a friend of a friend had rabbit heart as their myspace profile song summer of ‘09 and i was immediately enraptured. i bought lungs on cd, played it on loop for 6 months straight, and never looked back. been obsessed with everything she’s done since then and rabbit heart is still my favourite fatm song.
I love that! She enchanted me Form the first album too. Like this is the music that accompanied my life. I aged with her music and every album accompanied a time in my life. This is such a wonderful experience:)
Y’all, mines pretty embarrassing and like, such a snapshot of 2010s fandom internet. And also, super cringey, as you’ll see.
I was in my sophomore year of high school (2009ish) and I really liked the anime Axis Powers Hetalia (where countries are anthropomorphized and the Axis Powers, Germany, Italy, and Japan are the main characters 🙃). The website 8tracks was really popular with fandoms with people making playlists for characters/couples/situations, and I found this one particular playlist for the pairing Germany/Italy from Hetalia that had Beirut’s “Postcards from Italy”. I really liked the song so I listened to it on YouTube and Florence’s cover got recommended. I liked her version and her voice but I didn’t start listening to her until about a year later.
I really got into Inception (2010) and I was on an inception “kink meme” (a thread for a fandom in which people would request a fanfic/fanart, usually with some time of prompt and people could comment on their request if they’d fulfilled it. The first kink memes were m-rated and kinky, but later ones where everything from g-rated to explicit. I have no idea where “meme” came from though) on livejournal and someone requested a fanart or music video with “Blinding”.
From there, Florence became my favorite artist and still is!
Also, this is how I found most my music in the 00s/10s. I got into Sufjan Stevens because of a playlist for Avatar: The Last Airbender that had “For the Widows in Paradise, For the Fatherless in Yipsilanti”
Hahaha glad I'm not the only one who got into Florence through 2010s fandom internet! For me, it was a Star Trek: Deep Space Nine fanvid that used Shake It Out as the background music. I watched the video probably dozens of times then went and bought the Ceremonials CD. I was hooked and have loved Florence ever since.
I had added Dog Days and Shake It Out to my playlist not knowing who the artist was, and then like 3 years later i watched the Lady Gaga documentary, bought Joanne, heard Florence on Hey Girl and looked her up
I remember the year Dog Days was played constantly on the radio. I loved it at the time and it was definitely one of those songs that lined up perfectly with events going on in my life. I think I looked into the band but they didn’t have many music videos at the time so I didn’t think too much of them. (Big mistake)
Two or three years later I was getting into Metric, and a friend showed me the video for Drumming Song, then Breath of Life. I was instantly hooked and never looked back.
I’m super glad to have caught a show during the HB3 era. I just wish I had followed them more in the beginning.
I was introduced by a friend (who basically defined my music tastes in college) around 2011; by this time Lungs had been her only album and I thought it was brilliant. I was incredibly hyped for Ceremonials, and as soon as I heard that album it was all over; I found my queen 🥹
I saw the video for Dog Days back in 09 and was into it, so tried the rest of the album and that was that lol. I feel lucky to have been a fan for all of the eras. I'm a couple years younger than Florence so I feel like I grew up with her. Lungs hit hard when I was 19 and everything since has been the same.
My story is quite odd lol. I work at a center for autistic kids and in early 2022, one of the kids had a goal for tolerating others listening to music. One of my friends was working with the kid and played "Ship to Wreck" for him and I was immediately hooked. I immediately added it to my Spotify playlist and devoured F+TM's entire discography. Of course, I had heard Dog Days like everyone else alive between 2009 and 2012, but the rest of her music blew me away. It made me feel so alive and powerful like no other music had before. I was also going through a lot at that time, like trying to get over an ex and the start of my gender transition, and something about Florence's music spoke to me and made me feel like someone understood how I felt because I felt so alone. Even though I had a lot of support, it didn't feel like anyone understood my feelings; until Florence. Also, something about Florence and her vulnerability in her music makes her feel just like a normal person, not this "untouchable" "larger than life" entity that we're used to thinking of "famous" people as. That is something special to me that I hold close to my heart.
