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Florence + The Machine  

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Florence Welch is the lead singer and frontwoman of the indie band Florence + The Machine, formed in South London, UK, in 2007.

Known for a unique and dreamy blend of folk, art-pop, indie rock, and neo soul, as well as her stirring and ethereal live performances, Welch has been likened to artists such as Adele, Amy Winehouse, and Ellie Goulding.

Florence + The Machine is a band composed of Welch, pianist Isabella Summers, Robert Ackroyd (guitar), Tom Monger (harp), Mark Saunders (bass), and a rotating cast of other artists. Welch credits her bandmates with helping unlock her creative process, as they have been so tuned-in to each others’ musical abilities for so long that they naturally know what she’s hoping for in each new song.

The band’s name came from Welch’s teenage years, when she collaborated with Isabella “Machine” Summers. For a while, the two performed as Florence Robot/Isa Machine — a private joke that eventually stuck in slightly altered form.

With huge encouragement from the BBC, Florence received early critical acclaim and attention from UK audiences as BBC Music Introducing strongly promoted the band. The band’s debut album, Lungs, was released on July 6, 2009, and reached the number two slot in the UK Album Chart, retaining the position for five consecutive weeks. It finally reached the number one position on the album chart on January 17, 2010. By October 2010, Lungs had spent a total of 65 consecutive weeks in the top 40 album charts.

Notable singles from the album included “Rabbit Heart (Raise It Up),” “Kiss With A Fist,” and “Dog Days Are Over,” with the songs being featured on films and television series like Jennifer’s Body, 90210, Gossip Girl, Glee, and Skins.

Undoubtedly, the biggest hit single released from Lungs was the cover of The Source and Candi Staton’s 1986 single “You’ve Got The Love.” The track was later also released in collaboration with UK grime rapper Dizzee Rascal under the title, “You’ve Got The Dirtee Love,” following Welch and Dizzee’s 2010 Brit Award performance of the mash-up.

The band’s second studio album, Ceremonials, was preceded by a demo session in January 2010 at a small studio in London. Several producers vied for the chance to produce it, but Welch rejected their offers because she was after a new sound: something darker, heavier, more explosive, and grittier. The band had the rest of the year to work sporadically on the music, since they were out on the road touring heavily.

When the group did record, it happened between January and April 2011 at Abbey Road Studios with producer Paul Epworth, who co-wrote seven of the album’s tracks. Other co-writers included Kid Harpoon and Summers. Welch had to record many of the vocal tracks in various U.S. studios between shows on her tour.

Ceremonials featured singles “Shake It Out” and “What The Water Gave Me,” with the latter video receiving an outstanding 1.5 million views on YouTube in just two days alongside the track on iTunes in August 2011. The fourth single for the album, a remix of “Spectrum (Say My Name)” by Scotland’s Calvin Harris, became the band’s first number-one hit in the UK.

Unsurprisingly, Ceremonials reached number one on the UK Album Chart and number six on the U.S. Billboard 200. Furthermore, Florence + The Machine was honored with nominations for two Brit Awards: British Album of the Year and Best British Female Artist.

2012 was a year of rest for Florence + The Machine after having gone all out for the past half-decade. By the end of December 2012, Ceremonials had received a nomination for Best Pop Vocal Album.

In June 2014, Welch revealed that the band was working on its third studio album. Seven months later, the band performed the new album in its entirety to a crowd in a private London show. The next day, a music video for the title track, “How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful,” dropped, followed by another video for the song “St. Jude.”

When How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful finally dropped on May 29, it rose to the number-one spot on the UK Albums Chart — the band’s third time enjoying the honor — and hit number one on the U.S. Billboard 200. It was nominated five times for the Grammys. That year, the band headlined Glastonbury Festival, and its set received critical acclaim from a number of outlets. In 2016, Florence and the Machine released a short film called The Odyssey, which combined all of the album’s music videos into one narrative structure.

May 2017 saw an announcement of yet another studio album, High as Hope. During this period, then-drummer Christopher Hayden left the band, but the music didn’t stop: singles like “Sky Full of Song” and “Hunger” came in April and May of 2018. Florence + The Machine stayed busy with tours and song-crafting through the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, when it released “Light of Love” to support the Intensive Care Society.

By early 2022, the band was back on the road, headlining festivals like Madrid’s Mad Cool. The band’s fans began receiving letters with a cryptic print entitled “King – Chapter 1,” which led to speculation of a new single. Welch confirmed the rumors on February 22 on her Instagram account. “King,” the new single, came out the next day along with a music video. “Heaven Is Here” followed on March 7. Dance Fever, the fifth studio album, was released on May 13 and immediately shot to the number-one spot in the UK.

Live reviews

Only a few hours after I wrote about Hozier performing one of the most intimate sets I had ever experienced at Red Rocks, Florence Welsh completely redefined the word ‘intimacy’. The 28-year-old vocalist of Florence + the Machine had been photographed in meltdown mode at the Montreal airport just days prior, so it came as no shock when she decided do to something a little different on the last date of her current tour. Welsh has been pretty honest about her personal challenges with the road. She’s described feelings of loneliness and exhaustion that border on depression. I’m sure she found solace in the fact that her vocal chords held strong this time around (she damaged them not long before her Red Rocks show in 2012), but she seemed slightly unraveled by the time she took the stage for a special acoustic set on Monday night.

Large scale performances and frayed nerves usually equal disaster, but as Florence’s emotions danced around her windswept red curls, she used her sweet sorrow to create an air of melancholy that infected the crowd during her stripped-down set. The audience gained another ounce of empathy with each breath…thus absorbing her sadness and eradicating any loneliness she might have been feeling. The science was exact, so by the time the 12-piece ensemble went into full effect for ‘the electric era’, we had become her friends, her confidants, and her choir. The collective energy was enough to bring the rocks crumbling down on our heads, but lucky for us (and the City of Denver) Florence held things together with the pure power of voice. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky during the entire set, but this season has seen its fair share of strong weather, and Florence + the Machine gave every drop of rain, gust of wind and bolt of lightning a run for its money. The calm before the storm just made the storm that much stronger. - See more at: http://ilistensoyoudonthaveto.com/2015/08/06/florence-the-machine-red-rocks-08-03-15/#sthash.nrdxF7Aq.dpuf

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Florence + the Machine are a power force in the UK indie scene who have conquered both sides of the Atlantic since their rise to fame following the release of 'Lungs'. Led by the charismatic and eccentric Florence Welch, the band has a reputation as one of the most exciting and energetic live acts currently working today.

As the thunder begins to roll, the machine appears onstage followed by a majestic looking Florence who confidently takes the helm and launches into the all-consuming 'Only If For A Night'. The haunting 'What The Water Gave Me' follows as Florence lifts her hands to the heavens and the audience cheer below her feet.

Before you have time to react, Florence abandons the facade of a renaissance painting brought to life and has launched herself from the stage to sing and dance 'Rabbit Heart' with the crowd. Her vocals shine through on the soulful 'Leave My Body' as she stands illuminated by a single spotlight and the restraint shown during early single 'Cosmic Love' make for an emotive moment. The finale of 'Spectrum' is a hedonistic piece of dark disco where the crowd surrender themselves to Florence's bizarre world.

Despite only having released their debut in 2009, Florence + the Machine have crafted a live show that is less a gig and more an all-consuming assault on the senses.

Florence Welch has one of the most distinctive voices of this era, and the indie rock band in which she is the lead singer is carried by this timeless vocal performance time and time again.

Opening her concert with ‘You’ve Got the Love’, Florence finds the perfect balance between a classically lyrical performance, and enthusiastic and upbeat. The blend of the band is something that comes across to the audience much more pronounced in a live performance environment. Throughout their transitions between ballads and energetic upbeat songs, they maintained their engagement with the audience, having them hooked for the entire duration. Their stamina is worth noting, as throughout the concert, their performance, both physical and vocal did not dwindle at all. The live performance topped their studio recordings.

Their 2010 nomination for Best New Artist at the Grammys was wholeheartedly deserved. Their dedication to their fans is admirable, and their endeavours to make each concert about every member of the audience is something very refreshing. Florence and the Machine set the bar extremely high for live performances, making no mistakes and topping the quality of their recorded work.

I've waited several years for Florence + The Machine to play an intimate gig near me. Suddenly, on April26th 2018 SONGKICK emailed to say just such a gig was on at Scunthorpe Baths Hall on May6th ! Wow!

Applied online via Baths Hall website, & so pleased tickets limited to 2 per person, we were all in with a chance... Feel so, so lucky to get 2x Standing, the perfect way to see her and the band. My daughter Susie & I went: she couldn't believe our good luck either.

Venue was perfect. I'd researched the playlist from Halifax, May5th, visited the old numbers + checked out the new ones, too, so I felt prepared... but I wasn't: I'd expected the atmosphere to be up close and personal, but it was so much more.

Florence hit the stage & wow! Perfect blend of old/ new, a very balanced set from a hugely professional outfit. Florence was so open & warm giving background to several numbers. She floated, danced, teased and enthralled her adoring audience. We didn't want it to stop: so much pleasure was being shared. Her voice is incredible, it blends with the music so very well. Truly, we are blessed !

An electric show of epic proportions.

While I was expecting to hear more from the upcoming album, I was still delighted to hear all of the classics as well as a few new ones. This was my first time seeing FATM live, and they most certainly didn't disappoint. Florence's vocals were so omnipotent and sharp, and the same if not better than what you hear on the record. Her free as a bird movements and seemingly infinite pool of energy were wondrous to behold. I enjoyed her interaction with the crowd as well, she seemed to bring a life to her audience that I've never seen other live artists do, personally.

The only downsides might have been to do with the venue, which took too long to get everyone seated, also there wasn't much room between people so it was all rather cramped. And the supporting act, which I didn't particularly enjoy nor could I understand very well. But those things have nothing to do with Florence + The Machine personally, so it doesn't reflect on them negatively whatsoever.

Overall, an enjoyable experience that I would repeat in a heartbeat.

I definitely recommend that you go and see Florence and The Machine if they come to your city! They are such an amazing band and they sound as good live as they do on their albums. Florence has so much stamina and tirelessly runs around onstage from side to side, looking into the eyes of as many people as she possibly can. Highlights of her show in Manchester this year were 'Rabbit Heart (Raise It Up)' when she encouraged people to get on their friend's shoulders and she ran offstage and up the steps into the lower tier seating! 'Dog Days Are Over' was a perfect finale that ended with many people leaving the concert with very little clothing on! The stage was minimal but dramatic, with a huge sparkling background, rows of spotlights and a large round moon and sun that came out from behind the background during the middle of the show. Definitely go and see them if you get the chance, you won't regret it! They're worth every penny.

Florence + The Machine @ Manchester Arena

Friday 18th September 2015

10/10. Her voice sounds the same live as it does recorded. She was a crazy ball of energy dancing and running around every inch of the stage in a flowing dress and long hair. Florence even went into the crowd on several occasions to directly connect with people (much to the dismay of her security). Her commentary between songs majorly enhanced the performance as she is adorably shy and has the most calming ethereal presence- which basically means she is a massive hippie. She encouraged everyone to hold hands and embrace and put our phones away and jump wildly with her. Her band were also excellent and the staging- white sheets, almost like sails, hanging from the ceiling which were raised up and down and had lights shone on them- and the gorgeous glitter confetti which dropped at the end added to the magical experience. Next time I will be waiting for hours before to get to the front row!! Could not recommend more!!

This was the best concert I have ever been to. That is being said after seeing a lot of them. She has so much energy, and conects to the crowd so well.

A lady had jumped on to the stage while Florence was performing 'Rabbit Heart' and the security guard went after her. Florence stopped him politely, then gave the lady a big hug. Music continued on to add to the theme of her kindness. She then went on to run through the crowd, and hug a bunch of people. She ran around, then sang a note so clearly as if she hadn't moved a step. She even asked to have every one stand up and dance which was great, because where I live, people have the tendency to just sit and watch at concerts like that. I had a blast - danced my heart out to every song, and felt as if I was on some sort of high due to the energy that she sent through the crowd. I am going to see her every time she comes to town now. For sure.

What can I say? What a fantastic evening. We got to Ally Pally really early to be one of the first in....we weren't first!. Despite the heavy rain loads of people were in the line before us. The doors opened and we all entered. Luckily, we were able to get into the hall quickly, resulting in us being centre stage, 5 from the front.

We waited and waited, feet getting tired. The support band (Three girls from Watford) came on. They were awesome.

Finally,, the moment arrived, with Flo coming on stage. The concert started with 'What the Water Wants'....it just got better and better. The whole audience were enthralled. The audience sang along to every song. The atmosphere was electric. What a talented lady and group of musicians. I go to loads of gigs and concerts. I was looking forward to seeing FTM the moist and she didn't disappoint.

The concert was awesome.

Florence Welch's presence on stage is unbelievable, her voice is more powerful than in their CDs, and she dances and sings with a lot of passion.

The concert started with "What the water gave me", and it made clear that it was going to be very good. The band has a lot of great songs, and the concert was great from start to end.

One of the best moments was when, while performing "Dog days are over", Florence asked everyone to hug each other, then to take something off and wave it in the air, and to jump as high as we could on a count of three. Everyone was jumping and dancing, and the energy that the crowd, Florence and the song transmitted was huge.

Florence and the Machine´s fans shouldn´t miss the oportunity to go to one of their concerts.

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Florence + the Machine Unveil 2022 Tour With Awesome Support Acts: Wet Leg, Arlo Parks, Japanese Breakfast, More

By Jem Aswad

Executive Editor, Music

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Florence + the Machine are set to play an extended run of headline dates later this year, kicking off September 2 in Montreal with further stops including New York’s Madison Square Garden, Los Angeles’ Hollywood Bowl and many more. One dollar from every ticket sold will benefit  Choose Love  to aid refugees worldwide.

