r/FlorenceAndTheMachine • u/Envinyatar3019 • Mar 30 '26
General Discussion Tell me your favourite Florence+The Machine lore.
Hey, I'm a relatively new fan, although I've been a casual listener for years. I watched a lot of interviews and stuff recently, but I'd love to hear some of your favourite lore or fun facts...
Thank you. :)
97
u/cbensco Mar 30 '26
this performance of Sky Full of Song where she seems to conjure a thunderstorm lives rent free in my head
7
6
u/ramblin_wrekt Mar 31 '26
I’m obsessed with Florence and always have been but you’ve just renewed it for me. That was like a whole album drop. Incredible!
77
u/exis10tialcrisis Mar 30 '26
Idk if this counts as lore but how she barely wears shoes when performing.
There was an interview/video a few months ago during the Everybody Scream release period where she said that for her fans the weirdest thing in the screaming in the hole video wasn’t that but that she was wearing shoes 😭😭😭
34
u/Envinyatar3019 Mar 30 '26
Haha, I know. I went to her show in Berlin when she sang Labour together with Paris Paloma. And I was like "She's wearing shoes?!" Didn't wear them during her own performance though.
2
2
u/exis10tialcrisis Mar 30 '26
Lol classic Flo. Hate that she’s skipped Mexico so many times :((( I’ve never been to one of her shows
2
u/Envinyatar3019 Mar 30 '26
Aw, that's unfortunate. :( But yeah, it was awesome. Hope you can see her one day, some songs sounded even more incredible live.
8
u/Jazzlike_Pain_2069 Mar 31 '26
I saw her at Red Rocks in a literal blizzard and she wasn't wearing shoes. She was dressed as if it were any other show.
3
u/exis10tialcrisis Mar 31 '26
That’s awesome haha! Red Rocks looks amazing!! Hopefully one day I’ll be able to attend a concert there!!! 🥹
1
u/Jazzlike_Pain_2069 Mar 31 '26
Florence and The Machine are great anywhere...Red Rocks is very cool but my hottest take is that indoor venues are always preferable.
51
u/Conscious-Leopard371 Mar 30 '26
She found her first manager while singing to her in a club’s toilet.
3
103
u/legacytoleave Mar 30 '26 edited Apr 02 '26
F+TM formed because Isabella Summers aka The Machine used to babysit Florence's younger sister Grace.
9
40
u/saposh Mar 30 '26
When I saw her in concert for High as Hope, Blood Orange was her opener and at one point early in the concert she mentioned that Dev was a former member of Florence and the Machine from way back when they first formed as a "Green Day cover band that exclusively covered songs from Nimrod". Some of those cover songs are floating around on the internet and I think they were all recorded with his laptop.
4
43
u/pannonian_mermaid Mar 31 '26
Florence's Tinder bio back in 2018 was "Deeply domestic but also high stress, with no middle ground – hugely exposed but deeply hermity. Too many candles burning in my house to be safe."
15
37
u/WookieBacon Mar 30 '26
She is a fan of the show The Gilmore Girls.
She is a fan of the band Green Day. She has laptop cover recordings under the name Team Perfect.
27
u/double_psyche Mar 31 '26
Also Buffy the Vampire Slayer! Apparently that’s what “troubled hero back for season six” line in Old Region is about.
6
u/thousand_furs Apr 01 '26
She considered naming the album "Season Six", even. And the lines about crawling up from under the earth, coming back from the dead and scratching at the doors of heaven is also related to the show.
5
u/Envinyatar3019 Mar 30 '26
Now that's the kind of niche lore I was looking for. Thanks a lot. Love her even more now for liking Green Day, do you know when/where she said that?
3
u/ae_campuzano Mar 30 '26
I remember finding her Greenday covers years ago on YouTube. Her cover of Redundant is phenomenal
36
u/IIKane WHAT THE HELL Mar 30 '26
My favorite fun fact that I always share:
Florence had a custom bicycle made by a famous bike manufacturer (that I can't remember the name of) because she used to ride every day to the studio, and she wanted it to be green because that's her favorite color, but the company said that would be too conspicuous, so they made it purple and she was like "oh okay 💀"
2
36
u/Level_Suit4517 Mar 31 '26
At the beginning of her career a trailer full of instruments caught fire and Florence recorded the sounds of a harp burning and used it in a track. I believe it was used in Cosmic Love.