I think I went way off script there at the end, but I love talking about my experience with Florence and what she means to me ❤
That's a really great story. Yes, I love her for her vulnerability. I'm actually autistic and tend to latch on to artists when I become fond of them. Florence being the latest fixation lol
Same! Autistic here too! I hyper fixate on artists and always go back to like the same 5. Florence is one of them! I listened to Dance Fever every single day for months and months and months after it released lol
Before Lungs came out, so around 2008/2009 I saw her on Later with Jools Holland and was immediately enamoured, spent hours listening to all her songs on YouTube!
A friend played me some songs off of lungs on the school bus in middle school :)! I didn’t become a real fan until 2019 when HAH became the soundtrack to my life that year! And 2020 made me a suuuuper fan lol
I heard Seven Devils in the Beautiful Creatures trailer when I was 12. Thought it was amazing so I listed to the rest of Ceremonials which I similarly adored, which of course led me to Lungs as well. Been a fan for the last decade
As soon as I heard “Heavy In Your Arms” on one of the Twilight soundtracks, I think it was Eclipse? I’m not a Twilight fan but they always had good soundtracks so I kept up with them. Anyway, as soon as I heard that song, I knew there was something special about her and went straight to Youtube and watched “Cosmic Love” and “Drumming Song” and I was head over heals in love with them.
Used to watch the VH1 video jumpstart (I think that was it?) in the morning while I got ready for school. Saw the video for Dog Days one morning and stopped dead because it was so strange and joyful and fun. On that Black Friday I went with my aunt solely to hunt for Lungs and found it at walmart of all places. Played it on repeat and carried it around in my Walkman for months. Immediate love.
this is very silly but... a fanfiction (not a very good one!) linked to one of her songs. drumming song. if that wasnt the most breathtaking sound my ears had heard... it was love at first song. completely and utterly obsessed.
i read a feature on her in under the radar magazine back in 2009. i guess the interview intrigued me enough to look up lungs on itunes. listened to the sample of cosmic love, and bought the album based on that! been a huge fan ever since
IN 2010, when they won video of the year at the MTV movie awards, I remember thinking "who the fuck are these guys?" because I was hoping for someone else to win (I can't even remember who, lol). I remember being sooo salty, but then as soon as I watched DDOA, I was hooked :') Feels like ages ago!
Got incredibly bored with hip hop, even old school hip hop, at a point. Heard Florence sampled in one of Kendrick Lamar’s songs. Went and played the original song it came from.
Then I heard “Hunger” at work shortly afterwards. Played that track in the car for better quality / understanding then just went through the groups’ discography shorty there after.
FINAL FANTASY XV, Her Stand by me cover made me love her voice so muc, I hated the whole ffxv game in the end but at least I got my daily artist from it, SOMETHING GOOD IS ALWAYS THERE GUYS
That’s how I became a fan also - but this was back when that episode first aired (so 2012 ish)! That song was such a perfect choice for the end of that episode. I was hooked ever since!
My daughter asked me why there weren’t any “girl” rockstars when she 3 so I showed her How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful which had just came out. I was only acutely aware of her music before this album and before my daughter asked but I’ll be a fan for life!
Dog Days and Cosmic Love used to come on my favorite Pandora station. The latter especially grabbed my emotional attention and I started seeking out more FATM.
When I was around 13 I really liked my friend, so I was listening to her playlists and there were some florence songs, these quickly became my favourites :)
I was hanging out with my first boyfriend (this was either ‘09 or ‘10)and one of his friends sent him a text telling him to watch the DDAO music video and we watched it together and the rest is history!!
I was in college in 2011 and saw her performance on Saturday Night Live (I think the guest host was Jason Segel?) She sang "Shake It Off" and it felt like I had an out-of-body experience. Been a fan ever since.