The group has assembled a formidable array of up-and-coming support acts at select dates on the tour: Arlo Parks , Sam Fender, King Princess, Yves Tumor, Japanese Breakfast and Wet Leg will join as support on select dates throughout the tour. See full routing below.

American Express card members can purchase tickets in select markets before the general public beginning Tuesday, March 29 at 10am local time through Thursday, March 31 at 10pm local time.

The tour will be behind the group’s forthcoming fifth album “ Dance Fever ,” out May 13.  The album was produced by Florence Welch with Jack Antonoff and Dave Bayley of Glass Animals.

Additionally,  Welch will play two intimate shows this spring: April 29 in Los Angeles at the Los Angeles Theatre and May 6 at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall in New York.

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According to the announcement, Choose Love works to provide refugees and displaced people with everything from rescue boats to food and legal advice. Their work has reached over 1.8 million people and supported over 250 fast-acting community organizations across Europe, the Middle East and along the US-Mexico border.

April 29                                                Los Angeles Theatre                                  Los Angeles, CA

May 6                                        Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center                          New York, NY

September 2                                                  Place Bell                                              Montreal, QC*

September 3                                            Budweiser Stage                                          Toronto, ON*

September 7                     Huntington Bank Pavilion at Northerly Island                    Chicago, IL†

September  8                                          Xcel Energy Center                                       St. Paul, MN †

September 10                                   Pine Knob Music Theatre                                  Clarkson, MI†

September 12                                          Capital One Area                                 Washington, D.C.†

September 14                                               TD Garden                                               Boston, MA†

September 16                                    Madison Square Garden                                New York, NY†

September 20                                      Ascend Amphitheater                                    Nashville, TN‡

September 21                                  Ameris Bank Amphitheatre                             Alpharetta, GA‡

September 23                                            Amway Center                                            Orlando, FL‡

September 24                                               FTX Arena                                                  Miami, FL‡

September 27                                            Moody Center                                               Austin, TX§

September 28                         The Pavilion at Toyota Music Factory                             Irving, TX§

October 1                                                     Ball Arena                                                  Denver, CO

October 4                                                   Rogers Arena                                      Vancouver, BC**

October 6                                            Climate Pledge Arena                                       Seattle, WA†

October 7                                             Theater of the Clouds                                   Portland, OR**

October 9                                           Shoreline Amphitheatre                        Mountain View, CA†

October 12                           Cal Coast Credit Union Open Air Theatre                  San Diego, CA†

October 14                                              Hollywood Bowl                                     Los Angeles, CA

*with Arlo Parks

†with Sam Fender

‡with King Princess

• with Yves Tumor

**with Japanese Breakfast

††with Wet Leg

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Arlo Parks, Sam Fender, King Princess, Yves Tumor, Japanese Breakfast and Wet Leg will join as support on select dates.

Published on

Florence + the Machine are set to play an extended run of North American headline dates later this year, kicking off September 2 in Montreal with further stops including New York’s Madison Square Garden, Los Angeles’ Hollywood Bowl and many more. One dollar from every ticket sold will benefit Choose Love to aid refugees worldwide.

Arlo Parks, Sam Fender, King Princess, Yves Tumor, Japanese Breakfast and Wet Leg will join as support on select dates throughout the tour. See full routing below and visit Florence + The Machine’s official site for further information.

American Express Card Members can purchase tickets in select markets before the general public beginning Tuesday, March 29 at 10am local time through Thursday, March 31 at 10pm local time.

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The tour will celebrate the release of Florence Welch’s forthcoming, highly anticipated fifth album Dance Fever , out on May 13 . Florence has shared three songs from the album—“My Love,” “King” and “Heaven is Here” – all of which arrived alongside videos by the acclaimed director Autumn de Wilde with choreography by Ryan Heffington.

Additionally, Florence will play two very special, intimate shows this spring: April 29 in Los Angeles at the Los Angeles Theatre and May 6 at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall in New York—both shows sold out in seconds.

Dance Fever was recorded in London over the course of the pandemic in anticipation of the world’s reopening. It conjures up what Florence missed most in the midst of lockdown—clubs, dancing at festivals, being in the whirl of movement and togetherness—and the hope of reunions to come.

Just before the pandemic Florence had become fascinated by choreomania, a Renaissance phenomenon in which groups of people—sometimes thousands—danced wildly to the point of exhaustion, collapse and death. The imagery resonated with Florence, who had been touring nonstop for more than a decade, and in lockdown felt oddly prescient.

The image and concept of dance, and choreomania, remained central as Florence wove her own experiences of dance—a discipline she turned to in the early days of sobriety—with the folkloric elements of a moral panic from the Middle Ages. In recent times of torpor and confinement, dance offered propulsion, energy and a way of looking at music more choreographically.

Starting, as ever, armed with a notebook of poems and ideas, Florence had just arrived to New York in March 2020 to begin recording when Covid-19 forced a retreat to London. Holed up at home, the songs began to transform, with nods to dance, folk, ‘70s Iggy Pop , longing-for-the-road folk tracks a la Lucinda Williams or Emmylou Harris and more, ultimately arriving somewhere that Florence describes as “Nick Cave at the club.” Lyrically, she took inspiration from the tragic heroines of pre-Raphaelite art, the gothic fiction of Carmen Maria Machado and Julia Armfield, the visceral wave of folk horror film from The Wicker Man and The Witch to Midsommar .

Dance Fever is an album that sees Florence at the peak of her powers, coming into a fully realized self-knowledge, poking sly fun at her own self-created persona, playing with ideas of identity, masculinity and femininity, redemption and celebration.

Pre-order Dance Fever .

FLORENCE + THE MACHINE NORTH AMERICAN TOUR DATES:

April 29: Los Angeles Theatre, Los Angeles, CA May 6: Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center, New York, NY September 2: Place Bell, Montreal, QC September 3: Budweiser Stage, Toronto, ON September 7: Huntington Bank Pavilion at Northerly Island, Chicago, IL September 8: Xcel Energy Center, St. Paul, MN September 10: Pine Knob Music Theatre, Clarkson, MI September 12: Capital One Area, Washington, D.C. September 14: TD Garden, Boston, MA September 16: Madison Square Garden, New York, NY September 20: Ascend Amphitheater, Nashville, TN September 21: Ameris Bank Amphitheatre, Alpharetta, GA September 23: Amway Center, Orlando, FL September 24: FTX Arena, Miami, FL September 27: Moody Center, Austin, TX September 28: The Pavilion at Toyota Music Factory, Irving, TX October 1: Ball Arena, Denver, CO October 4: Rogers Arena, Vancouver, BC October 6: Climate Pledge Arena, Seattle, WA October 7: Theater of the Clouds, Portland, OR October 9: Shoreline Amphitheatre, Mountain View, CA October 12: Cal Coast Credit Union Open Air Theatre, San Diego, CA October 14: Hollywood Bowl, Los Angeles, CA.

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Entertainment

Florence + The Machine Announced Fall 2022 US Tour Dates

Our “king” is coming.

The world is mere months away from finally getting to hear Florence + The Machine’s long-awaited fifth studio album, Dance Fever . To gear up for its release, the musician has announced a full-blown U.S. tour in celebration of the record that’ll be kicking off this fall.

The famed singer had already confirmed a handful of U.K. and European live shows beginning in mid-April, including festival appearances at Nos Alive 2022 and Madrid’s Mad Cool Festival. She’s also set to play two standalone shows on April 29 in Los Angeles at the Los Angeles Theatre and in New York City on May 6 at Alice Tully Hall. But it seems she won’t be hitting the road in earnest until September, when she’ll kick off her North American leg in Montreal, QC on September 2 before hopping into the U.S. for shows in Chicago, St. Paul, MN, Washington D.C., Boston, MA, New York City, and more.

These won’t be modest productions — she’s taking over stadiums and amphitheaters alike, from New York’s Madison Square Garden to Los Angeles’ Hollywood Bowl.

The “King” singer will also bring on a smattering of opening acts to support her on the tour: Japanese Breakfast, King Princess, and Arlo Parks are among the star-powered musicians that will be sharing the stage during the run of dates.

The Dance Fever tour will be Florence + The Machine’s first tour in the U.S. since 2019’s High As Hope tour, so no doubt tickets will go fast. For everything you need to know about attending, including the full tour dates, location, and how to score those coveted tickets, read on.

Who’s opening the tour?

Japanese Breakfast , Arlo Parks , King Princess , Sam Fender, Yves Tumor, and Wet Leg are all scheduled to open dates on the Florence + The Machine’s Dance Fever tour. See the dates each artist will play below.

Where is Florence + The Machine playing?

The fall 2022 Dance Fever tour will take Florence + The Machine across the U.S. and to select cities in Canada. See the full tour route below.

Florence + The Machine’s 2022 North American tour dates

• April 29 — Los Angeles, CA @ Los Angeles Theatre
• May 6 — New York, NY @ Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center
• September 2 — Montreal, QC @ Place Bell *
• September 3 — Toronto, ON @ Budweiser Stage *
• September 7 — Chicago, IL @ Huntington Bank Pavilion at Northerly Island †
• September 8 — St. Paul, MN @ Xcel Energy Center †
• September 10 — Clarkson, MI @ Pine Knob Music Theatre †
• September 12 — Washington, D.C. @ Capital One Area †
• September 14 — Boston, MA @ TD Garden †
• September 16 — New York, NY @ Madison Square Garden †
• September 20 — Nashville, TN @ Ascend Amphitheater ‡
• September 21 — Alpharetta, GA @ Ameris Bank Amphitheatre ‡
• September 23 — Orlando, FL @ Amway Center ‡
• September 24 — Miami, FL @ FTX Arena ‡
• September 27 — Austin, TX @ Moody Center §
• September 28 — Irving, TX @ The Pavilion at Toyota Music Factory §
• October 1 — Denver, CO @ Ball Arena
• October 4 — Vancouver, BC @ Rogers Arena **
• October 6 — Seattle, WA @ Climate Pledge Arena †
• October 7 — Portland, OR @ Theater of the Clouds **
• October 9 — Mountain View, CA @ Shoreline Amphitheatre ††
• October 12 — San Diego, CA @ Cal Coast Credit Union Open Air Theatre ††
• October 14 — Los Angeles, CA @ Hollywood Bowl

*with Arlo Parks

†with Sam Fender

‡with King Princess

§with Yves Tumor

**with Japanese Breakfast

††with Wet Leg

How to buy tickets to Florence + The Machine’s 2022 US Tour

A presale for American Express card members kicks off Thursday, March 29 at 10 a.m. local time until Thursday, March 31 at 10 p.m. local time. Tickets go on sale to the general public on Friday, April 1 at 10 a.m. local time. Find more information on the band’s website or on Live Nation .

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Published: 2022/03/28

Florence + the Machine Confirm North American Tour 2022

Photo by Autumn de Wilde

Florence + the Machine have announced they’re scheduled to play an extended run of headline dates in North America starting later this year, in the fall. The tour will be in support of the English indie rock outfit’s forthcoming fifth album,  Dance Fever , which will release on May 13. So far, the group has shared three songs from the LP – “My Love,” “King,” and “Heaven is Here”– all of which were accompanied by videos directed by Autumn de Wilde.

The tour will kick off at the  Place Bell in Montreal on Sept. 3 and make stops at large-scale theaters and arenas, including New York’s Madison Square Garden on Sept. 16, the Ascend Amphitheater in Nashville on Sept. 20 and Portland, Ore.’s Theater of the Clouds on Oct. 7.   The final performance will fall on Oct. 14 at Los Angeles’ Hollywood Bowl.

Florence + the Machine’s tour will feature support from special guests Arlo Parks, Sam Fender, King Princess, Yves Tumor, Japanese Breakfast and Wet leg throughout select dates.

One dollar from every ticket will benefit Choose Love which aids refugees worldwide. Tickets go on sale to the general public on Tuesday, March 29 at 10 a.m. local time. Find tickets here .

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Florence + The Machine's Road To 'Dance Fever': How Agoraphobia, Motherhood And Mass Mania Shaped The New Album

With 'Dance Fever,' Florence + the Machine frontwoman Florence Welch gets more introspective than ever before and brings back her signature anthemic sound — making for a "fairytale" album that also shows growth.

In February, Florence Welch announced the May 13 release of Dance Fever — the fifth album from her six-time GRAMMY-nominated band Florence + the Machine — with a press statement describing it as "a fairytale in 14 songs." But amid the whimsical, Welch suggested that the album also offers a window into some realizations about her biological clock.

"As an artist, I never actually thought about my gender that much, I just got on with it," Welch, 35, said in the statement. "I was as good as the men, and I just went out there and matched them every time. But now, thinking about being a woman in my 30s and the future, I suddenly feel this tearing of my identity and my desires. That to be a performer, but also to want a family, might not be as simple for me as it is for my male counterparts. I had modeled myself almost exclusively on male performers, and for the first time I felt a wall come down between me and my idols as I have to make decisions they did not."

Welch has made touring the focus of her career, spending more than a year on the road after each Florence + the Machine album since their 2009 debut, Lungs . That project almost immediately launched Florence + the Machine to global success, particularly thanks to its many arena-ready anthems like " Dog Days Are Over " and a cover of The Source and Candi Staton's 1986 song " You've Got The Love ." 

Her star continued soaring with Florence + the Machine's second album, 2011's Ceremonials , which saw a thematic shift from anthemic to tragic. Leaning more toward the introspection of the group's later albums, Ceremonials was inspired by Welch's obsession with drowning and, as she told NME in 2011, "succumbing and being completely overwhelmed by something that's bigger than everything." While it still had its brighter moments, like the liberating hit "Shake It Out," the album preceded an eye-opening — and life-altering — experience on the singer's 27th birthday.  