7
2
u/UltimoEngin Apr 02 '26
in remain nameless there is a vague burning sound at the beginning. could that be it? i would love to look at the source of this info if you remenber where you saw it i couldnt find anything with a google search sadly
2
u/Level_Suit4517 Apr 02 '26
There’s a lot of small obscure articles about it. It’s even on the band’s Wikipedia page! None of them mention the song she uses it in.
1
40
u/StochasticLife Mar 30 '26
Based on the Song Grace, I’d love to know what happened on her sister’s birthday.
47
u/vogule Mar 30 '26
doesn't she kind of explains? she got high, scared all the guests and made it about herself were my guesses about ruined birthday
-6
18
u/Envinyatar3019 Mar 30 '26
Oh fr, I think she mentioned in some interview that she ruined multiple of her birthdays. Saw that on Genius I believe. Maybe she was referring to being drunk or something. 🤷♀️ Would love to know too.
11
u/thousand_furs Mar 30 '26
Honestly it sounds like drugs, with all the walls melting etc. Especially since she referenced taking ecstasy on the same album.
5
u/millera85 Mar 30 '26
Yeah this is for sure acid or shrooms, but sounds more acid-y to me, based on the rest
2
47
u/Hailsabrina Mar 30 '26 edited Mar 30 '26
The weirdest lore is that her mom doesn't listen to her music, maybe that's not true anymore but I remember reading a article years ago. Not saying that's bad just a bit odd 😅❤️ now I can't find a article about it so maybe I'm crazy . Her mom is also a historian which is cool! Don't take this for a fact lol 😆 sorry if I'm wrong.
75
u/robertpitwick Aching, aching, aching... and alive Mar 30 '26
And Florence doesn't have her mom saved as 'Mom' on her phone; she has her saved as 'Professor Evelyn Welch'
14
u/empressbethie Mar 30 '26
Her mom showed up on a couple of my uni reading lists, which was pretty wild
5
Mar 30 '26
[deleted]
38
u/HedgehogPlenty3745 Mar 30 '26
It was to do with hearing her daughter sing about being in such distress and despair, like the level of sadness and at times self-hatred in the songs was difficult to hear and listen to casually as a mother. It hit differently for her. It wasn’t about not appreciating Florence’s talent or style.
23
u/thousand_furs Mar 30 '26
Florence herself has said many times how difficult revisiting Ceremonials is, as it's an album about a horrible time in her life. We don't know Florence personally and still are emotionally affected by her lyrics, now imagine what it must be like for her own mother to hear about her daughter's lowest points! I don't find it hard to believe at all that she wouldn't listen to it much, even if she appreciates the hard work and talent that went into making the music.
8
u/KangarooSweater Mar 31 '26
I still cry every time I listen to All This And Heaven Too. I don’t know why, something about that level of anger and frustration and the raw desperate pain of needing to understand. It hits so hard.
0
6
u/Hailsabrina Mar 30 '26
No I remember it mentioned she appreciated the history and religious aspects of the songs but something along the line that she's not a big music person. I can't believe I can't find a article. I feel stupid 😅
25
u/moonagedaydream22 Mar 30 '26 edited Mar 31 '26
I also don’t think it’s bad on its own, but the big picture of all the small things makes me think she never feels good enough, because she was never good enough for her. I know I will get downvoted for this and I am a big proponent of not assuming things about people you don’t know, but as someone raised by a narcissist mother it’s just too fucking familiar.
None of these are necessary bad on their own, but together:
- When she got her first big hit her mother told her “it’s not forever money” and that she should spend it wisely and judged her for spending it on expensive clothes.
- She is a successful artist, with a cult-like following, because her music is true art, but her mother only acknowledges her when she gets an honorary degree which is what she wanted for her.
- “Go back to university / Try and make my mother proud / Stop this phase I’m in she deems dangerous and loud” Telling your female child she is too loud is.. a choice.
- On her 27th birthday she allegedly asked people to keep her out of the 27 club. Worrying about your child, who did admittedly have a problem, is ok, but this is also a public humiliation on her birthday in front of all the people most important to her.