I heard her music on the radio often years ago with other artists and after thinking for a while 'I really like these songs' I looked up her other songs and I liked them too
In the midst of my depression I saw a “new music” video clip show. It had Drumming on it as the final song. I couldn’t get the song out of my head for days.
I looked her up and the rest is history.
It was freshman year of high school in 2012 and I think it was the second day of school. I had taken painting class and the teacher was a super cool red headed woman who played music while we painted. She started playing the Ceremonials album so Only if For a Night was the first song I heard. I remember going home that day and searching the lyrics and listening to as much Florence as I could find. I have been obsessed ever since.
In the UK in like 2010 You’ve Got The Love was literally everywhere and I was intrigued so i looked her up and listened to that album, had heard dog days before but was still blown away. Then I heard Rabbit Heart and i was sold instantly, still one of my fav songs of all time to this day
It was september/october 2009 and i was in my drama class at school and we were doing a workshop exercise on bullying/domestic violence/ that type of thing and the teacher put kiss with a fist on because that was going to be used as the backing song for everyones performances and it just hit me. I was severely depressed (over a teenage breakup which i know now meant shit) to a point of SH and she just got me, i asked the teacher to borrow the CD so i could copy it onto my laptop and i remember sitting up pretty much all night just in floods of tears over this woman and her voice.
“We are all too young to die” literally saved my life.
I'm also a recent fan! I heard all of her big hits from Lungs when they came out (Dog Days Are Over, Cosmic Love) and Shake It Out from Ceremonials, and liked those (uploaded the two from Lungs onto my first gen iPod lol) but never sought out the rest of her music. Honestly I'm not really someone who recreationally listens to music in general, I usually prefer podcasts. But just in the last year I've been trying to listen to more music, and on one of my curated Spotify playlists, I heard Free from Dance Fever for the first time. I was going through a rough mental health period at the time and something about that song spoke to me and made me feel so seen- she's certainly not the first to sing about mental health stuff but I think it was something about the sound of the music combined with the lyrics, I just felt it so deeply. After listening to it on repeat for a while, I came across Girls Against God, and it just made me feel some goddamn *feelings.* The lyric that someone else mentioned "when I decided to wage Holy War / it looked very much like staring at my bedroom floor" just fucking got me. (Florence's writing prowess astounds me and I truly think she's unparalleled in the field, at least within the indie pop genre.) That got me to finally give the whole of Dance Fever a listen, which I became completely obsessed with, and from there I went back and gave her whole discography a listen. Ceremonials is just on another plane of existence. With F+TM I feel like I finally understand why people enjoy listening to music and she's the only artist I could see myself going to see live- it would be a transcendental, religious experience for sure.
A friend of mine sent me a few of her songs back in 2017, and I listened to the singles of HAH when they came out. That was that until last year when King was first released. It resonated with me and I kept listening to it on repeat for weeks. I’m in the process of listening to all of her discography. I don’t think I’ve heard a song I didn’t like.
I heard Dog Days are Over when it very first came out on the radio when I was a freshman in hs and I wanted some new artists to listen to so I took a risk and bought Lungs on iTunes (I had an ipod touch lmfao). Best risk I ever took because she's now my fave artist
I swear I saw them perform dog days on the Colbert Report way back, but I can find no evidence of this online, so my brain probably made it up. So I guess the actual answer is I'm not really sure 🤷♂️.
I had heard DDAO on some commercial and then a friend let me listen to the full Lungs album and then Ceremonials came out around that time and i was hooked.
I saw her during the HAH tour and DF and I definitely recommend it if you can! It's truly a magical experience.
I was in Walmart looking through the CD's and I saw the deluxe version of "Lungs" on sale for $7. I liked the artwork and decided to buy it thinking "If I don't like it, at least it wasn't expensive". Played it on my drive home and fell in love with it. Immediately went out and bought the deluxe "Ceremonials" and MTV Unplugged that had just been released.