As Welch recalled to Vogue UK in 2019, her mother made a speech at her birthday party ("a plea, really," she admitted) asking her daughter's friends to keep her out of the notorious "27 Club" — the group of troubled rock stars like Kurt Cobain, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix and more who passed at that age.

Her mother's words offered a pivotal reality check that shifted her into a new era. Welch was sober when creating and recording the two albums that followed, 2015's How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful and 2018's High As Hope . The latter marked a new era of expression in her music.

"I think I used metaphor a lot in earlier work to hide what it was that I was actually trying to say," she told NPR in 2018. "If I could, [I'd] dress up the pain or the guilt or the shame in these sort of cathedral-esque — like dress up the mess. Then when you're further away from the things you're ashamed of, and you've maybe come to a better place with them, it's really much more easy to be truthful in your music because you're not trying to hide. You're like, this is what it is. This is kind of what went down and it takes you into a different form of songwriting, I think."

Even as Welch explored new ways to express herself in her music, Florence + the Machine continued a rigorous touring schedule. With their last tour ending six months before the COVID-19 pandemic struck in March 2020, the global shutdown seemed like it could be a welcome respite from all that time on the road. Instead, it forced Welch to face her own disquietude.

"I think a lot of people think, 'Florence + the Machine! She's just gonna be lounging around in silky stuff," she told Rolling Stone UK prior to Dance Fever 's arrival. In reality, she didn't write anything for the first several months. "No, I'm gonna be a ball of anxiety, with the TV on, constantly just trying to keep out the bad thoughts. It's not gonna be fun and glamorous, I promise." 

She continued, "There's the stage, and then there's the very agoraphobic person who needs just to be in the house, you know, especially since I stopped drinking. I am very much a homebody. So, I think people come on board thinking it's gonna be really fun and exciting, but it's that sense of like, 'Oh, the public will get the good bits.' You won't. You'll get the tears."

While its title reminds of the disco-inspired TV competition from the '80s, Dance Fever 's inspiration goes back to the 17th century or even earlier. Welch's Dance Fever relates to Europe's spontaneous (and possibly psychosis-driven) mass dancing phenomenon of choreomania, a manic movement so intense that some danced until they literally died from exhaustion — and the inspiration for track three's title.

"And I am freaking out in the middle of the street/ With the complete conviction of someone who's never had anything actually really bad happen to them," Welch says in the beginning of "Choreomania." "But I am committed now to the feeling."

The copious amount of horror movies Welch watched during the pandemic also served as a source of inspiration — specifically on tracks like "Dream Girl Evil" — as she revealed to New York Times . "When I see messy or violent or terribly behaved women, especially young women, there's a liberation," she said. "To not have to try and survive by being good."

As Welch hinted in her album statement, Dance Fever lyrically dives into the specter of potential motherhood — the most overt expression coming with the lead single, "King." "We argue in the kitchen about whether to have children," she sings. "About the world ending and the scale of my ambition… I am no mother, I am no bride, I am king."

"The song is about the splitting of two desires and the agony of that," she revealed to CBS News . "I think the witchery of it is that it feels like a possession, the sudden desire for family and domesticity."  

In addition to her ticking biological clock, staying sober through the pandemic brought another realization. "I'm eight years sober and I think, even before the pandemic, my struggles with mental health were really intense," she admitted in the CBS interview. "Because, actually, what sobriety does is, you come to see yourself clearer than you ever have done before and a lot of the stuff that you drank to get away from is just there all the time."

Though she's in a vastly different place at 35 than when she was 22, Welch told Vogue UK how Dance Fever is a continuum of her first album: " Lungs with more self-knowledge," an examination of the persona she's crafted. "I'm kind of winking at my own creation. A lot of it is questioning my commitment to loneliness; to my own sense as a tragic figure." 

Even Welch's frequent collaborator Autumn de Wilde — who photographed the Dance Fever album cover and directed the videos for "King," "My Love" and "Free" — could see the shift the singer's epiphanies had created. "I started to feel like the record she was making was very honest, very raw and modern, but also rich with otherworldly fantasy," de Wilde said in the same Vogue UK interview. "I wanted to create a visual escape-hatch into an ancient fairy tale."

With Dance Fever , Welch also sought an escape-hatch of sorts from the musical instrumentation that has defined her work.

"Every album is a reaction to the last thing you made, and I was a little sick of my own [expletive], which is heavy piano," she explained to New York Times . "I missed guitars." 

And there's plenty of them on Dance Fever , whether it's an acoustic strum on "Girls Against God" or roaring electric on "Daffodil." Helping grant Welch's musical wishes were her co-producers, GRAMMY-winning producer Jack Antonoff (Taylor Swift, Fun, Bleachers), Glass Animals frontman Dave Bayley, Thomas Hull (better known as Kid Harpoon) and Thomas Bartlett (known as Doveman). Welch had previously worked with Hull and Bartlett, but it was her first experience with Antonoff and Bayley — furthering her desire to evolve while calling back to her earlier works.  

Florence + the Machine will bring Dance Fever to life with the Dance Fever Tour, which begins Sept. 2 in Canada. After two years of introspection, Welch will spend four months hitting arenas around the world, doing what she does best: dance.

"Gigs have always been my sense of spirituality," Welch told Vogue UK in 2022. "In my daily life, I am just wracked with racing thoughts and anxiety."

As she teased in an Instagram post announcing the tour, Welch is ready to forget her existential woes for a few months and, well, shake it out. "This is going to be fun," she wrote. "Go grab those Gunne Sax, my beautiful ghosts."

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Taylor Swift's 'The Tortured Poets Department' Is A Post-Mortem Autopsy In Song: 5 Takeaways From Her New Album

"There is nothing to avenge, no scores to settle once wounds have healed," Taylor Swift wrote of her new album. From grapplings with fame to ultra-personal reflections on love lost, her latest set of fountain and quill pen songs marks the end of an era.

"All’s fair in love and poetry," Taylor Swift declared when she announced her 11th studio album, The Tortured Poets Department , at the 66th GRAMMY Awards . 

Taken from the proverb "All’s fair in love and war," the pop phenom gave us a fair warning: there’s no limit to what she’ll go through to achieve her ends. 

On the freshly released The Tortured Poets Department , Taylor Swift has a few things to get off her chest — so much that it required a surprise second record, The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology , adding an additional 15 songs . The sprawling album is a masterclass in songwriting and so personal that it's analogous to performing a post mortem autopsy; The musical shapeshifter is here to exhume the tortured poets of her past and make peace with them. 

In an Instagram post , Swift called the record an anthology that reflects " events, opinions and sentiments from a fleeting and fatalistic moment in time - one that was both sensational and sorrowful in equal measure." With the release of Tortured Poets , "t here is nothing to avenge, no scores to settle once wounds have healed…our tears become holy in the form of ink on a page." 

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Taylor Swift (@taylorswift)

Describing Swift’s work as a collection of tracks about boys and break-ups has always felt underbaked and disingenuous, but much of The Tortured Poets Department is just that. In true Swiftian fashion, she plays on preconceived theories, opting to toy with the five stages of grief — denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance — after a break-up, bringing listeners along on a peregrination exploring the depths of her relationships and personal growth. 

Analyzing her feelings to craft songs is muscle memory at this point, but with every release Taylor Swift somehow does so with a refreshed and reimagined perspective. The stories she shares with her fans in TTPD might’ve made her feel like she died, but she’s a revenant no longer tortured by the whims and words of other poets.

With The Tortured Poets Department open for business, read on for five key points to consider when listening to Taylor Swift’s new album .

It's Much More Than A Break-Up Record

Although the record orbits around a break-up, The Tortured Poets Department demonstrates Swift's ability to shapeshift as a songwriter. A song about a break-up is layered, typically forcing Swift to unveil her own flaws while wearing her broken heart on her sleeve.

The fifth track on a Taylor Swift album is typically the most emotionally cutting, and "So Long London" is no exception. On the standout track, Swift views the loss of her lover and the breakdown of her relationship to Joe Alwyn through the lens of the city they once shared together. It’s a cathartic release for Swift who point-blank notes the pain they inflicted upon her and how, in turn, they ended up just as heartbroken as she is. 

The high-spirited "Down Bad" and subdued "The Smallest Man in The World" are two sides of the same coin. The former is hopeful that a love could be reignited, whereas the latter sees Swift at her grittiest, pointing the finger at her former lover. "Smallest" poses a series of questions, accusing her ex of being a spy who only wanted to get intel on her.

On piano ode "loml," Swift looks back at the "get-love-quick" schemes she first wrote about in "Why She Disappeared," a poem for reputation . The poem originally considered the death of her reputation and how its aftermath made her stronger while she was simultaneously nursing a new relationship. 

The track has a similar energy to fan favorite "All Too Well," but is even more accusatory — seemingly unlocking another level of her songwriting prowess as she teeters between seething rage and mourning with lines about picking through a "braid of lies" spewed by a partner who "claimed he was a lion" but is really a coward. While Swift is honest about never feeling a loss so deeply, she maturely accepts that the effort she put into keeping the relationship afloat was all she could do. It’s distinctly different from the battles she bravely fought in "The Great War," "Daylight" and "long story short."

She's Grappling With Fame & Owning Her Choices

That Taylor Swift struggles with her own celebrity and the public's perception is nothing new. On reputation ’s album prologue, she stated, "We think we know someone, but the truth is that we only know the version of them they have chosen to show us." 

On The Tortured Poets Department, Swift has never been more honest about her feelings towards those who claim to know better than she does. On "But Daddy I Love Him," she doubles down on these frustrations, taking aim at self-righteous "vipers" and "judgmental creeps" who condemn her choice of a lover. Swift holds nothing back, declaring "I'll tell you something about my good name/It's mine alone to disgrace."

Swift stated that her life sometimes feels like a public autopsy with people psychoanalyzing her every thought and feeling. Following the release of Midnights and her larger-than-life Eras Tour , Swift’s been in her "glittering prime" despite experiencing her long-term relationship ending and the media hysteria around it would make anyone feel the opposite. "I Can Do It With A Broken Heart" confirms fans' theories that the GRAMMY winner was indeed putting on a brave face.  

On "Clara Bow" — a song named for the silent film actress whose public life was so scrutinized that she admitted herself into a sanatorium — Swift sings "Beauty is a beast that roars/Down on all fours/Demanding, 'More.'" Again, Swift plays with the double-edged sword of fame, comparing herself to a performing circus animal — something she sings about in "Who’s Afraid Of Little Old Me?" 

Taylor Swift Gets By With A Little Help From Her Friends

Swift has always looked up to and honored the greats in her music and art, and Tortured Poets is no exception. She recruits rock icon and songwriter Stevie Nicks to help build TTPD ’s world, and Nicks penned a poem featured in Swift’s physical album. Written in Texas, the poem is "For T and me..." and tells the tale of two ill-fated lovers. (Swift also namedrops Nicks in "Clara Bow," touching on the comparisons made between Clara, Nicks and herself.)

There are two additional guest appearances on TTPD : Post Malone appears on "Fortnight" and Florence Welch of Florence + the Machine is featured on "Florida!!!" (a surprisingly toned-down lead single). Swift particularly shines when paired with Welch, and the soaring "Florida!!!" sees their intertwined vocals creating a sound as infectious as the "drug" they sing about.

J.M. Barrie’s Peter Pan inspired Swift on "cardigan" ("Tried to change the ending/Peter losing Wendy") but now the Lost Boy gets his own track on The Anthology ’s "Peter." The ever-inquisitive Swift pleads, "You said you were gonna grow up/Then you were gonna come find me" and confronts this man who wouldn’t grow up. She even puts herself in the shoes of Wendy who waited for Peter Pan to return but has grown tired of waiting.

TTPS Is All Quill And Fountain Pen Songs

A few years ago, Taylor Swift categorized her songwriting according to three writing devices: glitter gel pens for fun tracks, fountain pens for songs using modern imagery and lyrics, and quill pens for tracks with flowery, figurative language. Although devoid of the glittery gel pen songs that comprise many of Swift's hits, TTPD and its accompanying anthology are steeped in fountain and quill writing. 

Most of The Tortured Poets Department are fountain pen tracks — thanks to 2024 Producer Of The Year Jack Antonoff ’s sleek pop production and synth use. Tracks like "Fresh Out The Slammer" and "My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toys" are sharp, snappy, tongue-in-cheek tales of love affairs about to begin and coming to an end with the same sonic exuberance of past Swift & Antonoff songs, like "Out of the Woods" and "Getaway Car."

Tracks on The Anthology , mostly produced by Aaron Dessner , are stripped-back, folk-tinged quill songs brimming with sorrow and harrowing thematics and dives even deeper into her chaotic psyche. "The Prophecy" sees Swift beg to change a prophecy that has been laid out ahead of her — likely stemming from the pressure of being a global superstar when all she wants is to be loved.

This Is The End Of An Era (Or A Chapter)

To her occasional disdain, Swift's highly personal songwriting has created a global obsession with her inner life.  Although she's tired of the "public autopsy," Tortured Poets offers her time to reflect on the "events, opinions, and sentiments" over a time that was equal parts transient and transformative. 

From her growth from the country-twanged teen singer on her self-titled debut to woman who is fearless in her pursuit of happiness, love, and peace, Swift has transformed time and time again. By viewing her work in eras — or, in this case, a chapter in a book of her life — it’s clear that Swift sees this current chapter of her life coming to a close, turning the last page and no longer longing to look back. 

One could argue that Swift is an unreliable narrator, only ever presenting her side of the story. But she says that while considering the pain described on TTPS , many now-healed wounds turned out to be self-inflicted. With these stories immortalized, Taylor Swift has spoken her saddest story and is now "free of it." The tortured poets and poems will no longer take up space in this next chapter of her life.