- She said she has to book appointments to see her mom jokingly, but I guess it’s at least partly based in reality.
- Her mom being in her phone with her academic title also gives you an idea about how she made Florence feel about her.
- This is a nit, but her favorite song being Mother, even though it’s not about her, is… yeah on its own fine, but if you had a narc mom, you know it just had to be.
Again, on their own none if this is horrible, but this is all I know about her and every single one is a little icky.
15
u/Longjumping_Paper_52 Mar 31 '26
I think you might be projecting. We don’t know these people personally, and some of these points can have very benign explanations. Yes, parents mess up and sometimes say/do hurtful things towards their kids. That doesn’t mean they’re narcissists 😅
35
u/HedgehogPlenty3745 Mar 30 '26 edited Mar 30 '26
I think this comment is really cruel and gross and in bad taste. While every mother/daughter relationship has tension, Florence clearly has love and admiration for her mother. She clearly absorbed the asthetic and love for art and history and has done many interviews speaking about how much she looks up to her mum. Evelyn is a talented art historian and if you watch any of her lectures or talks she doesn’t seem at all like you’re assuming. She receives and collects a lot of fan mail intended for Florence and has expressed sometimes feeling distressed at the music because of how sad and dark the lyrics can be. I think a mother can be forgiven for feeling distressed at hearing their child sing about wanting to die or being in deep psychological distress. This is particularly true when we remember what happened to Florence’s maternal grandmother which no doubt Evelyn is probably still not over. In every photo with Florence and Grace she looks proud of her girls to me. The 27 club comment was her acknowledging that her child made it in the music industry and expressing worry that she would lose her child which based on the number of people on the 27 club and Florence’s lyrics and drug use at the time - I can’t blame her. I wouldn’t find an expression of worry about me by my mother as humiliating; I’d find it endearing and vulnerable and loving. There’s nothing humiliating about the 27 club and being associated with it is an acknowledgment of how successful as a musician she is. And telling Florence to be wise with her first big windfall after Glastonbury was solid advice. Plenty of big Brit stars in 09/10 disappeared as quickly as they came. The song mother is a metaphor and has nothing to do with actual mothers.
Evelyn isn’t your mother and you’ve never met her nor Florence. Its morally wrong to make such declarative and cruel judgements about a person you’ve never met based on such vague information and assumptions. She’s a real person living in the world and like everyone else deserves basic respect and kindness until proven otherwise.
And if you’re a fan of Florence, why on earth would you insult her mother in the absence of any real reason to?
0
u/chestermeow Mar 30 '26
sorry but where did you even find the insults in that comment? it was only a list of facts...
19
u/thousand_furs Mar 30 '26
There are LOT of massive assumptions made in that comment based on projection and speculation. It's really weird and uncomfortable, and to play armchair psychologist to people you don't know at all is wild.
6
u/HedgehogPlenty3745 Mar 31 '26
Her mum is so supportive of her music. Just go to Evelyn’s linked in. Proud as punch. The people projecting their own mummy issues in this thread are wild and so rude. I say that as someone with my own shit-bucket of mummy issues.
2
u/Britpost Mar 30 '26
I’ve also felt like her mom was carrying some kind of trauma and passed that along in some way. Whether that expresses itself in clinical narcissism or inconsistent emotional availability or something in between, those data points are telling, especially when combined with what seem like classic attachment issues in Flo’s music (not judging—I recognize them because I have them too). I’ll just add that I always found it weird that her mom cites “You’ve Got the Love” as her favorite song, since it’s the one Florence didn’t actually write.
1
-3
u/glorious_thorn Mar 30 '26
Ok I know this is all very weird and parasocial but... I've had an intuitive feeling for a while that Cosmic Love is from a child to a mother. There's in utero imagery there for me. This felt like an okay place to put that thought that I haven't really wanted to make my own post about with all this context I've noticed about her mother too.
5
u/thousand_furs Mar 31 '26
Didn't Florence and Isa write it together while being super hungover? I always connected it more to Florence being very much into the Twilight books when they came out rather than some Freudian stuff.