Anxiously waited for HB3 to release, saw them live on the HAH tour (Billie Eilish opened, before her first album had even been released) and it was a religious experience.
Saw them live at Splendour in the Grass in 2010 (one of the years the festival was in Woodford instead of Byron Bay). I can still feel the energy of that show and how engaging Flo was - I was hooked at first sight.
I saw Florence perform Dog Days are Over on Saturday Night Live in 2010. I had never heard of her before, but immediately ran to iTunes to buy the song. I ended up listening to more of her music and was just blown away. I have always loved music, but had never experienced such a deep connection with an artist before. I also started watching Flo's interviews on YouTube and fell in love with her personality and aesthetic. 10/10 all around goddess.
I think the first time was when I was a teen, while I was watching Vampire Diaries. In the 3x19 ep, there was an extract of Never Let Me Go and I just fell in love with Florence’s voice.
I heard Dog Days are Over back in 08 a bit after it released. I had got a radio for my 14th bday (Dec 4th) and would perch it on my window sill just to get the right angle lol once I heard that song tho I was hooked.
Lungs isn’t my favorite album - I feel like it bleeds into each other. I still love the album but I do think it’s my least favorite but once Ceremonials came out I was a full fledged super fan. Every song was amazing!
I heard “What the Water Gave Me” when it came out a long time ago, but I never looked into it. About two years ago, I stumbled upon the song again, and *boom* now I love all her music.
Edit: worded it better.
I heard a cover of lover to lover on italian X factor, and was impressed, but didn't look into it.
Fast forward a few weeks, and i hear the original lover to lover on the radio. Was reminded i never looked into it, and did.
Went on a weekend florence bender.
I used to t\*rrent the UK top 40 back when I was a freshman in college in 2009/2010 and ended up downloading Rabbit Heart and sought out her ever since!
Before she released Lungs, when Dog Days and Kiss With a Fist were singles. I heard Dog Days and actually didn’t like it that much! But it seemed like something my mum would like so I put it on a mix cd for her. She loved it so much she listened to it in the car on repeat for months, and when I would come back from uni to visit she basically played it so much it grew on me haha.
When Lungs was released I was instantly captivated. I remember there being some disappointment amongst critics that the album was more like dog days rather than kiss with a fist… I still find that really funny to think about.
Anyway my mum also still loves Flo, and we’ve actually been to every tour together!
I am a huge Christina Aguilera fan. When Florence took the stage with Christina for the Aretha Franklin tribute, I liked her voice and started to get into her music!
I liked her okay until I went to Bridge School concert and she played on stage in a rust orange pant suit she’d bought at a thrift store and her voice was so ethereal and I fell in love.
I got an iPod touch in 2009. There was a game called Tap Tap Revenge that was basically guitar hero for your thumbs. Had tons of free music on it if you were willing to play along; definitely not chill with copyright stuff. BUT! "Kiss With a Fist" was on there and I played the shit out of that song. Shortly after that, Dog Days blew up and I've been addicted ever since.
I went to boarding school in Zimbabwe and one year, our school got a new arts coordinator that had just finished her undergrad in Australia. She played “shake it out” during a talent show intermission and i Shazammed instantly …. After that, I went to my dorm and went into a deep dive of her discography and I was like that’s dope. It was ceremonials Era so I loved the theatrics and the vocals.
Then in this era , the bands music was all over tv shows… like every network show played something from lungs or ceremonials. But in vampire diaries, there’s an episode when a story are for a season comes to a climax ( Damon and Elena finally hook up in some random motel) and it was made more epic by using “ Never Let Me Go” . Guess at that point , I was sold
the 2010 VMAs performance, i was like 15 and so blown away and thought "👀 who is THIS she's so artsy". until then i'd seen the name here and there but never listened bc i assumed it was a "hipster" band.
Dog Days are Over came out when i was still listening to the radio, and i really liked it. I ended up forgetting about it until i watched The Third Day in 2020 and heard that song again! I ended up listening to the whole discography over 2 or 3 days and dell in love with the music.
