Lungs

Florence and the Machine. (2009). Lungs. Jamaica: Island Records.

Annotation

Lungs is the first album of British indie rock band, Florence and the Machine. The band is fronted by the vocal stylings of Florence Welch and Isabella Sommers, who are accompanied by various other musicians to lay down the instrumental tracks. Florence’s sound is bluesy and intense, obviously influenced by the vocals of Amy Winehouse and PJ Harvey and telling some of the same kind of gruesome stories as one might expect to find on a Nick Cave album. Kiss with a Fist (track five) is the album’s big single and along with Cosmic Love is one of the best tracks on the album.

Genre

Indie pop, art rock, English baroque

Curriculum Ties

n/a

Reading Level/Interest Age 

14+

Challenge Issues

Florence’s music is sometimes dark and violent. Kiss with a Fist sounds like it is about domestic violence, though Florence denies it vehemently. Should parents or users object to it’s inclusion to the album in the collection a clearly worded collection development policy should offer some protection.

Reason for inclusion

I found that when I was researching this project that I mostly know nothing about modern music and am listening to the same stuff that I was listening to ten years ago. I asked my 17 year old sister what some of her favorite bands were and this one was one of the only ones I could stomach.