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All Things Taylor Swift

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Taylor Swift’s New Album 'The Tortured Poets Department' Is Here: The Tracklisting, Guests, Easter Eggs & More

Just over two months after Taylor Swift announced 'The Tortured Poets Department' at the 2024 GRAMMYs, the sprawling, bracingly personal album is here. Before you open the department door, arm yourself with the following knowledge.

We’ll be wandering through this Department for the foreseeable future.

Not only has Taylor Swift unleashed an absolute maelstrom with her 16-song new album, The Tortured Poets Department ; she’s dropped a whopping 15 additional tracks via its expanded version, The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology .

Clearly, there’s an absolute treasure trove here — for Swifties and the merely Swift-curious alike. A mostly downbeat and discursive affair, The Tortured Poets Department feels like the shadow cast by the gilded, giddy, exhilarating Eras Tour , which isn’t over yet. (Which makes all the sense in the world, as she was simultaneously chipping away at the album while crisscrossing the globe.)

If you’re reading this, you’re probably bracing yourself for this long, solemn, darkly funny journey. Don’t go alone: here’s a brief breakdown of what you should know going in. (And keep checking GRAMMY.com, as there’s plenty more Taylor and Tortured Poets coming your way.)

The Tracklisting

As previously reported , here’s the standard tracklist for The Tortured Poets Department:

Side A "Fortnight" (feat. Post Malone ) "The Tortured Poets Department" "My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toys" "Down Bad"

** Side B ** "So Long, London" "But Daddy I Love Him" "Fresh Out the Slammer" "Florida!!!" (feat. Florence + the Machine )

** Side C ** "Guilty As Sin?" "Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me?" "I Can Fix Him (No Really I Can)" "Loml"

** Side D ** "I Can Do It With a Broken Heart" "The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived" "The Alchemy" "Clara Bow"

The Expanded Tracklisting

Aside from The Black Dog Edition , The Albatross Edition , The Bolter Edition , and The Manuscript Edition — which consist of the standard edition of the album with its titular bonus track — here are the additional tracks that complete The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology .

"The Black Dog"

"Imgonnagetyouback"

"The Albatross"

"Chloe or Sam or Sophia or Marcus"

"How Did It End?"

"So High School"

"I Hate It Here" "thanK you aIMee"

"I Look In People’s Windows"

"The Prophecy" "Cassandra" "Peter" "The Bolter" "Robin"

"The Manuscript"

Physical copies of The Tortured Poets Department feature an original poem by the one and only Stevie Nicks .

Titled "For T and me…," the poem starts off with "He was in love with her / Or at least she thought so / She was brokenhearted / Maybe he was too." It goes on to trace a doomed relationship — one party being "way too hot to handle" and the other "way too high to try."

Elsewhere, Post Malone lends a haunting vocal to opener and lead single "Fortnight," and Florence + the Machine elevate "Florida!!!".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FiqoZyauhdA

The lion’s share of the album was produced by Jack Antonoff ; Aaron Dessner handled a handful of tunes on the standard edition and the majority of The Anthology .

The Easter Eggs

Where do we begin? For starters, most of the songs seem to be directed at ex Matty Healy of the 1975, but Joe Alwyn and Travis Kelce seem to pop up here and there as well.

In the title track, Swift describes embracing the "cyclone" of a relationship with a partner akin to a "tattooed golden retriever." And they’d be remiss to compare themselves to Patti Smith or Dylan Thomas or any other famously tortured poet of the 20th century: "We’re modern idiots… we’re two idiots."

Elsewhere, Lucy Dacus of boygenius — and Antonoff himself — pop up ("But you tell Lucy you’d kill yourself if I ever leave / And I had said that to Jack about you / So I felt seen").

Far be it from us to speculate on exact subjects, but there are shades of depression ("You sacrificed us to the gods of your bluest days"), a betrothal that wasn’t to be ("You swore that you loved me but where were the clues? / I died on the altar waiting for the proof") and the racket of fame ("The circus life made me mean").

As usual, Swift has dumped puzzle pieces on the carpet — daring her ardent, global fanbase to start at the edges and work their way to the center. But never to this degree, across such an ocean of material.

Tortured poets — and those who fall in love with them — assemble!

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Photo: Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic

GRAMMY Rewind: Kendrick Lamar Honors Hip-Hop's Greats While Accepting Best Rap Album GRAMMY For 'To Pimp a Butterfly' In 2016

Upon winning the GRAMMY for Best Rap Album for 'To Pimp a Butterfly,' Kendrick Lamar thanked those that helped him get to the stage, and the artists that blazed the trail for him.

Updated Friday Oct. 13, 2023 to include info about Kendrick Lamar's most recent GRAMMY wins, as of the 2023 GRAMMYs.

A GRAMMY veteran these days, Kendrick Lamar has won 17 GRAMMYs and has received 47 GRAMMY nominations overall. A sizable chunk of his trophies came from the 58th annual GRAMMY Awards in 2016, when he walked away with five — including his first-ever win in the Best Rap Album category.

This installment of GRAMMY Rewind turns back the clock to 2016, revisiting Lamar's acceptance speech upon winning Best Rap Album for To Pimp A Butterfly . Though Lamar was alone on stage, he made it clear that he wouldn't be at the top of his game without the help of a broad support system. 

"First off, all glory to God, that's for sure," he said, kicking off a speech that went on to thank his parents, who he described as his "those who gave me the responsibility of knowing, of accepting the good with the bad."

Looking for more GRAMMYs news? The 2024 GRAMMY nominations are here!

He also extended his love and gratitude to his fiancée, Whitney Alford, and shouted out his Top Dawg Entertainment labelmates. Lamar specifically praised Top Dawg's CEO, Anthony Tiffith, for finding and developing raw talent that might not otherwise get the chance to pursue their musical dreams.

"We'd never forget that: Taking these kids out of the projects, out of Compton, and putting them right here on this stage, to be the best that they can be," Lamar — a Compton native himself — continued, leading into an impassioned conclusion spotlighting some of the cornerstone rap albums that came before To Pimp a Butterfly .

"Hip-hop. Ice Cube . This is for hip-hop," he said. "This is for Snoop Dogg , Doggystyle . This is for Illmatic , this is for Nas . We will live forever. Believe that."

To Pimp a Butterfly singles "Alright" and "These Walls" earned Lamar three more GRAMMYs that night, the former winning Best Rap Performance and Best Rap Song and the latter taking Best Rap/Sung Collaboration (the song features Bilal , Anna Wise and Thundercat ). He also won Best Music Video for the remix of Taylor Swift 's "Bad Blood." 

Lamar has since won Best Rap Album two more times, taking home the golden gramophone in 2018 for his blockbuster LP DAMN ., and in 2023 for his bold fifth album, Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers .

Watch Lamar's full acceptance speech above, and check back at GRAMMY.com every Friday for more GRAMMY Rewind episodes. 

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Photo:  Rachel Kupfer  

A Guide To Modern Funk For The Dance Floor: L'Imperatrice, Shiro Schwarz, Franc Moody, Say She She & Moniquea

James Brown changed the sound of popular music when he found the power of the one and unleashed the funk with "Papa's Got a Brand New Bag." Today, funk lives on in many forms, including these exciting bands from across the world.

It's rare that a genre can be traced back to a single artist or group, but for funk, that was James Brown . The Godfather of Soul coined the phrase and style of playing known as "on the one," where the first downbeat is emphasized, instead of the typical second and fourth beats in pop, soul and other styles. As David Cheal eloquently explains, playing on the one "left space for phrases and riffs, often syncopated around the beat, creating an intricate, interlocking grid which could go on and on." You know a funky bassline when you hear it; its fat chords beg your body to get up and groove.

Brown's 1965 classic, "Papa's Got a Brand New Bag," became one of the first funk hits, and has been endlessly sampled and covered over the years, along with his other groovy tracks. Of course, many other funk acts followed in the '60s, and the genre thrived in the '70s and '80s as the disco craze came and went, and the originators of hip-hop and house music created new music from funk and disco's strong, flexible bones built for dancing.

Legendary funk bassist Bootsy Collins learned the power of the one from playing in Brown's band, and brought it to George Clinton , who created P-funk, an expansive, Afrofuturistic , psychedelic exploration of funk with his various bands and projects, including Parliament-Funkadelic . Both Collins and Clinton remain active and funkin', and have offered their timeless grooves to collabs with younger artists, including Kali Uchis , Silk Sonic , and Omar Apollo; and Kendrick Lamar , Flying Lotus , and Thundercat , respectively.

In the 1980s, electro-funk was born when artists like Afrika Bambaataa, Man Parrish, and Egyptian Lover began making futuristic beats with the Roland TR-808 drum machine — often with robotic vocals distorted through a talk box. A key distinguishing factor of electro-funk is a de-emphasis on vocals, with more phrases than choruses and verses. The sound influenced contemporaneous hip-hop, funk and electronica, along with acts around the globe, while current acts like Chromeo, DJ Stingray, and even Egyptian Lover himself keep electro-funk alive and well.

Today, funk lives in many places, with its heavy bass and syncopated grooves finding way into many nooks and crannies of music. There's nu-disco and boogie funk, nodding back to disco bands with soaring vocals and dance floor-designed instrumentation. G-funk continues to influence Los Angeles hip-hop, with innovative artists like Dam-Funk and Channel Tres bringing the funk and G-funk, into electro territory. Funk and disco-centered '70s revival is definitely having a moment, with acts like Ghost Funk Orchestra and Parcels , while its sparkly sprinklings can be heard in pop from Dua Lipa , Doja Cat , and, in full "Soul Train" character, Silk Sonic . There are also acts making dreamy, atmospheric music with a solid dose of funk, such as Khruangbin ’s global sonic collage.

There are many bands that play heavily with funk, creating lush grooves designed to get you moving. Read on for a taste of five current modern funk and nu-disco artists making band-led uptempo funk built for the dance floor. Be sure to press play on the Spotify playlist above, and check out GRAMMY.com's playlist on Apple Music , Amazon Music and Pandora .

Say She She

Aptly self-described as "discodelic soul," Brooklyn-based seven-piece Say She She make dreamy, operatic funk, led by singer-songwriters Nya Gazelle Brown, Piya Malik and Sabrina Mileo Cunningham. Their '70s girl group-inspired vocal harmonies echo, sooth and enchant as they cover poignant topics with feminist flair.

While they’ve been active in the New York scene for a few years, they’ve gained wider acclaim for the irresistible music they began releasing this year, including their debut album, Prism . Their 2022 debut single "Forget Me Not" is an ode to ground-breaking New York art collective Guerilla Girls, and " Norma " is their protest anthem in response to the news that Roe vs. Wade could be (and was) overturned. The band name is a nod to funk legend Nile Rodgers , from the "Le freak, c'est chi" exclamation in Chic's legendary tune "Le Freak."

Moniquea 's unique voice oozes confidence, yet invites you in to dance with her to the super funky boogie rhythms. The Pasadena, California artist was raised on funk music; her mom was in a cover band that would play classics like Aretha Franklin’ s "Get It Right" and Gladys Knight ’s "Love Overboard." Moniquea released her first boogie funk track at 20 and, in 2011, met local producer XL Middelton — a bonafide purveyor of funk. She's been a star artist on his MoFunk Records ever since, and they've collabed on countless tracks, channeling West Coast energy with a heavy dose of G-funk, sunny lyrics and upbeat, roller disco-ready rhythms.

Her latest release is an upbeat nod to classic West Coast funk, produced by Middleton, and follows her February 2022 groovy, collab-filled album, On Repeat .

Shiro Schwarz

Shiro Schwarz is a Mexico City-based duo, consisting of Pammela Rojas and Rafael Marfil, who helped establish a modern funk scene in the richly creative Mexican metropolis. On "Electrify" — originally released in 2016 on Fat Beats Records and reissued in 2021 by MoFunk — Shiro Schwarz's vocals playfully contrast each other, floating over an insistent, upbeat bassline and an '80s throwback electro-funk rhythm with synth flourishes.

Their music manages to be both nostalgic and futuristic — and impossible to sit still to. 2021 single "Be Kind" is sweet, mellow and groovy, perfect chic lounge funk. Shiro Schwarz’s latest track, the joyfully nostalgic "Hey DJ," is a collab with funkstress Saucy Lady and U-Key.

L'Impératrice

L'Impératrice (the empress in French) are a six-piece Parisian group serving an infectiously joyful blend of French pop, nu-disco, funk and psychedelia. Flore Benguigui's vocals are light and dreamy, yet commanding of your attention, while lyrics have a feminist touch.

During their energetic live sets, L'Impératrice members Charles de Boisseguin and Hagni Gwon (keys), David Gaugué (bass), Achille Trocellier (guitar), and Tom Daveau (drums) deliver extended instrumental jam sessions to expand and connect their music. Gaugué emphasizes the thick funky bass, and Benguigui jumps around the stage while sounding like an angel. L’Impératrice’s latest album, 2021’s Tako Tsubo , is a sunny, playful French disco journey.

Franc Moody

Franc Moody 's bio fittingly describes their music as "a soul funk and cosmic disco sound." The London outfit was birthed by friends Ned Franc and Jon Moody in the early 2010s, when they were living together and throwing parties in North London's warehouse scene. In 2017, the group grew to six members, including singer and multi-instrumentalist Amber-Simone.

Their music feels at home with other electro-pop bands like fellow Londoners Jungle and Aussie act Parcels. While much of it is upbeat and euphoric, Franc Moody also dips into the more chilled, dreamy realm, such as the vibey, sultry title track from their recently released Into the Ether .