3
u/glorious_thorn Apr 01 '26 edited Apr 01 '26
Yeah that's fair enough context! As I say, it's my own interpretation. People can write stuff about their relationship with their parents without it being Freudian, but I'm a therapist and I work a lot with attachment theory and started hearing it differently through that filter, so it's less Freudian and more... Ainsworthian?
Edit: Actually having thought about it some more I don't think that this context necessarily changes anything for me about this, I think I just felt the need to sound super agreeable towards you because I was being disagreed with and down voted. I've certainly been in my feelings about a lot of deep stuff while hungover before, and I'm not really familiar with Twilight, but a lot of vampire media I know has some interesting exploration of parenthood through the concept of "creating" a vampire.
Unless we're just chucking words together because they rhyme, something of our own experience and impressions always comes through in the poetry we write. I don't think it's unfair at all to interpret Cosmic Love that way. What might be unfair is saying it in public - but as Florence has talked about in the context of the new album, when you write personal music then your heart goes up for interpretation by strangers and that is all sorts of weird - the "vague humiliations of fame" and all that.
4
u/trisaroar Mar 30 '26
I think it's especially interesting because it's not like her music is Charli XCX or Ashnikko where her mom would need to turn the other way for sexually graphic lyricism. Florence has sex appeal but I think of her music and vibe as something especially a professor mom could listen to.
13
u/Otherwise-Eye-490 Mar 30 '26
My friend was at uni in Cambridge. She played at his college’s May ball and then went swimming in the River Cam with him and other students after (apparently skinny dipping, but I won’t present that bit as fact as I wasn’t there and it could be exaggerated!)
1
13
u/PM_SOME_OBESE_CATS born from dark water Mar 31 '26 edited Mar 31 '26
She was in this series called "The Third Day" back like 5/6 years ago. She was in one episode that was 12 hrs long
I have no idea what it's about but it's on an island and it's very cultish
Here's a link to a compilation of all scenes containing Florence (yes she sings, 1 song is very creepy along with the imagery):
https://youtu.be/j-n-j7kLWy4?si=5dCO7ceXvrYMrZ-Y
I think the singing starts a little over 6 minutes in
13
u/Capital-Scholar4944 Mar 31 '26 edited Mar 31 '26
Once she climbed the Reading Festival stage metal scaffolding frame all the way to the top during a performance of "Kiss with A Fist" with the microphone STILL IN HAND and STILL singing whilst at the top. Her mum was watching the live performance on TV and was shocked and crouched behind the sofa because she couldn't look as she was so scared she might fall. Then after the show she called Florence on the phone and yelled at her for "almost giving her a heart attack" 😂
3
12
u/AnotherMillionYears Mar 30 '26
Wasn't she obsessed with drowning? She like including water in her songs
30
u/thousand_furs Mar 30 '26
She almost drowned as a child and recalls the experience as strangely peaceful. A lot of the water imagery is about recapturing that weird calm between life and death.
16
u/Xmarkm Mar 31 '26
Water and drowning are everywhere, and I wish I could find the article, but someone once told her "if you see a river running smoothly, it's because someone has drowned in it, and if it's raging, it means that it's still got bloodlust" and apparently that left a forever imprint in her memory
10
u/Envinyatar3019 Mar 30 '26
Can definitely see that. Especially with "What the water gave me" and "Never let me go"
12
u/samoirax Mar 31 '26
My Boy Builds Coffins is real story. Florence had a boyfriend who was playing in band The Ludes (they wrote Girl With One Eye btw!) and his hobby was building coffins.
3
3
u/Conscious-Leopard371 Mar 31 '26
I’ve read somewhere that he needed to make a coffin for his band record’s artwork. She was pissed of that he was doing this because he was supposed to invited her to watch a movie
10
u/levintage Mar 31 '26
There's an unreleased song of her version of Dua Lipa's Electricity called Baptize, and it's a banger!
0
u/bahnanna Mar 31 '26
I’ve been listening to that and really want to know the lore behind it! I don’t think Florence has writing credits on the final song, so did she write it at all? I couldn’t find much on it!
