Ultimately, it's the unexpectedly appealing combination of Goulding's distinctive voice and the melismatic R&B bent of the songs on Delirium that makes for such an ecstatic listen.
Making a full-blown pop record like Delirium isn't a stretch for Ellie Goulding—she's seen booming, bright-eyed singles like "Lights" and "Anything Could Happen" become Top 20 hits, after all.
The songwriting on Delirium doesn't always feel worthy of her ambitions, but Goulding is technically peerless and versatile, maintaining her power and flare throughout and crushing every glassy jam she's put in front of.
It retains a surprising amount of individuality for an album almost certainly destined for the top of the charts. And, though it might well feel a little samey in it's early stages, the final half more than makes up for it.
Delirium isn’t bad by any means—it’s too well-constructed and honestly ambitious, and the tracks that land in Goulding’s comfort zone rank among her best work.
While the anodyne Around U and the UK garage stylings of Devotion could easily be jettisoned, lessening the stylistically jumbled, overlong effect. Ultimately, though, Goulding’s experiment with carefully crafted but impactful Big Pop was a success.
Despite proclamations about approaching her third album as an experiment, there’s very little on Ellie Goulding’s latest that bucks pop’s prevailing trends
Ellie Goulding wants to you know that Delirium, her first full-length work in three years, is a big pop album, in opposition to what apparently amounted to small-to-medium format works Lights and Halcyon.
With Delirium Ellie Goulding effectively completes her journey, begun on Lights and continued through Halcyon, into the middle of the road – a dangerous place, crowded as it is with more reckless, driving spirits than hers.
The main problem with this is that her voice is too wispy to hold its own versus the maximalist rave-pop of the day.... On top of this, Delirium just hasn't got the songs.
That's ****ing insane. She's looking at a 56 average right now