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• 1 Florence + The Machine's Road To 'Dance Fever': How Agoraphobia, Motherhood And Mass Mania Shaped The New Album
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• 4 GRAMMY Rewind: Kendrick Lamar Honors Hip-Hop's Greats While Accepting Best Rap Album GRAMMY For 'To Pimp a Butterfly' In 2016
• 5 A Guide To Modern Funk For The Dance Floor: L'Imperatrice, Shiro Schwarz, Franc Moody, Say She She & Moniquea

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Florence + the Machine review – a rock’n’roll fever dream

Accor Arena, Paris Florence Welch darts and whirls around a stage that Miss Havisham would be proud of as her lockdown album Dance Fever powers a celebration of being back on tour

E ven before singer Florence Welch materialises on the first night of her European tour, her arrival is foreshadowed by her set. At the back of the stage is a table – or possibly an altar – dressed with candelabras covered in gauzy white fabric, like a giant wedding cake made by spiders. (The “rotting grandeur” of Miss Havisham’s house in Dickens is very much a reference.)

Half a dozen large chandeliers trail more frayed white chiffon, their opulence laced with a hint of decay and implicit danger. (What if they fell?) Since her debut LP, 2009’s Lungs , launched Florence + the Machine on to the international scene, Welch has mixed floaty maximalism with intimations of catastrophe. The drowned Ophelia was a major reference of her 2011 album Ceremonials . Many of Welch’s vast, lush songs since have echoed with iterations of her anxiety or brutal self-questioning. Dog Days Are Over , still a keystone of Welch’s sets, repeatedly warns that scary horses are coming and it’s best to run.

“Did I build this ship to wreck?” she wonders on the track of the same name . It could apply to a relationship or a career. Particularly powerful tonight, Big God finds Welch singing from the gut about pulling mountains down to the sea in a grandiose fit of heartbreak.

Eventually, Welch emerges as though out of the ether, clad in a floaty, off-white Gucci gown, all bat-wings and ruches, to unfurl yet another album imbued by disaster. Many in this sold-out Paris crowd are dressed for the occasion in capes, headdresses and distressed ball-wear. Released in May, Dance Fever is Florence + the Machine’s excellent lockdown record, one in which Welch, in reliably over-dramatic fashion, blames herself for Covid.

Quietly, internally, she had wished for a less punishing touring schedule. In reply, a pandemic shut down the world. Songs such as Girls Against God find Welch raging at the almighty for shuttering her churches – the arenas Florence + the Machine swiftly found to be their natural home. Lockdown found her regretting that wish, watching horror films and vacuuming (she was “Florence and the fucking Hoover,” she joked to Vogue ).

But Dance Fever isn’t just about the live music shutdown. It’s an album about performance, particularly female performance. Other songs weigh up “the scale of my ambition” and how to square that with the daunting prospect of children.

The title of Dance Fever takes its inspiration from the phenomenon of choreomania – public fits that followed the plague in Europe in which people would dance themselves into a frenzy. Like so many things in Welch’s cosmology, dancing feels like a double-edged thing. Tonight, the singer invites everyone to cut loose, in celebration at having come through two years of fear. (Here she’s in good company: Beyoncé has an album in that vein.)

Free tackles Welch’s anxiety – with their hands, she and the crowd vividly mime how it “picks me up” and “puts me down” – but asserts she is happiest whirling about or running pell-mell from one side of the stage to the other, her mighty voice never registering the effort. (The emotional climax is a wordless bellow.) She even makes it down a narrow passageway all the way to the mixing desk, caressing palms as she goes. Remarkably, considering how carnivorous a crowd can be, her fans are gentle with her.

As the set enters its closing heat, Welch mischievously asks the audience for “a human sacrifice”. No one is actually dragged up on to the white altar. What Welch wants is for people to be offered up to sit on each other’s shoulders.

Human sacrifice, though, remains very much a theme. A few songs on Dance Fever reflect on Welch’s reliance on alcohol in the early days of the band. Morning Elvis tells of missing a visit to Graceland because she was unable to leave a hotel bathroom. (She thinks Elvis would have understood.)

And yet here Florence + her Machine are again, going out “to war to find material to sing”. Many records, particularly those of female artists, register no little ambivalence about being caught in the cycle of fraught creativity, releasing and touring. Working for the Knife , a key track from US singer-songwriter Mitksi’s Laurel Hell album, is just one that wonders gloomily if grinding toil is sensible, be that creative work or a 9-to-5.

On tonight’s evidence, the conclusion remains: yes. Moreover, the song Choreomania moots the possibility that Welch is in fact a rock star, rather than some swooning pre-Raphaelite muse. As she punches the air, hammers her chest on her percussive tracks and races Mick Jagger for the onstage step count record, it’s hard not to agree. Despite all the Gucci on tap, Welch doesn’t indulge in a single costume change all evening, as many female pop divas might. She just sweats the one frock into submission.

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Florence + the Machine Dazzles at Intimate Los Angeles Show: Recap, Photos + Setlist

The group's 2022 tour has kicked off with a group of underplay shows

Florence Welch is almost always moving when she performs. With the exception of the occasional sip of water or a dramatic pose at the end of each song, the bewitching British singer-songwriter is constantly on her feet, her body nimbly maximizing as much space on stage as humanly possible, all while singing with unshakable gusto. Many were lucky enough to both witness Welch’s captivating moves and hear her signature guttural mezzo-soprano alongside her backing band The Machine at the 2,000-capacity Los Angeles Theatre on Friday evening (April 29th), the first stop on her 2022 North American tour .

Of course, Welch’s flailing, skipping, twirling, and air punching served more than just a function of spectacle. Florence + the Machine’s upcoming record Dance Fever (out May 13th) drew inspiration from choreomania , a social phenomenon dating back to medieval Europe, where people danced erratically until they collapsed from exhaustion.

One theory suggests choreomania occurred to relieve stress from Black Plague-induced mass hysteria and social upheaval. Welch’s focus on resilience through movement not only resonates with current cultural anxieties around the pandemic, but also recognizes the unique catharsis dancing provides in getting us through our worst experiences.

Florence + the Machine, photo by Lillie Eiger

That recognition, however, would prove to be somewhat of a challenge in a live setting, as the venue’s narrow seating arrangements limited everyone’s ability to bust a move. Luckily, Welch didn’t need to do much to get people on their feet. When the lights dimmed, a feral roar from the crowd reverberated throughout the grand, palatial auditorium.

The bandmembers entered one by one before Welch herself emerged like the ghost of a 1970s rock ‘n’ roll goddess, gliding on stage in a puffy-sleeved, sheer black dress. As everyone stood and cheered, Welch launched into two Dance Fever tracks, the clamorous, dramatic “Heaven is Here” and the sultry, rousing “King,” the lyrics of which many concertgoers already knew.

From then on, the show maintained a snappy momentum thanks to Welch’s commanding stage presence. Welch helped lead the crowd in a stomp-clap rhythm during “What Kind of Man” from 2015’s How Big How Blue How Beautiful . Like an enchanting sorceress casting a spell, she passionately encouraged everyone to jump up and down while singing the exceptional Lungs deep cut “Kiss With A Fist.”

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9 May 2022 12:27 PM

Florence + the Machine: beyond the fairy tale

Florence welch has hit her stride, yet finds herself at a crossroads. as she releases her fifth album dance fever, she talks relationships, avoiding fame, and managing anxiety with rolling stone uk.

By Tara Joshi

It’s hard not to think about the deceptive nature of mythology when it comes to Florence Welch.

There is ethereal international pop icon Florence + the Machine , the emphatic, larger-than-life music persona that has shaped much of Welch’s life since her late teens, singing epic, quasi-spiritual songs that brim with yearning, euphoria, imagination, musings on the cosmos, or deep-seated sadness.

Then there’s the 35-year-old woman sitting mid-morning in a pub in leafy Camberwell, south London, near where she lives, sipping on an espresso and talking drolly about mundane things like cleaning and watching too much TV. This Florence is an anxious overthinker with mild agoraphobia, who forces herself to do a daily morning coffee run to a nearby café, dressed down in her pyjamas and a hoodie.

Admittedly, this Florence still exudes plenty of whimsy. The first time we meet on the set of her cover shoot, she is bounding and drifting between rooms, long auburn hair cascading behind her as she sings Be the Cowboy -era Mitski songs to herself. She laughs in loud ripples that echo across the room.

Today, she is wearing a floaty, forest-green dress with panels of white lace. Her arms and hands are a sketchbook of tattoos, with fingers covered in intricate gold vintage rings and nails bearing chipped pale-pink polish. She speaks about poems, Zadie Smith essays and tarot cards, and sometimes to illustrate a point she will burst into song or emphatically yell. For all her dreamy nature, she has a quiet self-awareness that makes her seem of this Earth after all.

“I’m such a mix of actually being quite a logical, practical person and then also being completely away with the fairies,” she laughs. “But on some level, I think you would think that I’m more woo-woo than I am.”

“I’m such a mix of being quite a logical, practical person and then also being completely away with the fairies. But on some level, I think you would think I’m more woo-woo than I am” — Florence Welch

Florence + the Machine’s fifth album, Dance Fever , is about to arrive. It’s her first since 2018’s High as Hope , which — along with its 2015 predecessor How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful — saw her move into more literal lyrical territory, exploring more obviously personal subject matter. Her earlier work was woven with sparkling tales of looking glasses and the sea, but on High as Hope , which came after Florence’s sobriety, she wrote in raw terms about stark realities such as her eating disorder (on ‘Hunger’ she offers the line: “ At seventeen, I started to starve myself / I thought that love was a kind of emptiness ”).

When Dance Fever was first announced via her Instagram in March, she used the caption , “A fairy tale in 14 songs.” With regal artwork and vast, glimmering tracks topped with formidable vocals that seem to narrate on monsters and kings, it’s a descriptor that takes us back to the early days of Florence. But this is a collection that speaks to all manner of anxieties, from shared experiences such as ageing, womanhood, the fragility of the planet and the pandemic to more intimate musings on her career, relationships, loneliness; simply existing. And unlike most fairy tales, it’s somewhat unclear whether there’s a happy ending.

“How I make sense of the world is to turn it into myth and fable,” she shares as the spring light pours in through the tall window next to us, framing her like a portrait. “Turning people and things into characters… I think that’s how I process everything.”

She is aware that this is something people do to her, too: her fans, the media, and even new romances. “I think a lot of people think, ‘Florence + the Machine! She’s just gonna be lounging around in silky stuff.’ No, I’m gonna be a ball of anxiety, with the TV on, constantly just trying to keep out the bad thoughts,” she starts to laugh, not entirely bitterly. “It’s not gonna be fun and glamorous, I promise — there’s the stage, and then there’s the very agoraphobic person who needs just to be in the house, you know, especially since I stopped drinking. I am very much a homebody. So, I think people come on board thinking it’s gonna be really fun and exciting, but it’s that sense of like, ‘Oh, the public will get the good bits.’ You won’t. You’ll get the tears.”

On Dance Fever , she turns this way of thinking inwards. Through its mystical and epic storytelling born from the vast kingdom of her imagination, the album seeks to confront the dichotomy between the desires and needs of Florence Welch, the human, versus Florence Welch, the creator and myth.

“It was just full alert all the time, there was nothing to tap into. And so as soon as I pressed a note on the piano, I just burst into tears. I didn’t have words, I only had grief ” — Florence Welch

A mysterious ‘dancing plague’ occurred throughout medieval and early modern Europe, with sometimes thousands of people congregating and manically beginning to dance for no discernible reason. Some commentators suggested that it was a ‘mass madness’ brought about by people trying to relieve themselves through periods of stress, trauma and poverty. Dance Fever takes its name from this phenomenon, known as ‘choreomania’ (also the title of a skittering, frantic track on the record).

In some ways, it’s a concept that runs the gamut of Florence’s oeuvre: dance as an uncontrollable, restorative ritual to shake off the blues. “The summation of the record is probably that line ‘And when I’m dancing, I’m free,’” she says, “It’s relentless, and then I’ll dance and it will be like, ‘Oh my GOD, it went away!’ And it’s about wanting to give other people that feeling, too.”

There is something especially meaningful about the dance floor being a healing space. In February 2020, Florence was in New York City, recording with renowned producer, songwriter and artist in his own right, Jack Antonoff (she’d wanted to work with him off the back of her love of Melodrama and Norman Fucking Rockwell! ). The initial sessions were going well, until her mum called and told her she should come home for a bit — Florence acquiesced, because, like most of the world, she figured that the Covid-19 pandemic could surely only last a month or so. It would be like “a snow day” from work, she and Antonoff agreed. 

The reality, of course, was very different. Being forced to pause for so long had not been on Florence’s agenda after more than a decade of constant movement. “I need the movement to move it out of myself,” she confesses. “If I sit in the sadness, it doesn’t go away.” And so, lockdown was understandably not ideal.

For Florence, songwriting had always been about turning the individual experience into a shared one. “But at that point, it was such a collective experience… How could you make that individual? What would I even have to say about this?” Her creative process had been about tapping into her subconscious, but at that point it was absent: “It was just full alert all the time, there was nothing to tap into. And so as soon as I pressed a note on the piano, I just burst into tears. I didn’t have words, I only had grief.”

Six months later, she managed to write ‘ Heaven Is Here ’, a stomping spell of a song which she describes as “a purge” after such a long period of not being able to get anything out. Florence had wanted a break from touring, but being faced with the very real possibility that maybe live music wouldn’t come back was overwhelming: “I can be overdramatic at the best of times, but imagining a world without live music? I really don’t know if I could live in that world.”

At times, Florence can be quite fatalistic — as explored on album track ‘Cassandra’, she says that part of her felt like the pandemic was her being punished for any prescience in her work, and for wanting to rest for a while. (She then laughs at the innate ego of this: “‘Why is this happening to me ?!’ Like, no, it’s happening to everyone.”)