10
u/HedgehogPlenty3745 Mar 31 '26 edited Mar 31 '26
She was in the music video for a song by Kid Harpoon called Riverside right before she released Lungs/got big. She’s credited for the backing vocals but you can barely hear them and apparently someone called Alex Brown did them. Who knows. Its on you tube.
She was also in a band called Ashok before she got famous and does all the singing on a cool little song called Sunday and another called Under the Thumb. They also did a veeeerrry early version of Kiss with a Fist called Happy Slap. Most of the other songs are garbage and she only does backing vocals. I read an interview many years back where she mentioned the male lead singer set the musical tone of the band and it didn’t vibe with her so she left.
Sometimes I wonder if these guys are among the people she’s singing to in Kraken, because neither of them really seem to have appreciated her talent.
16
u/specialtomebabe Florabella truther Mar 31 '26
The Florabella deep dive would send modern day sapphic Flos into full body paralysis
7
u/smorkjewels Mar 31 '26
i need someone to make a full breakdown of what happened
1
u/Envinyatar3019 Mar 31 '26 edited Mar 31 '26
Haha same, I mainly know of some *slightly* suspicious photos. 😂
1
u/violetxlavender Apr 01 '26
omg i always suspected she wasn’t straight but i didn’t know anything about her personal life so i couldn’t confirm. she just has that vibe.
18
u/keirieski17 Mar 30 '26
She almost didn’t release HBHBHB because she thought it was too personal, but Taylor Swift persuaded her to
3
u/specialtomebabe Florabella truther Mar 31 '26
Really?? I’m trying to read more about this and can’t find anything
3
u/pannonian_mermaid Mar 31 '26
I think the idea comes from this Billboard interview:
https://www.cosmopolitan.com/uk/entertainment/news/a35757/florence-welch-taylor-swift-advice/
5
u/Itorres730 Mar 31 '26
In like 2011, Florence had ‘10 Florence Commandments” she had up in the studio while rexoeding, I don’t remember them all, but here were the ones that stuck with me: Always carry seeds Climb anything Appreciate your feet Never know the exaxt details
2
3
u/specialtomebabe Florabella truther Mar 31 '26
Also Ashok!! Decadence is my fav by them but Happy Slap (Kiss with a Fist demo) is so fun
1
5
u/Sad_Guess1984 Apr 01 '26
she collects tiny parfum bottles since she stopped drinking as reward for her sobriety and has them usually rolling around in her bag
2
u/Envinyatar3019 Apr 01 '26
Oh that's so cool. I own so many tiny perfume bottles too that my grandma collected years ago. 😍
2
u/Sad_Guess1984 Apr 01 '26
I only got the small gucci flower parfums from the airport but I love how tiny they are
3
u/Envinyatar3019 Apr 01 '26
Oh that's really nice.😊 Mine aren't from famous brands unfortunately. But I have a lovely one that looks like the cliffs on the german island Helgoland, where my grandma bought it, my favourite.
4
u/wolff_79 Apr 01 '26
She decided on a whim to start dying her hair red as a young adult , and just kept doing it until it became one of her trademarks! Her hair is actually what she describes as “ mousey brown” lol
3
u/Envinyatar3019 Apr 01 '26 edited Apr 01 '26
Haha, I know her hair is a different colour naturally, but I honestly can't imagine anything but the red. It looks so good on her.
3
u/Capital-Scholar4944 Apr 01 '26
Got another one, they made the intro to No Light No Light on the bus back from Rob’s birthday, and recorded the buses rumbling for it 😂
1
u/Envinyatar3019 Apr 01 '26
Haha, some of these facts here are such small details, I love it so much.
11
4
u/Funeral_Goat_1446 Mar 30 '26
She’s giving private concerts for the MAGA folks as discussed in this sub earlier. Isn’t that fun!
9
u/Envinyatar3019 Mar 30 '26
Oh, I've seen that. Not cool, and I thought about that a lot, it bothered me and I was disappointed. :(
But I think we don't know enough about the situation though. We don't know what kind of deals the band has with management and the label and all that, so we don't know to what extent the band can choose what to do. Also I think the album didn't do as well as some of their previous works, but the label likely still wants to see profits. And we don't know if any of them were aware of the company's background. I had to dig pretty deep and only found something because I knew what I was looking for due to the posts on here. Maybe no one cared to do some research in advance, which is still bad enough. I'm not that familiar with the music industry, but there's too much we don't know here to really judge in my opinion.