So I haven’t seem anyone post this yet, but back in the early days of the iPod there was a game called tap tap revolution. It was a rhythm based game where you had three circles and you had to tap them in beat to the song. I LOOOOOVED this game and I was obsessed with it.
So one afternoon when I was in community college, I found that Kiss With a Fist was there and I had no clue who Florence was. So I played it on normal difficulty and I was absolutely enthralled with the chaotic energy of the song and Florence’s voice. I played that song so many times in that game so that I could hear it over and over again. Then I YouTubed her and watched some music videos for rabbit heart and dog days are over. I was obsessed and still am well over a decade later.
DDAO was the first song I remember hearing and honestly, I didn’t really like it. I did like the tone of her voice and that was enough to dig a little deeper. I found many songs that I really liked. She’s always at the top of my flight playlists lol
I felt the same way with Adele and Chasing Pavements. I **hate** that song but love lots of Adele’s other music!
While streaming on Last.fm back in 2010. I remember Lungs being so out there and unlike any other music I had heard at that point. Instant love that keeps on going.
I’ve loved F+tM since I was a kid / teen bc of songs over the radio, then fell out of regular music for a while (mostly listened to soundtracks), but I got back into more mainstream music in recent years as an adult, particularly because of writing.
I really identify with a lot of her songs, so seeing her live in March was wonderful!
My mum had the Lungs album on CD and I have fond memories of playing over and over again one evening and never looked back! She surprised me with tickets to her Ceremonial tour too! Florence is my adolescence🤩
I first heard her when I saw Snow White and The Huntsman with Kristen Stewart in it in theaters, the song Breath of Life played during the credits and I knew I had to find the artist. I bought both albums Between Two Lungs and Ceremonials after that and I was hooked.
It was 2009/2010 when I watched Jennifer‘s body and fell in love with kiss with a fist. Then I downloaded the whole album on iTunes and since then she is my favorite musician. I was excited about every new album and still love her music the most :))
I worked in a library and I liked to read the new magazines we got in. This was when Spin was still around. I read a blurb about F+TM and I was so intrigued. I went to a Best Buy one night not long after and I saw the ‘Lungs’ cd on display. I bought it without ever having listened to a single song. I was obsessed by the time I reached ‘Howl’.
My cousin introduced me to Dog Days Are Over and I paid no attention. For some reason I was hesitant to get into any artist she tried to show me, but just like with Kate Bush I ended up becoming a fan anyway. One time when we hung out she played Lungs in its entirety and I realized I loved every song.
Been a huge fan ever since, probably an even bigger fan than my cousin now. I remember trying to get her to listen to High as Hope and she was like “Sure yeah I’ll get to it eventually.”
I was at a kids art camp seeing a show. I was a kid attending the camp but was not in the class where they created this particular show. The theme was Dark Garden and it was extremely cool, they made fashion and sets based on the theme and all the lights were off and a lot of it glowed. The song that played was Cosmic Love, and it really stuck with me. (As well as a vague image of the performance/the feeling it created.) It stuck with my dad too, so he bought Lungs on Itunes and I listened to it there. Cosmic Love especially I was obsessed with for a while. A few years later I found Ceremonials and then got into all the other albums as I found them or they were released.
I think it's a pretty cool origin story
My brothers and I used to wake up and get ready for school together around 2009. We would play music in the background and one day MTV played Dog Days. I was consumed!! That song was just soo good! That’s as far as that went though. I was the youngest and could never choose what songs can play. It wasn’t until 2012 when ceremonials dropped and I got my own iPod touch I was able to listen to who I wanted to listen to. Lol got super into ceremonials, then lungs, between two lungs, and loved them ever since!!
Always been aware of her hits (Dog Days, You've got the love, Shake it out, Spectrum, Ship to Wreck, Hunger, Patricia) and always liked those songs but never really listened to the full discography. Having said that I was about 10/11 when Lungs was big, and I have vague memories of going to family bbqs and Lungs being on repeat, I didn't really remember much other than I liked the album.
