Bright Lightsby Ellie Goulding

the problem with the way cds are produced these days is that they put all of the good tracks at the start. to combat this i stick the album on and put it on shuffle thus getting a random order. and often the quality of albums as a whole suffer. this album doesn't suffer at all even using the "shuffle listen" method. the songs are all, at worst, good.

ellie goulding's repackaged version of her debut album "lights", here presented as "bright lights" has more tracks and includes the inspired cover of elton john's "your song". on "your song" goulding demonstartes her quirky vocal style. and, it is when employing this style that she is at her best. some tracks on the album suffer from the "just another woman who can sing, singing" problem. when not being quirky her voice is good but nothing original. and with better pop diva's out there who have more distinctive voices some tracks, despite being well written, suffer a little.

this aside, you can't go past the awesome "starry eyed", or the beautifully written "the writer", where goulding urges us to become the writer of the words. personal favorites of mine are "salt skin", "your biggest mistake" and "wish i stayed" which show goulding's song writing off to good effect.

...despite some reservations i would not pass over this album. the critics love ellie and given the consistent quality of the song writing, then, no wonder. cleverly, i would suggest, she tends to open with a fairly routine verse that may tempt you to click skip. But hang on in there as she then nails you to the chair and makes you listen with uplifting and anthemic choruses that will have you singing along after the first listen.

lovely, listenable, not incredible, but definitely worth the investment of your time to listen to a great song writer.