Ellie Goulding - 'Lights' (Polydor/Neon Lights) Released 01/03/10

Hype is a cruel thing really. It guarantees expectation, not album sales. It builds you up as the next Beatles and can leave you looking like the Pigeon Detectives. Above all people tend to see hype as a privilege, as a god given gift to those artists blessed with an outstanding talent. In actual fact it’s a rather large monkey on your back. With the BBC’s Sound of 2010 Award and the BRITS Critics Choice Award already on her mantelpiece, Ellie Goulding finds herself needing to produce a ‘Definitely Maybe’ just to reach par.

On first listen you can’t help but feel that Ellie’s beautiful voice is being shoehorned into horrible folk, electro and pop music. The worst offender is surely her debut single ‘Under the Sheets’, a horrible attempt at a dance crossover which simultaneously ruins her vocal effects and lets rip how over-produced ‘Lights’ really is.

‘This Love (Will Be Your Downfall)’ and ‘The Writer’ might as well soundtrack the next Rom-Com coming out of Hollywood they’re so drowned in over-blown emotion. This is the half-way ground between genuine feeling and ugly synthetic pop and for this Ellie suffers.

The sad fact is that ‘Lights’ is killed by the over-production and refusal to allow Ellie to just be herself. ‘Guns and Horses’ is a joyous example of Goulding finally breaking the shackles – cleverly written with a genuine feel and nothing more than simple acoustics cushioning her voice. The majority of the tracks though are destined to soundtrack DFS adverts and BBC1 dramas – that’s how generic ‘Lights’ feels.

This isn’t to say that this album should bury the pop star Ellie Goulding though. Her voice could melt butter and the raw materials still shine out in this mess of electro-folk. She’s simply a victim of mismanagement rather than musical malfunctions.

The real danger to Goulding is being crowded out of an already packed market for female soloists. If she lacks the zip of Lily and the spark of La Roux where does that leave her?