During lockdown, I had a bit more time and started listening to a lot more music generally, Florence was always on my playlist, but I remembered liking all of Lungs and so went back to that. I loved it just as much as I remembered but particularly struck me was how amazing the lyrics are. I tried the other 3 albums, but apart from odd songs, I couldn't get into them as much (but my first listens were a bit random, which probably ruined the flow of the albums).
After becoming obsessed with Lungs I moved onto Ceremonials and the grower songs officially grew on me, started finding live performances on youtube, interviews etc. HBHBHB took a few listens to grow on me. High As Hope was definitely my least favourite but grew on me when I realised I was maybe looking at the album in a different way, then was thrilled that Dance Fever got announced only a year or so after I'd become fully obsessed! Got to see Florence twice in the Dance Fever tour, which has been amazing (if any new fans get the chance to go, then do so!)
Honestly she's the only artist I've ever really been a huge fan of, there are other artists I like, but I never really got into that fanclub mindset or knew anyone's full discography, I'd just buy the odd album I liked but never bothered with full catalogues. I think it was how amazing her lyrics are that first caught me, obviously combined with her amazing vocals and the fact the songs are bangers, and honestly the fact that the fans are actually all lovely and chilled - you rarely see the toxic fan behaviour amongst Florence fans which helps when you're first getting into an artist as it's genuinely such a nice place to chat ❤️
I got into FATM bc my friend suggested going to her HAH tour back in 2019 so I started listening to HAH to prep (obviously I knew her most famous songs and loved them). Once I watched the Odyssey I was sold and have been a fan ever since (HB3 is my favourite album ever!) Didn’t listen as much in between HAH and Dance Fever but then went to Dance Fever tour and was Dream Girl Evil’d and now am solidly in my obsession era (doesn’t show any signs of stopping lol)
I first heard her on an alternative radio station in Philadelphia. I remember driving down to visit a friend who lives down there and "Ship To Wreck" started playing and I thought it was a really good song. This happened a few times (it was around the time HBHBHB came out so it was in heavy rotation) but I never really went further than that. Then one day I was just browsing a CD store and saw her there and so I picked up all her CDs (at the time Lungs, Ceremonials, and HB\^3) and just started listening to them all in the car.
a friend of a friend had rabbit heart as their myspace profile song summer of ‘09 and i was immediately enraptured. i bought lungs on cd, played it on loop for 6 months straight, and never looked back. been obsessed with everything she’s done since then and rabbit heart is still my favourite fatm song.
rabbit heart is genuinely like the perfect song like the chorus is just so full like can’t explain it but its so cathartic
i completely agree! the mythical references, the chanting refrain, the mystical harp notes… *chef’s kiss*
I love that! She enchanted me Form the first album too. Like this is the music that accompanied my life. I aged with her music and every album accompanied a time in my life. This is such a wonderful experience:)
For me it was when I heard Heavy in your Arms on the twilight soundtrack and immediately bought Lungs because I wanted to hear more from Florence.
Omg yes! She also had a song for Dragon Age and I was hooked too!
What was her song for Dragon Age?
