Music Monday: Florence And The Machine

This column has gone through sooooo many different changes and adjustments and title changes… I'm a bit over the theme, so from here on out I'm going to call it Music Monday. All I can promise I'll talk about for sure is music. May be current, old, something I love, or hate, or an artist that annoyed me, or music from a movie or game that caught my attention… or all the above.

A high school friend that I still keep up with a bit on Facebook mentioned that he thought Florence and the Machine was his pick for best artist you've never heard of, which I tend to agree with. Well, I did agree with. Until I remember she performed on the MTV VMA's last year. And her song Dog Days Are Over was featured in a Glee episode. And her album Lungs has gone platinum a few times over world wide. So I suppose I would say that Florence is more of the best artist I had never heard of.

Then I changed that by picking up Lungs. The only regret I have with regard to this record is that I didn't grab it when I saw Florence perform at the VMA's last year. At the time I thought the song she performed sounded interesting, but I promptly forgot about it after the show, probably as a result of my mind trying to purge all of the VMA's from my memory.

Lungs has a very percussive feel to it throughout, which may explain why I'm enjoying the album so much. Being a percussionist, I always enjoy when drumming is an actual part of the music rather than just the rhythm that drives things along. Most of the songs feature boisterous drums that add character to the songs and really pull me in to the music.

Oddly, I feel like Florence and the Machine has a very Cranberries feel. Not that Florence sounds like the Cranberries per se, but I feel like Florence takes some similar risks that The Cranberries did in the 90's. The style of vocals, the challenging of the standard song-writing, the heavy use of rhythm while the vocals challenge the necessity to follow standard patterns. And yes, she does have some similar vocal qualities, so I guess there's that too.

So I'm thoroughly enjoying Florence, but I'm having a hard time finding other artists to get into lately. My faves haven't really released anything knew recently, and finding new music to dig into lately has been challenging. So I'm turning to my readers again for some music recommendations. What's the hotness right now out there? Who is that new band or act that's just about to explode that I need to listen to RIGHT NOW?