Superlatives
A Vulture series in which artists judge the best and worst of their own careers.
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Florence Welchs anxiety has been spiking, and the proof is right on her cell phone.
I was like,What the fuck?!
she tells me, laughing.
The reason for all the worrying?
When I then tell her shell be rating her discography for this interview, she gets self-conscious again.
Im so mean about myself, she says.
Ill be like, Another failure.
Really, her songs are anything but.
Over the past decade, Welch has become one of the most assured live performers in music.
Shes eight years sober, withDance Feverthe second album she made fully free from alcohol.
To her,Dance Feveris the record that synthesizes the themes and sounds of her last three.
Not that that helps with release-week jitters.
The process of actually giving it up is agony for me every time, she says.
BestDance Feversong to dance to
It just depends what kind of dancing you are looking for.
My Love is the one you could dance to in a club.
Ive never had that with a song.
I can kind of visually see a huge dance piece to that song.
Theres different kinds of dance all over this record, depending on what youre into.
Dave Bayley is who I wrote My Love with.
He is just all about the drop.
Before he was inGlass Animals,he was a DJ, so hes so committed to danceability.
Then we met each other during one of the most intense lockdowns in England.
Most medievalDance Feversong
Its the chanting stuff, to me.
Im evoking a kind of Gregorian-style chanting.
Hell was completely real for people in medieval times.
Heaven Is Here is almost like, Fuck it.
Ill go to hell because theres no way to behave perfectly for your whole life.
It was like giving yourself over and giving up.
If you couldnt be perfect, you have to be terrible.
Dance Feversong that reminds you ofLungs
Its more the imagery.
They get bigger and bigger, but theyre your children and you love them.
So youre just carrying these two animals around.
I was trying to create a mythology with gods and prophets, and it feelsLungsian to me.
Hardest song to sing
Theyre all so hard because Im an idiot!
I dont think about it in the studio, layering a thousand vocals and making a choir.
One of the hardest songs to sing that weve actually been doing again is Spectrum.
I dont know whats going to happen to me tomorrow.
I was very tortured at that time, so the singing is also very tortured.
I think Ive been able, with this record, to bridge a lot of the past records.
Best song about water
The water thingis really interesting to me now.
Maybe because it was ten years sinceCeremonials,but Im reassessing it as a body of work so much.
I also dont think I even knew what was going on.
When you are really experiencing overwhelming things, something so huge and outside of yourself is water.
On that second album, things were really kicking off.
There was a huge amount of pressure.
I did feel like I was drowning for a lot of it.
Its probably What the Water Gave Me.
Somebody make it!How Big, How Blueis interesting because its a record of two halves.
The record itself carried me through that first year.
Just making it, and especially working with someone like Markus Dravs.
He gave me structure.
Hes a real taskmaster, in a good way.
Youre going to show up at 11 a.m., work till 6 p.m.
He made sure I ate.
I just was completely unraveled.
My whole identity had been shattered.
I was building myself up again from the ground up.
On the last two records, I really found the love for creativity and making music again.
That was also onHow Big, How Blue.
At Coachella, that was our second or third show back for that whole albumwhen I broke my foot.
I cant even describe it.
You cant see beyond the people.
We will kill ourselves over getting one lace border that has to be there.
It was like, c’mon, c’mon.
This is going to take us over our deadline.
It must have it.
She will be like, it’s possible for you to.
Theyre like, We cant have gold foil.
you’ve got the option to.
So weve been dreaming together for four years.
My favorite, its so hard to say because shes woven into almost every aspect of this record.
Getting to make theDance Feverlyric book has been so nice.
My dream, I just wanted to give people a world to escape into with this record.
I wanted everything to be together, from the vinyl to the videos to the artwork.
Because shes also detail-obsessive, we really managed to do that.
I was in such a bad place when I wrote it.
I just thought,Fuck it.
Always happens like this all of the ones that Im like,Oh, terrible fucking place.
There she goes again.
The fans, theyve never done that to me, ever.
I started to appreciate, so much, the people whove been with me from the start.
Ive never been too much for them.
Its really healing for me because its really healing for that person that I was.
Its really helped me come back to myself.
They just sing the chorus for me; I dont even have to sing it.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