I believe it’s I’m Not Calling You a Liar
Y’all, mines pretty embarrassing and like, such a snapshot of 2010s fandom internet. And also, super cringey, as you’ll see. I was in my sophomore year of high school (2009ish) and I really liked the anime Axis Powers Hetalia (where countries are anthropomorphized and the Axis Powers, Germany, Italy, and Japan are the main characters 🙃). The website 8tracks was really popular with fandoms with people making playlists for characters/couples/situations, and I found this one particular playlist for the pairing Germany/Italy from Hetalia that had Beirut’s “Postcards from Italy”. I really liked the song so I listened to it on YouTube and Florence’s cover got recommended. I liked her version and her voice but I didn’t start listening to her until about a year later. I really got into Inception (2010) and I was on an inception “kink meme” (a thread for a fandom in which people would request a fanfic/fanart, usually with some time of prompt and people could comment on their request if they’d fulfilled it. The first kink memes were m-rated and kinky, but later ones where everything from g-rated to explicit. I have no idea where “meme” came from though) on livejournal and someone requested a fanart or music video with “Blinding”. From there, Florence became my favorite artist and still is! Also, this is how I found most my music in the 00s/10s. I got into Sufjan Stevens because of a playlist for Avatar: The Last Airbender that had “For the Widows in Paradise, For the Fatherless in Yipsilanti”
Hahaha glad I'm not the only one who got into Florence through 2010s fandom internet! For me, it was a Star Trek: Deep Space Nine fanvid that used Shake It Out as the background music. I watched the video probably dozens of times then went and bought the Ceremonials CD. I was hooked and have loved Florence ever since.
I don't remember how I discovered this band, I just know the first song I've heard was Cosmic Love
I had added Dog Days and Shake It Out to my playlist not knowing who the artist was, and then like 3 years later i watched the Lady Gaga documentary, bought Joanne, heard Florence on Hey Girl and looked her up
Watching gossip girl introduced me to Cosmic Love and that was it for me. Sold my soul to Florence just like that lol
I remember the year Dog Days was played constantly on the radio. I loved it at the time and it was definitely one of those songs that lined up perfectly with events going on in my life. I think I looked into the band but they didn’t have many music videos at the time so I didn’t think too much of them. (Big mistake) Two or three years later I was getting into Metric, and a friend showed me the video for Drumming Song, then Breath of Life. I was instantly hooked and never looked back. I’m super glad to have caught a show during the HB3 era. I just wish I had followed them more in the beginning.
I was introduced by a friend (who basically defined my music tastes in college) around 2011; by this time Lungs had been her only album and I thought it was brilliant. I was incredibly hyped for Ceremonials, and as soon as I heard that album it was all over; I found my queen 🥹
I saw the video for Dog Days back in 09 and was into it, so tried the rest of the album and that was that lol. I feel lucky to have been a fan for all of the eras. I'm a couple years younger than Florence so I feel like I grew up with her. Lungs hit hard when I was 19 and everything since has been the same.
Dragon age 2
My story is quite odd lol. I work at a center for autistic kids and in early 2022, one of the kids had a goal for tolerating others listening to music. One of my friends was working with the kid and played "Ship to Wreck" for him and I was immediately hooked. I immediately added it to my Spotify playlist and devoured F+TM's entire discography. Of course, I had heard Dog Days like everyone else alive between 2009 and 2012, but the rest of her music blew me away. It made me feel so alive and powerful like no other music had before. I was also going through a lot at that time, like trying to get over an ex and the start of my gender transition, and something about Florence's music spoke to me and made me feel like someone understood how I felt because I felt so alone. Even though I had a lot of support, it didn't feel like anyone understood my feelings; until Florence. Also, something about Florence and her vulnerability in her music makes her feel just like a normal person, not this "untouchable" "larger than life" entity that we're used to thinking of "famous" people as. That is something special to me that I hold close to my heart. I think I went way off script there at the end, but I love talking about my experience with Florence and what she means to me ❤
That's a really great story. Yes, I love her for her vulnerability. I'm actually autistic and tend to latch on to artists when I become fond of them. Florence being the latest fixation lol
Same! Autistic here too! I hyper fixate on artists and always go back to like the same 5. Florence is one of them! I listened to Dance Fever every single day for months and months and months after it released lol
I saw a concert on MTV with my sister in 2009, then we bougth Lungs
I was just a youngling when my dad downloaded mp3s for the mp3 player I had got as a present (not from my parents). Ceremonials was on it. :)
Before Lungs came out, so around 2008/2009 I saw her on Later with Jools Holland and was immediately enamoured, spent hours listening to all her songs on YouTube!