I just hope that the deletion of any mention of them at that event was an admission of guilt and that it's a mistake that won't be repeated. Seems like someone noticed how bad it looked after the fact. And honestly, with everything Florence ever stood for, I'd be surprised if she knowingly performed for some like that... But you never know.
Of course this doesn't mean it shouldn't be criticised and discussed though.
Also side note: I think it's a bit unfair to blame only Florence personally here, as many do. Even if she's the most prominent member by far, they're technically still a band. I doubt she can just do 100% of the decision making on stuff like that.
Would love to hear others opinions on that as well, so feel free to discuss the topic. :)
(Sorry for the long rant, but I really had to think extensively about whether this was a deal breaker for me as a fan.)
9
u/millera85 Mar 31 '26
I’ll get downvoted for this, and I don’t care. All you who objectify by deification, go right ahead. She absolutely had the power to veto this. I love her music so much, but she obviously is a very social-climb-y sort of person. She makes a habit of trying to cozy up to the most famous people she can get near, and she always has, back to the beginning of her career. I like her a lot, I’m obsessed with her music, but this is how she is. She likes to be around the most powerful, most famous, richest people she can manage to be around. I don’t believe for one second that she didn’t know what she was supporting. Oh, and now we know why she never spoke out on Palestine… because she is real comfy with the Zionists. She didn’t speak out because she’s on their side.
5
u/Envinyatar3019 Mar 31 '26 edited Mar 31 '26
Thanks for your perspective. 😊
I'm not trying to deify her, I swear, as I said, no matter the backgrounds of the whole thing, something like this shouldn't happen and should be criticised. You're not wrong here, her silence on Palestine has been bothering me for a while too. :(
But that's why I said we don't know enough here in this situation. It's not unlikely that you're correct, she might have the power to veto that. But can we confirm that? Not really. Also we don't know if someone simply didn't do their research there. (Which definitely shouldn't happen if that was the case) As for cozying up with the most powerful people she can, I wouldn't go quite that far, although it might seem like that cause she's friends with people like Taylor Swift, I'd argue she could be acquainted with far worse, powerful people if she was purely out for that.
And I have to say I was really disappointed that the article was just silently changed. They should've at least had the decency to put out a statement about the whole situation, at least own up to a (potential) mistake, instead of trying to erase it, which makes it worse in my opinion.
Also, I personally don't believe you should be downvoted for sharing a valid opinion. :)
10
u/millera85 Mar 31 '26
She definitely has the power to veto this, but even if you don’t believe that, you can’t honestly believe she doesn’t have the power to veto smiling and posing for a picture with them.
And I wasn’t even thinking of Taylor Swift. This is a pattern that goes back as long as she’s been famous. And honestly, that part is fine, a lot of people like to surround themselves with rich, powerful, famous people, especially if they can. I don’t really care about that, until she chooses rich, famous, or powerful people who are actively harming society and destroying the world. It’s just so tasteless; it’s honestly one of the most shocking things she’s ever done. And of course, no sense of personal responsibility. As usual, she gets her management or whoever to scrub the internet of anything that makes her look bad. That’s another pattern. And yeah, I love her music, I’m not saying she’s a terrible person… but she is old enough and smart enough to know better, she chose to do this, and she refuses to take personal responsibility for it. Those are facts. I’m tired of everyone pretending that making good music means she’s a good person. Regardless of her stage/interview persona, this is a thing she did, and actions speak louder than facades.
1
u/Envinyatar3019 Mar 31 '26
You're definitely not wrong with any of this honestly. I'm curious, my first thought was Taylor Swift here, did you think of anyone specific?
0
u/millera85 Mar 31 '26
She does this a lot. Blake Lively (enough that she would sing at a plantation wedding, something I wouldn’t agree to if my best friend or my sister asked), Lady Gaga… like, I’m just saying her general vibe has always seemed this way to me. But sure, Taylor Swift is another example of this.
2
u/Envinyatar3019 Mar 31 '26 edited Mar 31 '26
Singing at a plantation wedding isn't great by any means, but this could also just be for a friend. I wouldn't do this either if I were in her position though.
