a bit more unique, epic. It’s almost tribal. There are lots of drums and piano, and harp. It’s just a bit more epic and raw,” she said of Halcyon. “It’s a lot rawer than my first album. I can’t really compare it to anything else, but it’s definitely a pop record.”
So far Halcyon has shot up the U.S. charts, placing it inside the top ten upon its release and showing that its hit single “Anything Can Happen” has true staying power. On this album, one she co-produced with Jim Eliot, Goulding is unapologetically honest, offering her fans a taste of what she’s been going through lately, finding inspiration in personal loneliness, sadness, and relationships.
“Writing these tracks helped me heal in a massive way, I needed to get stuff out,” she said. “It’s really useful to have it documented and written out, and I’m so glad because I don’t know what I’d do otherwise.”
One of her favorite tracks off the album, “My Blood,” sums up perfectly the raw honesty Goulding is trying to get across to her fans. With lyrics like, “with all the blood I lost with you, it drowns the love I thought I knew,” she sings about the utter heartbreak of unrequited love.
“[It’s about] absolute depletion, when you just have nothing left in you. You’ve given everything to something. You’ve given every ounce of love and passion and desire and you don’t get anything back. And it’s like you’ve lost a lot of blood,” said Goulding. “You’re not dead, but you’re kind of nearly there and you need to replenish yourself somehow.”
Goulding grew up in Lyonshall, a historic village in Herefordshire, England, with her mother and three siblings—a brother and two sisters. It was there that she discovered the female singers who would go on to later inspire her own musical aspirations, artists such as The Spice Girls, Beyoncé, Joni Mitchell, Eva Cassidy, and Lauryn Hill. As a teenager she began venturing more into the electronic genre, and it was there she found Björk, who Goulding cites as one of her most significant influences.
“I’m really happy to see so many strong female artists producing their own stuff and coming out with really special music,” she said. “That just makes me really, really happy.”
When she was eighteen, she went on to study drama at the University of Kent in Canterbury, where her music career began. At just nineteen, she won a student singing competition at the school, which eventually caught the eye of a manager, leading her to London and a record deal.
“People really listened to me. It was really sort of an amazing reaction. And I kept getting this amazing reaction, and that was the thing that kind of made me think I could actually do this.”
After that, Goulding never looked back. In September of 2009, she released her first single, “Under the Sheets,” and toured with Little Boots. Then she won the BBC Sound poll of 2010 as well as the Critic’s Choice Award at the 2010 BRIT Awards, making her the second artist to ever do so in the same year (besides reigning musical powerhouse Adele). A month after that she released Lights, the airy, catchy, electro-tinged, heartbreak pop record that put her on the map in America.
One of her favorite things about making it in the States? The fans. “They mean everything to me,” she said. “I’ve adopted some really passionate, dedicated fans and that means a lot to me, it makes me believe in myself. It’s really special. And I want to meet them and I want to hangout with them. I don’t want to feel like I’m above anyone. I do stuff with them because I feel like if people connect with my music, then it’s a really special thing.”
Goulding is currently planning her upcoming 2012 tour for Halcyon.