“How I make sense of the world is to turn it into myth and fable. Turning people and things into characters… I think that’s how I process everything” — Florence Welch

When she met up with Dave Bayley from Glass Animals soon after writing ‘Heaven Is Here’, it was with the intent of making dance music — songs that specifically had the live experience in mind. Finally, the record she had feared was lost began to make sense again — but now there was a core of grief and fragility that underpinned pre-existing themes of introspection and her relationship with creativity.

The result is that Dance Fever is full of songs that offer cathartic release: some are hefty dance-floor-ready tracks, others have a more restrained, gospel warmth. It’s an album that finds Florence pondering her agency in the hellish fairy tale of her own life: whether she should be taking medication for her mental health, catastrophising, questioning her happiness, relationships, mortality. Her songs are “like children begging to be born”.

It’s a record that asks how long it will be before the crowd turns on their dream girl: could people truly love her with all of her very human flaws?

Stardom came quickly to a chaotic young Florence. Though she had various musical endeavours in the 00s, it was her work with her friend, keyboardist Isabella Summers, that began to garner attention. Initially performing as Florence Robot and Isa Machine, the pair had started making music together in 2006, playing shows and uploading demos, and quickly attracting the hype of music blogs and MySpace users alike. By 2008, Florence + the Machine was signed to Island Records, and in 2009 they won what was then something of a music industry kingmaker, the Brits Critics’ Choice Award.

Florence had been anxious since childhood, but her self-doubt and fear was exacerbated by that late-00s era when her face was suddenly everywhere, and she was being scrutinised for how she looked. She started to measure her worth by her weighing scale, caking herself in make-up and fancy clothes, hoping she would fit into this bewitching new world of red carpets. That period still hangs over her creative decisions. “When I first put music out, my life completely upturned,” she says. “And so now, every time I put something out, I think I still have in my head: ‘is my life going to be completely flipped?’”

Florence talks about fame as an almost separate, uncontrollable entity that happened to her: “Sometimes fame does feel like loss, like a little bit of your humanity got lost along the way. All I ever wanted was to be a singer, but you’re so naive as to the costs that will come with it. How do you retain your humanness?”

“Sometimes fame does feel like loss, like a little bit of your humanity got lost along the way. All I ever wanted was to be a singer, but you’re so naive as to the costs that will come with it. How do you retain your humanness?” — Florence Welch

Camberwell is a location that has kept her at least somewhat grounded through it all. We are around the corner from the hospital where Florence was born; near the house she grew up in; down the road from her current home; not far from where her sister lives. “I think there is something about the consistency of it, when your life has changed so much,” she tells me. “I’m a creature of habit.”

The daughter of Nick and Evelyn Welch (the former an advertising executive and the latter a professor of Renaissance studies), Florence was one of three siblings. Her parents were relatively lax, and her relationship with them and general upbringing is something she drily wonders about. “My therapist always keeps trying to pull me back to talk about my childhood, and I’m like,” she starts laughing and yells, “‘ It can’t be that simple! I’m complex ! I’m different ! It’s not about my mum! I’m gonna be the one person who it’s not about their mother!’”

As a pre-teen Florence fell in love with skate punk boys, deciding to emulate her crushes and become a skate punk, too. “That was back when music wasn’t just music, it was what you wear, it’s who you fancy, it’s your friends,” she starts cackling. “You dress in the baggy jeans and then discover skater boys don’t actually fancy skaters, they fancy girls who dress really hot. As though he would see how long my wallet chain was and fall in love!” She even briefly formed a rock band called Toxic Cockroaches, though admits that they got no further than deciding on the band name. “It was music that had a whole identity to it, and a scene,” she says, conceding that it was weird that she was going to NOFX gigs at 13.

She mentions repeatedly that she didn’t feel beautiful as a teenager. I recount a line from her 2018 book of lyrics, poetry and diary-style entries, Useless Magic : “I could fall in love with a plastic bag if it paid me some attention.” She starts guffawing, “I know!” She sighs, “It’s really funny, you can have everyone applauding you, but a handsome stranger giving you compliments… There’s a core of abandonment there that if someone is making me feel seen or pouring love into me, I’m just like ‘ I’ve just met you but I’m wildly in love with you !’”

Surely, though, given her profession, she is hardly lacking attention and compliments? “People think that, but it’s more in your daily life that people want to keep you grounded,” she says. “So your regular friends and family are more like, ‘We still want you to know that you’re a really frustrating individual!’” She continues, “I think that there’s a core of me that’s still really susceptible to charm, because there’s the little girl who never thought anyone fancied her. I didn’t have a boyfriend the whole time at school. And I was just so desperate to be seen and be loved.”

Perhaps her teen years lacked romance, but they still hold significantly more colourful stories than most. A 15-year-old Florence would attend student parties at Camberwell College of Arts, meeting the people who would give her what she describes as “a musical education” (aka introducing her to Joy Division). She also drunkenly barged her way into infamous DIY dance-punk band Test Icicles’ dressing room in 2005, her first meeting with another music ingenue, Dev Hynes. It was only a little later that they would actually become friends, writing together and even occasionally performing in each other’s groups.

“Actual intimacy, commitment? I really struggle with it. You can spend your whole life craving love, and when someone gives you real, wholesome love, you’re like, ‘Why would you do that? I’m disgusting!’“ — Florence Welch

“Dev took me on my first tour as a backing singer for Lightspeed Champion, and I was just jumping around and singing way too loud,” she recalls with booming laughter. In 2007, the pair recorded a cover of the entirety of Green Day’s album Nimrod in Hynes’ kitchen under the name ‘Team Perfect’ — and yes, you can still find the recordings on YouTube .

I suggest this is all somewhat at odds with how people might perceive Florence now, as an effeminate, pretty, art-pop auteur. She starts shout-singing Limp Bizkit’s ‘Break Stuff’ — “ Everything is fucked / everybody sucks! ” — and laughs. “If you look at earlier pop-punk, it’s simple chords, energy, pace, relentlessness, and I do think it has influenced me. It’s simplicity, but also engendering feeling… Even after I found my more romantic aesthetic, I think I learned a lot about crowd control from those punk gigs in Camberwell, and how aggressive you had to be to do that.”

Florence has always been known for a wild abandon in her live shows — running through the crowd like she’d never stop, climbing up on the rigging. “I think it’s where I can exorcise a lot of frustrations and feelings, and be big and scary,” she says. “My performance style is probably a lot more based on the masculine than the feminine and moving between those two. So, when people ask things like, ‘What’s it like being a female headliner?’, I’m kind of like… ‘I don’t really know?’ It always felt far more fluid to me than that.”

In 2017, Claire Dederer wrote a piece for The Paris Review : ‘What do we do with the art of monstrous men?’ In the midst of #MeToo ripping through Hollywood, she picked apart the work of known abusers but also asked a question of herself, positing that to be a successful artist, “When it comes to necessary ingredients, [you need] selfishness. A book is made out of small selfishnesses. The selfishness of shutting the door against your family. The selfishness of ignoring the pram in the hall […] I have to wonder: maybe I’m not monstrous enough.”

I put it to Florence that this is an overarching theme of Dance Fever — creativity as a selfish monster that is much harder to commit to with the timelines and expectations of nurture placed on womanhood. On the searing ‘ King ’ — the album’s first single — she refrains, unfaltering: “ I am no mother, I am no bride, I am king. ”

She agrees with the assessment: “The biggest relationship in my life has always been the song itself. A lot of this record is about unpacking that relationship with the creative entity and being like, ‘Are you actually a force for fucking good? Or are you actually demonic?’” Florence used to think her songs were ‘angels’ but questioned it when — after intending to finally settle down for a while following the fourth record — she felt the songs calling to her again. “‘ No, you’re coming with us!’ ” she yelps. “As you get older, what you are giving up for that becomes more and more. It feels more like a force that’s dragging you away from something… but you kind of enjoy it? And so, it feels much more Faustian than it ever did before.”

“A lot of this record is about unpacking that relationship with the creative entity and being like, ‘Are you actually a force for fucking good? Or are you actually demonic?‘“ — Florence Welch

The decision to do another album and book another tour felt like an admission to herself that, once again, she wasn’t going to start a family any time soon. “It felt so hard — like, ‘Am I cold? What kind of creature am I?’ There was a point where I could have decided not to, and I still decided to book it. And maybe it’s the way we’ve all been programmed, but I do wonder: ‘When is my sudden need to bring life into the world, and will that overtake me until I need to do it?’ I would really like a family at some point, but the creative thing is so strong.”

We talk about hitting your 30s, and the jarring realisation that your peers having children is no longer an alien or undesired thing (and she mentions a Reductress meme about a 29-year-old ‘teen mom’ ). “The way that it feels to me now, which maybe is creeping through on this album, is that it feels like a slow, creeping overtake. It feels like a little ghost — I feel haunted by the idea of children, rather than feeling like ‘I’m ready!’” she pauses. “But then, it’s this dread, that maybe you’re not ready now, but what if you then get to the place where you’re sure and you’ve missed it? Time isn’t on your side, and that kind of rage is what the scream at the end of ‘King’ is — I’m not saying I don’t want these things; I just want more time! But… time isn’t like that. You can’t escape it.”

In 2018, on the final track on High as Hope , ‘No Choir’, Florence suggests that contentment makes for mundane subject matter (“ And it’s hard to write about being happy, ’cos the older I get, I find that happiness is an extremely uneventful subject / And there would be no grand choirs to sing / No chorus could come in / About two people sitting doing nothing ”).

Four years later, I wonder if she frames happiness differently: whether she can accept love and happiness without doubting it, without assuming it will negatively impact on her ability to create art. She takes a moment to respond, twisting her long red hair up into a bun. “I think part of it is long-term recovery from eating disorders,” she begins. “So much of that is rejecting nourishment — ‘I don’t deserve to eat, I don’t deserve to feel comfortable.’ Anorexic thinking is still part of my life, even though the anorexia itself isn’t. And so, with emotional intimacy, which is kind of like being fed, sometimes you can be like, ‘No, that’s too much, I don’t need it.’”

One of the demos which didn’t make it onto the album has the lyric: “ Learning how to let yourself be happy is the hardest part / Learning how to let yourself be loved? / Jesus, where to start? ”. In part, Florence thinks she hacked her brain by giving this intimacy to her listeners instead. “Being intimate on such a grand scale is such a safe way to do it,” she says, “But actual intimacy, actual commitment? I really struggle with it. You can spend your whole life craving love, and when someone gives you real wholesome love, loving the real you, you’re like, ‘Why would you do that? I’m disgusting!’”

Of course, it’s even more complicated when your life’s work has been creating this big monument to yearning. Florence Welch is deeply self-aware as she smiles. “I’m trying to get over myself as this tragic figure who can’t do love,” she says, wryly. “I’m like, ‘No, that’s part of my mythology, maybe I need that pain for my songs! My songs are the things that have really been there for me!’ But how committed am I to my own loneliness?”

There’s a line on Dance Fever where Florence sings, “ I thought that I was here with you, but it was always just an empty room. ” The ‘you’ in question is that creative entity that has shaped Welch’s life; the angels and demons pulling her along to make another song. “You know, I think I’m finally alone with my creativity in my space that I’ve made in exactly the way I want to see the world,” she sighs. “But really, I’m just sitting in a house alone.”

Taken from the June/July 2022 of Rolling Stone UK.  Buy it here.

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Florence Welch on Sobriety, Embracing Loneliness and Loving Patti Smith

By Kory Grow

It’s the day before Florence Welch embarks on the North American leg of her current tour, and she’s making the most of her time in Vancouver. This morning, strangely, she went to a museum exhibit that was all about cabins. “I grew up with a Little House on the Prairie fetish,” she explains with an embarrassed laugh. “I was obsessed. I lived in South London, so there were no prairies. I had a little dress, and I remember laying a ‘river’ of towels down and my bunk bed was the log cabin. My mother was like, ‘What are you doing?'” She laughs harder.

In conversation, Welch is much more lighthearted than she is in song. The lyrics of her latest Florence and the Machine album — the ornate and intimate pop opus, High as Hope — read like diary entries. In its 10 songs, she tackles eating disorders, meeting people on ecstasy and finding the middle ground between happiness and depression. But off the mic, the auburn-haired 32-year-old, speaks in a lilting soprano, laughs plenty and has an endearing self-effacing quality that you might not expect from a multiplatinum artist. She’s four years sober, she’s managing her social anxiety as best she can and she considers herself strong even when her lyrics suggest otherwise.

She even thinks she could make a go of cabin life. “I could if I had my phone,” she says, laughing. “I think the whole point is that you don’t have a phone, but weirdly I did have an ex-boyfriend who was like, ‘I think that you would be pretty good at survival. You have a weird dogged determination.’ I’m afraid of lots of things. When it comes to actually being really scared, I have a strange bravery.”

What are your biggest fears? I’m afraid of flying. There have been so many kind stewardesses who have held my hand during turbulence, and I had to write them letters just to say, “Thank you.” And when I get back from tour, I can be a bit agoraphobic. When you allow yourself to be that vulnerable in front of so many people, it then becomes this weird thing of just walking out on the street and one person looking at you becomes this extreme thing you can’t handle. I can get a little bit edgy about going out, which makes me a super fun person to date [ laughs ].

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Did you feel that way before you were famous? That oversensitivity definitely was there. I don’t think it was helpful for a super-sensitive person to become famous. I’m always saying to my manager, “I just don’t want to get any more famous than this. OK?” She’s like, “It’s not gonna happen now if it hasn’t happened already.”