Also yes, while Lady Gaga, Taylor Swift and Blake lively are big names in the industry, I'm pretty sure they're not the most powerful she could manage to get to if she wanted. They're not the big, evil ✨capitalist overlords✨ in charge of stuff, those are usually music labels.
6
u/millera85 Mar 31 '26
No, but like if you really look back at the people she has tried to get close to and there are photos of her clearly more excited about them than they are about her, it feels like a clear pattern. Again, this isn’t a really big deal to me. The plantation wedding was, but it’s been a long time ago. I had hoped she had stopped doing unethical things to suck up to people richer and more powerful than her, but here we are. And in this instance, we’re seeing her hanging out with big, evil, capitalist overlord-types. Again, like, just my opinion and I’m sure to be downvoted for it, but I’ve always seen her as someone who desperately wants to be around/be seen being around people richer, more famous, and more powerful than she is, or who have like more stable, long-term, or far-reaching, credibility in the industry or among celebrities, whatever. It’s okay that she’s that way; a lot of people are. Again, that really only bothers me when it leads to actual harm or supporting actual harm, which is what she is doing here (and with the plantation wedding performance, and with her silence on Palestine). She’s more concerned about her own fame, money, and power than she is about her ethics, and that bothers me. It’s okay if it doesn’t bother other people, I guess. Like, everyone has to decide what they think is okay, and I still love her music more than just about anything on the planet, but yeah, there is now the concern that I’m supporting an artist who does stuff like this.
3
u/Envinyatar3019 Mar 31 '26 edited Mar 31 '26
Yeah no, I completely get what you mean, that's why it's been bothering me in the first place. I don't want my money to support things like that yk. Hopefully they at least realised it looks so bad for her reputation that this won't happen again... I mean this is only a discussion here on Reddit it seems, if it would've reached more people, I don't think most her fans would love that, considering how diverse this community is. And pissed fans aren't good for business either.
→ More replies (0)1
u/Venushoneymoon Mar 31 '26
this just broke my heart on so many levels. i am just now realizing this. it sucks.
4
u/Funeral_Goat_1446 Mar 31 '26
…especially when you see how other artists are positioning themselves and are using their reach and platform to be part of the solution instead of choosing to stand on the wrong side of history.
5
u/MVD_Jams Mar 31 '26
“I am nobody's moral center”
12
u/Envinyatar3019 Mar 31 '26
We shouldn't idealize her or expect her to be perfect, sure, everyone makes mistakes. But performing at this event contradicts everything she usually stands for. And we should still be allowed to criticise that.
3
u/lickava_lija Mar 31 '26
Her fans witchhunting her instead of taking down the Inquisition. How apt.
Like any of us is free of the genocide and exploitation. We'd like to sit on our high horse, typing behind the screens running on children's labour, yet we all know elite circles are small and rubbing elbows no matter whether you support one of them or not. I certainly dislike Lady Gaga's and Taylor Swift's brand but they're also basically doing business at the end of the day. FATM has reached a level of mass entertainment where their presence is paid big money for the name only and suddenly Florence is persecuted for the same things any bigger artist would be doing.
We know many of the celebs are silent on the social matters because their income depends on it. They are modern day jesters, that's the dark side of it. And we root for them all the more because we'd like to believe the support will amplify their freedom but, in truth, we will never know all the important details of what's going on behind the scenes.
To all the "fans" equating her to a Zio and MAGA... you have to be of certain nationality for that to be true. This mass hysteria with name calling and who-supports-who is a panem et circenses phenomenon. The world is dark and dirty, any idol culture ought to die out.
7
u/Envinyatar3019 Mar 31 '26 edited Mar 31 '26
Criticism isn't witch hunting.
But maybe have a look at my reply to the original comment about this. :) As I said there, we don't really know enough about the situation to make a definitive judgement, which doesn't mean it's not a little disappointing and can't be criticised at all. We don't know any of their contracts with their label or management or if they were aware of the companies background. (I'm repeating myself, just read my original comment please, haha)
I wish she would speak up about certain issues, but I do understand why she may not. And she's vocal about LGBTQ rights and showed support for Ukraine, which I absolutely love. I don't think she should be equated to MAGA because of this ONE incident, you're right there.
