Every Florence and The Machine album ranked
There’s something about an ethereal woman that just makes a great musician. In the diaspora between Stevie Nicks and Ethel Cain is the queen bee of them all – Florence Welch, more widely known under the moniker Florence and the Machine. Over the course of almost two decades, Welch has concocted a perfect potion of indie magic, rock edge, and pop zeal to make her one of the most well-regarded musicians currently on the scene.
With the Machine in tow – primarily comprised of keyboardist Isabella Summers, guitarist Rob Ackroyd, drummer Christopher Lloyd Hayden and harpist Tom Monger alongside a slew of other musicians – they have become a powerhouse of hits that have dominated the charts in that time, ranging from debut Lungs in 2009 to the most recent offering of Dance Fever in 2022.
There are, of course, standout moments from Florence and the Machine’s career, headlining Glastonbury in 2015 and lately gaining the status of their own BBC Proms concert celebrating their debut album, dubbed Symphony of Lungs, but to name a few. However, through all of this, every fan will have their own special moment – a gig, a song, an interaction which epitomises the exact enthral of the band to each person who worships them because being a Florence and the Machine follower is really like a religion.
In that spirit, over the years, each record will have wormed its way into the souls of so many, and these individual connections will be different in a uniquely beautiful way. It might seem impossible to rank such greatness because every album sparks with its own certain sense of magic, but regardless, the definitive rating of the Florence songbook is a mystical journey not to be missed.
Every Florence and The Machine album ranked:
High as Hope (2018)
This should probably begin with the disclaimer that High as Hope is not, by any manner of means, a bad album. Lead single ‘Hunger’, for example, is a true standout – a sonic earworm that is deceptively deep from a lyrical perspective, charting Welch’s personal mental and identity struggles revolving around an eating disorder and alcoholism. In many ways, this sets the tone for the rest of the record – vulnerability laid bare, exposing the real roots of Welch, the person, not the ethereal persona.
But in other respects, this stripped-back tone was a bit of a left-field choice compared to the band’s trademark rousing and expansive sound. It divided critics; some lauded it while others considered it too simplistic, and it is notable that High as Hope is the only one of the band’s albums not to scoop the top spot in the UK charts. By no means a flop, yet equally probably not the one that will get first billing on Florence’s greatest hits.
How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful (2015)
However, High as Hope’s predecessor was much more like the Florence we all know and love. Although How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful also hosted its own vulnerable moments, its sound was overall more striking compared to the album that followed it and still featured that gorgeous richness of power in the band’s classic style that makes it every bit as bold. We’re talking about singles like ‘What Kind of Man’ and ‘Ship to Wreck’, with Welch’s guttural but soaring wails sending her audience into orbit.
How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful joined the ranks of Florence’s UK number one league and also gained no less than five Grammy nods as well as a nomination for the Mercury Prize; that said, if there ever could be such a thing, the album almost became too classic – some critics noted that as it progressed, some of the sonic positioning began to blend into one, and the songs risked sounding too ‘samey’ as a result – so how much Florence is too much?
Dance Fever (2022)
By comparison, the band’s most recent firework, Dance Fever, was hailed as a revolution. Indeed, by its very name, Florence and the Machine expressed how this was a foray into new territory—a universe of freedom and liberation and choreomania, the act of erratic and spontaneous dancing.
The notion of spontaneity was especially pertinent in Welch’s recording process, given that it was the exact thing the world was experiencing a distinct lack of. At the height of the pandemic, the band were holed up at home but began work on Dance Fever as a record to be eventually lapped up with “the return of clubs, live music and dancing at festivals,” Welch explained. The result was a pure explosion of joy; with unanimous acclaim from the critics, Florence was back on top. It only ranks third here because the remaining albums in the discography have since gained seminal classic status, but no doubt Dance Fever will also one day reach those heady heights.
Ceremonials (2011)
Appropriately, Florence and the Machine’s second-ranked album is also their sophomore effort, Ceremonials, from 2011. Here, we find the sonic birthplace of some of the band’s greatest wonders, namely ‘Shake it Out’ and ‘Spectrum (Say My Name)’, which turbo-charged them into the stratosphere of chart domination to which they were inevitably always headed.
The album was doused in a rich, anthemic lushness rarely found in an artist of Welch’s primitive position at the time – she was only 25 years old yet already climbing the ranks of the songwriting greats and production powers with the bold, unapologetic command-bursting from Ceremonials. It scored the band their second shot at number one in the UK, as well as hitting big in the US, Australia, New Zealand, and Ireland. World domination was theirs
Lungs (2009)
Finally, we come to the pièce de resistance, the lifeblood from which the rest of Florence and the Machine have breathed musical greatness into the world – 2009’s Lungs, their debut album. In some respects, it is maybe surprising that a debut ranks highest as a musician’s best body of work, but arguably, Florence’s introduction into the world marked them at their quintessential prime.
On Lungs, you find now classic hits like ‘Dog Days Are Over’ and ‘You’ve Got the Love’. It was full of witchy mysticism, the eccentricity of which critics compared to Kate Bush, and all the sexiness of the aspirations that a young Welch at this point only dared to dream. Lungs was the catalyst of a classic songbook, the essential ethereal muse on a starry night to howl at the moon
Everybody Scream (2025)
It may seem a tired trope to constantly be casting Welch in all her witchy madness, but when she admitted to releasing her latest album Everybody Scream as Florence and the Machine on Halloween, she wasn’t exactly making any attempt to douse the flames. Instead, what she has now brought about is a sadistic, terrifying, all-encompassing, and scarily vulnerable ordeal – and it might just be her greatest effort yet.
Between the true horror of its lead title track, to her reflections on fame in ‘One of the Greats’ and candid portraiture in ‘Music by Men’, this not only feels like a step forward for Welch in terms of her ethereal sonic universe, but also breaking down metatextural barriers across the rest of pop music. Her name-checking of The 1975 and Matty Healy can’t have been on anyone’s bingo cards, but this is just one example of the fact that, close to two decades on, this woman is just at the height of her power to shock and surprise. The real fear should be in the prospect of the wrath which comes next.