How do you handle obsessive fans? I’ve had kids come to my house, but they’re always really sweet and wearing a Florence shirt and a fringy jacket. At first, I’m like, “Ugh, dude. Maybe this isn’t OK.” They want to talk about art history or whatever. I try to explain, “I love you and I appreciate the passion, but I need to work, and I need a safe space to just sit and write and think. I don’t think you’re gonna murder me, so do you want to have this book?” And I end up giving them a book.

How would you describe your mood when you’re working? A lot of it happens on the move, ’cause I travel so much. It’s like looking out a window and thinking about when I’m really sad or feel bereft about something. I get a strange wave of existential angst. It’s so big I have to call my mom and dad and be like, “What does it all mean? I don’t understand .” And they’re actually so used to be now they’re like, “You need to lighten up.” Also, my dad is like, “That is being human. You don’t understand. This is what it is.” I was like, “Ugh, you’re not being helpful.”

You recently got a tattoo that says, “Always Lonely.” Why would you want that on your body? Oh, ’cause I was super sad. Mixing High as Hope was a really lonely time in my life. I was in New York, and I had just gone through a breakup — one of those sad ones where it’s not very dramatic: You’re trying to do what’s best for both of you. You’re just getting on with stuff, which is oddly lonely in itself. I was thinking about the end of this relationship and “Why do I feel like the album comes first before everything? Are you perpetuating your own loneliness?” The closest relationship I’ve had for my whole life is with my music. Also, I guess, I thought it was funny.

On High as Hope’s “Hunger,” you sing, “At 17, I started to starve myself.” Did your family support you writing about your eating disorder? My sister was like, “What are you doing? Are you OK? You haven’t spoken about this even with Mom, and you’ve put it in a pop song? What’s wrong with you?” I was like, “Yeah, I don’t know what I’m doing.” But it opened up a lot of stuff in my family that was good in the end. I did sit down and talk it through with my mom. But it’s funny: With English people, you have the talk and then everyone just carries on, just like, “OK, that’s dealt with. We put that in the drawer and we go on.”

At what age do you feel you were done with the eating disorder? It’s not an overnight thing. It’s funny ’cause it’s one of the most insidious things you can have. I have a healthy relationship with my body now more than I ever did before, but it took me a long time. And it stays with you in really weird ways. So it’s hard to say, “When did you overcome it?” Because you would have overcome some of the behavior a long time ago but the head stuff, it takes a while. It comes back in really strange ways, which I was looking at in this record. It’s very hard to accept love. If you’ve been denying yourself nourishment in some way, you also have a tendency to deny yourself emotional nourishment.

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You’re sober now. When is the last time you had a drink? February the 2nd, four years ago. Being an extreme drinker was a huge part of my identity. Music and alcohol are sort of my first two loves. When I stopped, there was this sense that I was letting some ghost of rock history down that I just couldn’t cope anymore. It was monumental. It wasn’t like, “I want to be healthy and I need a change of pace.” It was like, “I’m going to die. I need to stop.”

Did a doctor tell you that? Lots of people told me I needed to stop [ laughs ]. One time, I told a friend I went to this spa, this retreat, and this lady in a white coat told me I should stop drinking. And she was like, “Was that a doctor?” I was like, “I thought it was a spa.” [ Laughs ]. But with quitting, I could have maybe carried on physically, but psychologically, drinking and drugs made me really depressed. I got so tired of how repetitive the hangovers felt. Once you’ve gone into the zone where it’s just tiring and you’re not having fun anymore, it was beyond me.

So it was a realization. Kind of a realization but also sheer exhaustion. I’d been on tour since [2009’s] Lungs , straight through to [2011’s] Ceremonials . I finally took a year off to relax and it was not relaxing because I didn’t have any reason to stop drinking. It was the most un-relaxing year of all time. Also, I was in a deep, romantic obsession with somebody who was really sane who wanted nothing to do with me. I had always been with people who were just up for my madness, and then someone was like, “I’m not up for this.” I’m like, “Why?! Why?!” Like drunk and yelling, and they’re like, “This . Because of this!” That experience was everything that went into [2015’s] How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful . It was like Dante’s Inferno and Purgatory . It was really bad.

What’s your biggest indulgence now? Vintage clothes, books and I drink so much coffee.

Are you good at getting rid of old books? Yeah. Do you do the thing where you go to people’s houses and go straight to their bookshelves and secretly, silently judge them on their book choices? I have such a fear of somebody doing that to me, so I keep mine really well curated.

You have a song on your new album called “Patricia,” about Patti Smith , and you call her your “North Star.” Why is that? When I was making High as Hope , I was thinking about how to live creatively without chaos. Her writing was like a blueprint. She seems to bring such reverence to the act of living that I find so inspiring. I could just read her write about her morning coffee for pages.

I bumped into her at Omen in New York. I’m so obsessed with her; I already know that she loves that restaurant, so that’s why I go there. I saw her and was like, “Oh, my God. Now I’m literally stalking this woman. I had this sense of shame, like, “It’s too real.” But the song had just come out, and she’d sent me a really nice message. She was so kind and sweet. She has this luminous beauty. She’s like an angel, and she took my hand and I just felt so shy. She was like, “I feel like I know you already.” I felt like the kid who came to my house one time. I was like, “Oh, this is super real now. This is real.” It was magical.

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Florence Welch reveals emergency surgery amid tour cancellations: 'It saved my life'

Florence Welch has revealed she underwent life-saving surgery that forced her to cancel shows this past week.

On Sunday, the Florence + the Machine singer took to Instagram to apologize to fans about cancellations at Zurich Openair and Rock en Seine festivals in Europe.

"I'm so sorry that I had to cancel the last couple shows," Welch wrote. "I had to have emergency surgery for reasons I don’t really feel strong enough to go into yet, but it saved my life."

She continued by saying that she'll return to the stage Sept. 1 for a performance at Meo Kalorama festival in Lisbon, before closing out her Dance Fever tour Sept. 2 in Malaga, Spain. "Dance Fever," released last summer, is the fifth album from indie-rock band Florence + the Machine.

Interview: Florence Welch shares how anxiety came with her sobriety as she and the Machine embark on tour

"Suffice to say I wish the songs were less accurate in their predictions," Welch said. "But creativity is a way of coping, mythology is (a) way of making sense. And the dark fairytale of 'Dance Fever,' with all its strange prophecies, will provide me with much-needed strength and catharsis right now."

Welch, 36, previously postponed dates on the band's U.K. tour last November after she learned she was performing on a broken foot. "My feet are fine," she said in Sunday's Instagram post, but did not disclose any more specifics about her recent surgery.

Florence + the Machine is a seven-time Grammy-nominated group, best known for hits including "Dog Days Are Over," "Shake It Out" and "What Kind of Man." Welch also wrote the music and lyrics for an upcoming musical based on "The Great Gatsby," premiering in Cambridge, Massachusetts, next year.

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Florence welch forgot about “the scale” of taylor swift’s reach until “florida” dropped on ‘tortured poets department’.

"When it came out I was like, ‘Oh, sh**,'" she recalled.

By Christy Piña

Christy Piña

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Florence Welch is giving fans a brief glimpse into what recording “Florida!!!” with Taylor Swift for The Tortured Poets Department was like.

The Florence & the Machine frontwoman sat down with British Vogue to discuss what she does in her downtime between tours and recording, as well as her BBC Proms debut this summer. While chatting with the publication, the musician also opened up about working with Swift on her 11th album, which was released April 19.

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“I almost didn’t think of the scale of it,” she told Vogue . “There’s the sort of bigness of [Taylor Swift the phenomenon], and then there’s the Taylor I spend time with in the studio, who is just the sweetest and most down to earth.”

She revealed that Swift approached her with a “concept and a story” for the song, which is Welch’s “favorite way to start songwriting,” she shared. “We had such a fun time. And then when it came out I was like, ‘Oh, shit!’”

“Florida!!!” is featured on the installment of Tortured Poets (the Grammy-winning artist released an additional 15 songs at 2 a.m. ET following the release of the initial album). In a track-by-track experience of some of the songs featured on the album, Swift broke down her song with Welch.

“I think I was coming up with this idea of what happens when your life doesn’t fit or the choices you’ve made catch up to you and you’re surrounded by these harsh consequences and judgment and circumstances did not lead you to where you thought you would be? And you just want to escape from everything you’ve ever known. Is there a place you could go?” she explained.

Since the singer-songwriter released her newest album, she has broken several records, including the most-streamed artist in one day on Spotify, the most-streamed album in one day on the music platform and the most-streamed album in one week with 1 billion streams (in five days).

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Florence Welch Reflects on Working With Taylor Swift on ‘Tortured Poets’ Song ‘Florida!!!’

"I almost didn't think of the scale of it," the Florence + the Machine singer says.

By Mitchell Peters

Mitchell Peters

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Florence Welch is looking back on working alongside Taylor Swift .

Emma Stone Receives a Credit for Helping With This Taylor Swift Track

The Florence + the Machine leader and Swift co-wrote the song “Florida!!!,” which appears on the pop superstar’s new double album, The Tortured Poets Department . In an interview with British Vogue , published Thursday (April 25), Welch reflects on her collaboration with Swift.

“I almost didn’t think of the scale of it,” Welch told the publication . “There’s the sort of bigness of [Taylor Swift the phenomenon], and then there’s the Taylor I spend time with in the studio, who is just the sweetest and most down to earth.”

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Swift previously explained the narrative that inspired “Florida!!!” during an interview with iHeartRadio.

“‘Florida!!!’ is a song I wrote with Florence and the Machine, and I think I was coming up with this idea of like, what happens when your life doesn’t fit, or your choices you’ve made catch up to you,” Swift said.

She added that she’s a fan of Dateline and noticed how “people have these crimes that they commit, where do they immediately skip town and go to? They go to Florida.”

The Tortured Poets Department is Swift’s eleventh studio album and her her first release of new music since 2022’s Grammy-winning Midnights . The 31-track double album also features a collaboration with Post Malone, as well as writing and production contributions from Jack Antonoff and Aaron Dessner.

Although The Tortured Poets Department is Swift’s first album of new music since Midnights , she has steadily pumped out her re-recorded Taylor’s Version albums in the interim. In between the two aforementioned albums, Swift topped the Billboard 200 with both Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) and 1989 (Taylor’s Version) , the latter of which became the star’s record-extending sixth album to debut with over one million pure sales in its first week.

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Florence Welch Forgot About the 'Bigness' of Taylor Swift's Fame Until 'Florida!!!' Dropped: 'I Was Like, Oh S---!'

The Florence and the Machine frontwoman collaborated with Swift on "Florida!!!" from the superstar's new album, 'The Tortured Poets Department'

Lia Toby/Getty; Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty

Who can forget just how famous Taylor Swift is? Her friend and collaborator Florence Welch , apparently.

The Florence and the Machine frontwoman opened up to British Vogue in a new interview about how it felt to release their collaboration, "Florida!!!," on the pop superstar's new album, The Tortured Poets Department — and how working together in the studio made Welch forget about Swift's stature.

"I almost didn’t think of the scale of it," said the "Dog Days Are Over" singer, 37, of the immense level of fanfare that followed the release of TTPD — which has already become Spotify's most-streamed album in a single week with over a billion streams.

"There’s the sort of bigness of [Taylor Swift the phenomenon], and then there’s the Taylor I spend time with in the studio, who is just the sweetest and most down to earth," added Welch.

The British performer also spoke to the outlet about making "Florida!!!," which Swift has described as a song about seeking escapism after heartbreak, partially inspired by Dateline episodes where criminals escape to Florida.

Welch told British Vogue Swift came to her with "a concept and a story" for the track — "my favorite way to start songwriting," she said. It wasn't until "Florida!!!" dropped as part of the 31-song album, however, that she realized the scale of fanfare they'd receive in response.

Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty; Gilbert Flores/Billboard via Getty

"We had such a fun time," recalled the Grammy-nominated artist. "And then when it came out I was like, ‘Oh, s---!'"

Since the TTPD release, Swift has shared various clips of rehearsal footage for her next Eras Tour leg, leading many fans to theorize that she may add songs from the new album into the setlist. Does that mean Welch could potentially join her on stage for a live rendition of their collaboration? "If I was gonna do it, it would be a surprise," she teased.

Swift recently explained the meaning behind "Florida!!!," telling iHeartRadio she "was coming up with this idea of like, what happens when your life doesn’t fit, or your choices you’ve made catch up to you."

John Shearer/Getty

The "Fortnight" singer highlighted how at times in life "you’re surrounded by these harsh consequences and judgment, and circumstances did not lead you to where you thought you’d be and you just want to escape from everything you’ve ever known," leading one to question, "is there a place you could go?"

According to Swift, she is "always watching"  Dateline  and thought about how "people have these crimes that they commit, where do they immediately skip town and go to? They go to Florida."

"I think when you go through a heartbreak, there’s a part of you that thinks: I want a new name, I want a new life, I don’t want anyone to know where I’ve been or know me at all," she continued to the outlet. "So that was the jumping-off point behind where would you go to reinvent yourself and blend in? 'Florida!!!'"

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Florence Welch on Collab With Taylor Swift: ‘I Almost Didn’t Think of the Scale of It’

by Em Casalena April 27, 2024, 1:35 pm

Singer/songwriter Florence Welch (of Florence And The Machine fame) co-wrote the track “Florida!!!” for Swift’s newest album The Tortured Poets Department . In a recent interview with British Vogue, Welch opened up a bit about working with the pop star. And apparently, she didn’t think the song would be as huge as it has become.

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“I almost didn’t think of the scale of it,” Welch said in the interview. “There’s the sort of bigness of Taylor Swift the phenomenon, and then there’s the Taylor I spend time with in the studio, who is just the sweetest and most down to earth.”