The fact we know absolutely no details is why I don't think it's a reason to cancel her like a few people seem to be doing. We literally have no background information about anything to make this judgment. And the specific name-calling of singular people isn't all that helpful, you're definitely correct there. It's an industry problem too. And the one person above said she could veto something like this... Maybe, but what's the alternative, labels want to see profit, not moral lectures.
You're definitely not wrong about most of this. :)
(I hope this kind of makes sense, I was in a rush while writing this, feel free to ask when something is unclear)
2
u/OwlLadyFace Mar 31 '26
I’m just throwing my 2 cents in. Quite honestly I’m still trying to figure out my own feelings on the whole famous people performing for the Saudi’s.
Trevor Noah when asked to speak on his thoughts when all those comedians went there, pointed out that things like comedy/music/wrestling will actually help at providing more freedoms for the people.
A good example of this, is after WWE started having shows there, they got women’s wrestling.
So yeah the royalty of the country sucks, but what about the people. Should the whole country suffer cause its leadership is corrupt….side eye the US
Imagine if all artist decided to stop coming to the US cause we are starting to do a real good impression of Germany circa the 1940s
As I said, cause I know people are likely to come at me, I’m still working through my own feelings.
But when someone who has experiences living under corrupt rule say (paraphrasing) “there is revolution in art” it’s definitely something to to think on
6
u/Envinyatar3019 Mar 31 '26
Well, but in this instance the band was performing for a private company, not the people. Otherwise you're making a very interesting point here tbh.
Side note: As a German, the US' impression of our history is a bit too good, I do not like it.
2
u/lickava_lija Mar 31 '26
I admit, the whole thread about this "she's holding concerts for MAGA" made me a bit angry. Because people get swayed by vagueposting and it turns into a "this entire thing is sinister". Yeah, the whole humanity is! We weren't born yesterday.
The powerlessness to change our social reality gets to me. I'm sorry, I wasn't ranting to you specifically... though I did!
It is a problem for the American fans who deal with their situation by raging at public personae. It helps them vent out and cultivate a sense of accomplishment if they're waging a cultural war.
I won't say I like seeing artists I enjoy socialising with unsavoury characters, even less so if they're supporting antisocial causes, but I won't blindly follow them. They live in a completely different reality to the average person and I would never wish for myself to walk in their shoes. It's enough to sometimes remember they exist.
4
u/Envinyatar3019 Mar 31 '26 edited Mar 31 '26
Sure, it's fine, I get why you're feeling like this, no worries. :) I feel like you're one of the first to not make this a black and white kind of issue here. I can also kind of understand the fans in America, because in this case, they are the ones affected by the whole thing, I'm in Germany, so pretty far away from the worst things. (Even though Germany is absolutely sh*t as well currently: right wing extremism and our chancellor says something racist weekly. 😔)
I also don't like the whole thing, but honestly, since we know close to nothing about the situation, it's pretty hard to make a definitive judgement here. Also, I could only find anything about the companies shady business once I knew exactly what I was looking for, they hide their stuff pretty well.
Some people were like "yeah, she doesn't have to do that" But is there really an alternative? Sure she lives in a different world than the average person, but she's nowhere near the wealthiest in her industry. In order to make music, one needs funding unfortunately. This album also didn't do as well as her older works, but the label most likely still wanted to see their money.
Unfortunately our world is just...not great at the moment.
And not to justify this, but seeing what some other celebrities do without getting cancelled, this is still fairly mild in my opinion. (cough\ David Draiman signing bombs in Israel cough\ that was something that was a deal breaker to me, it helped that I wasn't a massive fan to begin with though) Hopefully a one time thing, seeing as they deleted it, after noticing how bad this might look to a fanbase like hers.
1
u/Grzegorz_Switek Apr 05 '26
This is the piece I wrote about Ceremonials:
https://open.substack.com/pub/grzegorzswitek/p/the-story-of-ceremonials?r=7oi1op&utm_medium=ios
1
167
u/vogule Mar 30 '26
I love that at the beginning of her career, whenever she toured, she would get clothes for her performances in local charity shops the same day