Lungs by Florence And The Machine

Lungs, the debut album from Florence and the Machine, landed on Island on 3 July 2009, and it came with a voice big enough to earn the title. Florence Welch built her band with Isabella Summers on keys, Rob Ackroyd on guitar and Mark Saunders on bass, and a whole squad of producers, James Ford, Paul Epworth, Stephen Mackey, Eg White and Charlie Hugall, with Summers chipping in, dressed her songs in drama.

The sound is big, eccentric baroque pop, harp and pounding drums swirling around Welch's enormous voice, which had critics reaching for Kate Bush and Fiona Apple. "Kiss with a Fist", "Dog Days Are Over", "Rabbit Heart (Raise It Up)", "Drumming Song" and "Cosmic Love" made it a singles machine, and their cover of "You've Got the Love" became the band's first top-10 hit. The album spent its first five weeks stuck at number two before finally reaching number one in January 2010, won British Album of the Year at the Brits, and sold over 3 million copies worldwide.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.