walking upstream…
Florence + The Machine
photo: justin higuchi from los angeles, ca, usa · cc by 2.0 ↗Florence + The Machine
Florence + The Machine is the vehicle for British singer and songwriter Florence Welch, who emerged from London's late-2000s indie scene with a sound built on cavernous, gospel-scaled vocals, harp and choir textures, and thunderous tribal drums. Her 2009 debut 'Lungs' and its 2011 follow-up 'Ceremonials' fused baroque-pop grandeur with confessional, myth-soaked lyrics, establishing her as one of the defining art-rock voices of the 2010s. Across records like 'How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful' and 'High as Hope,' Welch has paired ritualistic, theatrical live performance with writing that treats love, grief, and excess as something close to religious experience.
the sound in question
2009
Dog Days Are OverFlorence + The Machine
walk the tributaries ↓
Kate Bush1980s · Art pop / Progressive pop / Alternative rock
Welch has repeatedly named Kate Bush as a formative influence, and Florence + The Machine sits squarely in Bush's lineage of theatrical, literary British art-pop — big-voiced, high-drama songs that stage private emotion as widescreen spectacle. The debt surfaces in Welch's swooping, unguarded vocal leaps and her fondness for gothic, folkloric imagery.
listen: upstream & here
1978
Wuthering HeightsKate Bush
2010
Cosmic LoveFlorence + The Machine
listen forCue Bush's 'Wuthering Heights' and hear how she vaults into that keening, near-operatic chorus, then put on Florence's 'Cosmic Love' — the same move, a voice that suddenly launches skyward over a churning, cathedral-sized arrangement.
Patti Smith1970s · Punk rock / Art rock / Proto-punk
Welch has cited Patti Smith among her heroes, and the influence shows up in the incantatory, poet-in-a-trance quality of her delivery — lyrics that build like spoken ritual before erupting, and a punk-rooted willingness to howl. Both treat the rock song as a vehicle for something ecstatic and half-liturgical.
listen: upstream & here
1979
Dancing BarefootPatti Smith
2009
Rabbit Heart (Raise It Up)Florence + The Machine
listen forPlay Smith's 'Dancing Barefoot' and feel how the verses circle and chant toward transcendence, then listen to 'Rabbit Heart (Raise It Up)' — Welch stacks the same mounting, ceremonial repetitions until the song turns into a kind of offering.
Siouxsie and the Banshees1980s · Post-punk / Gothic rock / Alternative rock
Welch has pointed to Siouxsie Sioux and post-punk as an influence, and it registers most clearly in Florence + The Machine's rhythmic foundation: heavy, tribal, tom-driven drumming and a dark, dramatic sense of theater inherited from the Banshees' gothic art-rock. Her commanding, chant-like phrasing over pounding percussion sits squarely in that tradition.
listen: upstream & here
1981
SpellboundSiouxsie and the Banshees
2009
Drumming SongFlorence + The Machine
listen forThrow on the Banshees' 'Spellbound' and lock into that relentless, galloping drum pattern, then play 'Drumming Song' — Welch builds the whole track around the same idea, a hammering, all-consuming beat standing in for a pounding heart.