Lungs (2009)

Lungs is the debut studio album by the English indie rock band Florence and the Machine, released on 3 July 2009 by Island Records. After working on various projects, Florence Welch formed a band which included Robert Ackroyd, Chris Hayden, Mark Saunders, Tom Monger, and former collaborator Isabella Summers. The album features production from James Ford, Paul Epworth, Stephen Mackey, Eg White and Charlie Hugall, with additional production by band member Isabella Summers. The album has been reissued several times: an expanded version titled Between Two Lungs (2010), a digital EP subtitled The B-Sides (2011), and a Tenth Anniversary Edition (2019).

Lungs received generally positive reviews from music critics, with Welch drawing comparisons to the likes of Kate Bush and Fiona Apple. It appeared on several year-end critics' lists in late 2009. The album won the award for British Album of the Year at the Brit Awards. Commercially, Lungs reached number one in Poland and the United Kingdom, and number 14 in the US Billboard 200, selling over 3 million copies worldwide.

The album was supported by six singles, all of which were supplemented by accompanying music videos. "Kiss with a Fist" peaked at 51 in the United Kingdom while "Dog Days Are Over" and "Rabbit Heart (Raise It Up)" also charted in Australia and Belgium. Three further singles followed the release of the album, "Drumming Song", a cover of the song "You've Got the Love", and "Cosmic Love". Their cover of the Source and Candi Staton song became the group's first top-10 entry. To promote the album, Florence and the Machine embarked on the Lungs Tour between 2008 and 2011. A live album from this concert was released in 2010, titled Live at the Wiltern.

Background and recording

Prior to recording Lungs, Florence Welch had considered or attempted several different projects in the music industry, including an interest in becoming a country singer, recording folk songs she had written, and collaborating with Razorlight's frontman Johnny Borrell, but ultimately she was unsatisfied with those endeavors. Welch and Borrell wrote several songs together. In 2007, Welch fronted the hip hop-influenced group Ashok, recording an early version of "Kiss with a Fist", titled "Happy Slap", for their debut studio album, Plans.

It was not until she began writing and recording with childhood friend Isabella Summers at Antenna Studios in London that Welch crafted a sound she wanted to develop further. Distraught but also inspired from a recently failed relationship, Welch recorded with "enthusiasm over skills", stating, "I'm quite glad I never learned to play the guitar, because I think I'd write songs that were more classically structured. As it is, I've had to create my own way of writing, which isn't typical. Everything's a big crescendo." For a brief while, Welch and Summers performed as a duo called Florence Robot/Isa Machine in small London venues. Over the coming months, Robert Ackroyd (guitar, backing vocals), Chris Hayden (drums, percussion, backing vocals), Mark Saunders (bass guitar, backing vocals) and Tom Monger (harp) were recruited to form a band, renamed Florence and the Machine. In November 2008, Welch signed a recording contract with Island Records. Prior to recording the album, Welch spent a long time honing her sound while working with guitarists, intent on "[making] it into something that was a wave of sound that would envelop, something that was soaring, slightly church-like and then-doomlike."

The band elected to record a shorter rendition of "Kiss with a Fist" as their debut single. Welch, however, began expanding upon the crude punk style which influenced "Kiss with a Fist" by listening to more contemporary music, particularly Arcade Fire's debut album Funeral (2004). The influence of the recordings would manifest itself on the concept she had devised for Lungs, which, according to Welch, was a "scrapbook of the past five years... it's about guilt, fear, love, death, violence, nightmares, [and] dreams". Ultimately, the majority of Welch's earlier compositions were rejected for the album—except "Kiss with a Fist" and "Between Two Lungs"—because they did not mesh well with the album's themes. Fortunately for the group, they rehearsed and improvised some of the material in the relaxed setting of Summers' studio, allowing Welch to refine the tribal drumming backdropping Lungs's tracks, most notably "Dog Days Are Over".

Florence and the Machine recorded Lungs in the United Kingdom with five different producers—Paul Epworth, James Ford, Stephen Mackey, Eg White, and Charlie Hugall. Most of the songs on the album were mixed by Cenzo Townshend. The album's sound is described as indie rock, indie pop, baroque pop, art rock, art pop, alternative rock and soul with influences of punk blues, electro-rock and garage rock.