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Florence Welch (@florence)

Luckily, the collaboration was a huge success. And when asked about whether or not Welch would join Swift on tour to the upcoming United Kingdom leg of Swift’s Eras Tour, she was predictably mysterious about it: “If I was gonna do it, it would be a surprise.”

How Did Florence Welch and Taylor Swift Start Working Together?

According to Florence Welch, Taylor Swift had contacted her with a story concept for the song. Welch noted that this is her “favorite way to start songwriting.” She went on to note that the duo had an excellent time making the track together.

“We had such a fun time,” said Welch. “And then when it came out I was like, ‘Oh, shit!’”

[ Catch Taylor Swift Live in Concert This Year Before Tickets Sell Out ]

Swift also spoke fondly about the co-writing effort with Welch in a past interview with iHeartRadio. In the interview, she noted that the collab was rooted in the idea of what happens when your past choices begin to catch up with you.

The Tortured Poets Department is the 11th studio album from Swift. The huge 31-track double album features other collaborations as well, including with artists like Port Malone, Aaron Dessner (The National), and Jack Antonoff (Bleachers).

Photo by Ilya S. Savenok

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Fletcher on healing, her new album and being back on tour

NPR's Juana Summers speaks with Cari Fletcher, who goes by the stage name FLETCHER, about her newest album "In Search Of The Antidote" and what it's like to be back on tour.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "TWO THINGS CAN BE TRUE" )

FLETCHER: (Singing) Did we take it too far? Maybe.

JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:

Last spring Carrie Fletcher realized something was wrong - like, more than just the stress of a worldwide concert tour, a deep fatigue that caused long-term concern for her singing voice as well.

FLETCHER: When I had to take the tour down and I saw, you know, applauses get quiet and social media get quiet and then all of the things, you're really forced to, like, look at yourself in the mirror and really decide and see what, you know, your worth is outside of all of those things. Like, there was a lot of silence.

SUMMERS: Turns out it was Lyme disease, and so Carrie, who goes by Fletcher onstage, found herself facing a major physical recovery and a lot of unprocessed mental health to work through. She went back to her hometown in New Jersey, and with all that downtime, she started writing a new album to be called "In Search Of The Antidote."

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "ANTIDOTE")

FLETCHER: (Singing) I get high. I get high. I get low. I get low. You're my dopamine state. You're my sanity dose. I get high.

SUMMERS: A year later, Fletcher is out on the road again, singing this new album to her loyal fans. We caught her earlier this week on a day off in Germany, and she was stoked about being back.

FLETCHER: To return back to a sold-out tour with all of these beautiful fans and, you know, like, scream-singing these songs back to me that - some of which I wrote from such a place of desperation but also a place of, like, hope and happiness and love and excitement for the future and - I pinch myself all the time when I get to a new country that I've never even been to before and they're singing word for word with me. It's like - it's insane that this is my job.

SUMMERS: Is there a favorite moment that you could share from the tour that you're on now that really just drives it home for you?

FLETCHER: People have been bringing crazy signs to the show. I have a song called "Becky's So Hot," and there's a point where I'm, like, grinding on a mic stand. And so the fans started doing this thing where they're like, can I be the human mic stand?

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "BECKY'S SO HOT")

FLETCHER: (Singing) Are you in love like we were? If I were you, I'd probably keep her - makes me want to hit her when I see her 'cause Becky's so hot in your vintage T-shirt.

There was a sign yesterday that said, truth or dare. And I saw it, and I picked dare. And then she folded the card over again, and it was like, I dare you to let me be your mic stand tonight. Somebody came to a concert dressed up as a microphone to the concert, and I was like, the commitment is real.

SUMMERS: I mean, this album - it's got rage and joy and lust and mess, which is something that you have certainly never shied away from mining, like in the lead single, "Eras Of Us," which I have heard is about running into your ex at Taylor Swift's Eras tour - true story?

FLETCHER: Yes. Truth or dare - that is the truth.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "ERAS OF US")

FLETCHER: (Singing) It's nice to meet you.

Yeah. I had not seen my ex since the day that we had broken up, and we bumped into each other at the Taylor Swift concert. You know, to be at this show where both of us were, like, screaming these songs to an artist that has narrated so many of my breakups, so many of my romances - I just got hit with, you know, a wave of emotion of all of the eras of us, of her and I.

FLETCHER: (Singing) A story of love, stealing the air right from my lungs. Girl of my dreams, forever we're young. Remember it just the way it was, the eras of us.

And I think that's something I always really try to do with my music - is just to drop people into a really specific scene, into a really specific moment. And it's one of my favorite songs I've ever written. It just feels like a story.

SUMMERS: I wonder if you can tell us the story behind one of the songs on the album, "Doing Better," because that song's gotten stuck in my head - this idea of what better really is, why better feels worse.

FLETCHER: Yeah. Wow. I actually have a song on my last album - I have a song called "Better Version," and the lyric ends with, and now some other person's going to get the better version...

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG "BETTER VERSION")

FLETCHER: (Singing) Of me.

...Of me. Just in the last couple months, I was reflecting on, OK, well, what is the better version of me doing? And is she actually doing better? And I wrote a song called "Doing Better" that just really reflects on all the ways of, like, so many of the ways that my career had taken off...

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "DOING BETTER")

FLETCHER: (Singing) I'm doing better. I don't know if you remember when I told you in September that you wouldn't recognize me.

...Getting to do all these, like, incredible, incredible things and perform in all these places. And I felt awful.

FLETCHER: (Singing) I felt like I was flying. I felt the stars aligning. I always thought that if I ever got this high, I'd like it. I'm doing better. I've been looking for my center, but my tummy still hurts. Why does better feel worse?

We're kind of sold this narrative of, like, you know, we should have this amount of success by this amount of age and this type of relationship and this degree and this job. And this idea, this dream of better, you know, that we all have - it doesn't feel good. And it's actually, like, the deeper stuff, the stuff that, like, we don't put on display is, like, where so much of the antidote really is.

(SOUNDBITE OF FLETCHER SONG, "GIRL OF MY DREAMS")

SUMMERS: I don't want to get too messy here on public radio, but I do have to ask you about the ladies. I mean, your songs - people call them queer love anthems and queer anthems. And I'm curious how much you think about where your music fits within the sphere of queer pop music. Is that something that's, like, front of mind for you at all?

FLETCHER: When I first started writing, I was, like, really just embarking on my journey with my sexuality and just, you know, when I started talking about all of it for the first time and just falling in love with a girl for the first time. And I never really set out with a specific mission of, like, oh, I need the music to be categorized as this. It was just like, I just need to be free.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "GIRL OF MY DREAMS")

FLETCHER: (Singing) I'm on heartbreak No. 4. Tequila doesn't hit no more. I got a new rebound. I'm falling for me now.

When I think about where my music fits in terms of, you know, the scope of music, it's just - it's meant to go to whoever needs to find it. And my queer journey has been so embraced by the community, and I couldn't ask for anything more. But it's also just - you know, it's also so deeply universal, like, this idea of, like, belonging and...

SUMMERS: Right.

FLETCHER: ...Experiencing love for the first time.

SUMMERS: I mean, that's one of the things that strikes me, right? Whether you are dating a woman or married to a man, there's something really beautiful and universal with the way that you describe these intense and heartfelt and, at times, overwhelming feelings when it comes to love and lust and relationships and all of the spectrum in between there. It's something that works for everybody.

FLETCHER: Oh, I love that. Thank you. Yeah. It's - for me, it's always just - I've never wanted to - anyone to feel, like, alienated from the music, from the emotions, from the feelings. Like, I felt alienated for so long as a kid, you know? I just felt so in my own world and lonely and so sad. And to just - to find that sense of home, like, in myself and in my own music...

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "PRETENDING")

FLETCHER: (Singing) I say goodnight as if my heart isn't wrenching.

And that's really what it is for me. It's just, like, the feelings are universal. We all navigate it. We all go through it, no matter how you identify, like, orientation-wise, gender, you know, sexuality. It's - we're human.

SUMMERS: Carrie Fletcher, thank you so much.

FLETCHER: Thank you so much. I appreciate you. This was a really sweet conversation.

SUMMERS: Fletcher's newest album, "In Search Of The Antidote," is out now.

FLETCHER: (Singing) We'll keep on pretending.

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Florence Welch talks Taylor Swift collaboration, hints at ‘Eras Tour’ appearance in London

"I almost didn’t think of the scale of it," the singer said of the team-up

Florence Welch has spoken about collaborating with Taylor Swift , and hinted at a potential appearance at the ‘Eras Tour’ in London.

Welch’s band Florence + The Machine feature on Swift’s new song ‘Florida!!!’ , which appears on her 11th album ‘The Tortured Poets Department’ . Both singers are credited as co-writers on the cut.

• READ MORE: Taylor Swift – ‘The Tortured Poets Department’ review: a rare misstep

Following the record’s release, Welch said she was “honoured to be in this department”. Swift has since explained that ‘Florida!!!’ is about people’s desire to “reinvent themselves” after a break-up or heartbreak (via Today ).

During a new cover interview with British Vogue , Welch opened up about her experience of working with the pop giant on the track.

“I almost didn’t think of the scale of it,” she explained while laughing. “There’s the sort of bigness of [Taylor Swift the phenomenon], and then there’s the Taylor I spend time with in the studio, who is just the sweetest and most down to earth.”

She went on to reveal that Swift had approached her with “a concept and a story” for the song. “[It’s] my favourite way to start songwriting,” Welch continued.

“We had such a fun time. And then when it came out I was like, ‘Oh, shit!'”

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Taylor Swift and Florence Welch recording Florida!!! in the studio together 🤍🥹 #TSTTPD pic.twitter.com/3Wt3PfMImP — Taylor Swift Updates (@SwiftNYC) April 19, 2024

This summer will see Swift bring her huge ‘Eras Tour’ to Wembley Stadium in London, where she’ll play eight sold-out concerts with Paramore .

When asked if she could make a guest appearance on stage with the star, Welch responded: “If I was gonna do it, it would be a surprise.”

‘Florida!!!’ was co-produced by Swift’s longtime collaborator Jack Antonoff , who previously worked with Welch on her latest album ‘Dance Fever’ (2022). Emma Stone is credited as having added “oddities” to the song .

In January 2023, Swift and Welch were pictured together at The 1975’s show at The O2 in London .

It is strongly believed that ’75 frontman Matty Healy is the subject of several songs on ‘The Tortured Poets Department’, namely its title track and ‘The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived’ among others.

In other news, Florence + The Machine have announced that they’ll be playing their debut album ‘Lungs’ in full at a special orchestral show in London .

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Megadeth’s upcoming tour lineup is an odd yet interesting mix.

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DERBY, ENGLAND - AUGUST 13: Dave Mustaine of Megadeth performs at Bloodstock Open Air Festival 2023 ... [+] at Catton Hall on August 13, 2023 in Derby, England. (Photo by Katja Ogrin/Redferns)

It wasn’t long ago when Megadeth had one of the hottest metal tours on the block which was fittingly coined ‘The Metal Tour Of The Year.’ The 2021 and 2022 co-headlining tour consisted of Megadeth and modern heavyweights Lamb of God with opening acts Trivium, Hatebreed, and later In Flames. Nearly every band on the bill offered something unique yet sonically similar enough to make it an air tight package. Not to mention, the tour sold exceptionally well with averaging 7,000 tickets sold across 24 dates from its first leg. To say it was a smashing success for Megadeth would be an understatement, and with their recent Grammy nomination for their well received 2022 LP The Sick, The Dying… And The Dead , the band was experiencing quite a moment to say the least.

However, despite the recent wins for Megadeth guitarist Kiko Loureiro exiting the band was a pretty big blow to the fans, as he’s made significant contributions to Megadeth since joining in 2015. In fact, in the past Megadeth founder Dave Mustaine had been fairly open about his admiration for Loureiro and he’s gone as far as saying , “Megadeth has had guys like Jeff [Young] and Marty [Friedman], but Kiko is the best we’ve ever had.”

Now with the band’s new guitarist Teemu Mäntysaari, who was recommended by Loureiro prior to exiting the band, Megadeth aren’t quite in the same position they were in a couple years ago, though at no fault of Mäntysaari who is in fact filling the shoes of lead guitarist incredibly well, according to Mustaine.

With all that being said, the band’s recent headlining tour announcement comes as a surprise to many fans, particularly with the supporting lineup Megadeth has in place. Nu metal giants Mudvayne and metalcore pioneers All That Remains are slated to support Megadeth on their upcoming late summer North American, which is titled the Destroy All Enemies tour. Maybe the tour’s title is an attempt at the band poking fun at themselves because it doesn’t appear they’ll be making any new friends with a tour lineup that’s such a stark contrast from their recent North American tours.

After one look at the comments section on Megadeth’s instagram post for the tour announcement, it’s clear that the most upvoted comments are from fans being harshly critical or puzzled by Megadeth’s decision to have Mudvayne and All That Remains as support, and that’s putting it lightly. No disrespect to either Mudvayne or All The Remains as both bands have made significant contributions to early 2000s metal and are great on their own merits, but the three bands together just seems at odds with Megadeth status as a legacy band. If they’d added another opener that was more sonically like minded and a newer act like Havok, Enforced, or even Power Trip the bill would possibly seem a little less jarring to fans. Better yet, a co-headlining tour with Pantera, whom are currently headlining arenas across the states, would do wonders for both bands especially given the demand for the recent Pantera reunion.

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Regardless, both Mudvayne and All That Remains can draw on their own, but it’ll be interesting to see if Megadeth fans are the primary ticket buyers for this tour or if there’s a healthy mix from each of the acts’ core fanbases. Or better yet, maybe there’s a more shared appreciation for all acts than the comments suggest. It’s entirely possible, but tickets sales and the crowd response at the shows will no doubt be the deciding factors.

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