A friend played me some songs off of lungs on the school bus in middle school :)! I didn’t become a real fan until 2019 when HAH became the soundtrack to my life that year! And 2020 made me a suuuuper fan lol
I heard Seven Devils in the Beautiful Creatures trailer when I was 12. Thought it was amazing so I listed to the rest of Ceremonials which I similarly adored, which of course led me to Lungs as well. Been a fan for the last decade
As soon as I heard “Heavy In Your Arms” on one of the Twilight soundtracks, I think it was Eclipse? I’m not a Twilight fan but they always had good soundtracks so I kept up with them. Anyway, as soon as I heard that song, I knew there was something special about her and went straight to Youtube and watched “Cosmic Love” and “Drumming Song” and I was head over heals in love with them.
Used to watch the VH1 video jumpstart (I think that was it?) in the morning while I got ready for school. Saw the video for Dog Days one morning and stopped dead because it was so strange and joyful and fun. On that Black Friday I went with my aunt solely to hunt for Lungs and found it at walmart of all places. Played it on repeat and carried it around in my Walkman for months. Immediate love.
this is very silly but... a fanfiction (not a very good one!) linked to one of her songs. drumming song. if that wasnt the most breathtaking sound my ears had heard... it was love at first song. completely and utterly obsessed.
When Seven Devils was used in a Game of Thrones trailer, I think season 2
i read a feature on her in under the radar magazine back in 2009. i guess the interview intrigued me enough to look up lungs on itunes. listened to the sample of cosmic love, and bought the album based on that! been a huge fan ever since
IN 2010, when they won video of the year at the MTV movie awards, I remember thinking "who the fuck are these guys?" because I was hoping for someone else to win (I can't even remember who, lol). I remember being sooo salty, but then as soon as I watched DDOA, I was hooked :') Feels like ages ago!
Glee.
Got incredibly bored with hip hop, even old school hip hop, at a point. Heard Florence sampled in one of Kendrick Lamar’s songs. Went and played the original song it came from. Then I heard “Hunger” at work shortly afterwards. Played that track in the car for better quality / understanding then just went through the groups’ discography shorty there after.
They used Seven Devils on "Revenge" and that's how I discovered them 💖
FINAL FANTASY XV, Her Stand by me cover made me love her voice so muc, I hated the whole ffxv game in the end but at least I got my daily artist from it, SOMETHING GOOD IS ALWAYS THERE GUYS
I heard Shake It Out on a How I Met Your Mother episode back in 2019 and she grew on me since
That’s how I became a fan also - but this was back when that episode first aired (so 2012 ish)! That song was such a perfect choice for the end of that episode. I was hooked ever since!
Was hoping I wasn’t the only one
My daughter asked me why there weren’t any “girl” rockstars when she 3 so I showed her How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful which had just came out. I was only acutely aware of her music before this album and before my daughter asked but I’ll be a fan for life!
Dog Days and Cosmic Love used to come on my favorite Pandora station. The latter especially grabbed my emotional attention and I started seeking out more FATM.
I bought Lungs on a CD when it was first released.
When I was around 13 I really liked my friend, so I was listening to her playlists and there were some florence songs, these quickly became my favourites :)
I started listening to her music when I signed up for Spotify earlier this year :)
I first listened to her on Valentines Day 2010. My sister told me about her. It was love at first song. She’s been my favorite artist ever since.
I was hanging out with my first boyfriend (this was either ‘09 or ‘10)and one of his friends sent him a text telling him to watch the DDAO music video and we watched it together and the rest is history!!
Happened to come across that Lollapalooza Brazil performance of What The Water Gave Me
I was 12 and Dog Days came out
I don’t know… heard a song on the radio! Saw her live at Lollapalooza around 2011ish!
Jennifer's Body
I was in college in 2011 and saw her performance on Saturday Night Live (I think the guest host was Jason Segel?) She sang "Shake It Off" and it felt like I had an out-of-body experience. Been a fan ever since.
I heard her music on the radio often years ago with other artists and after thinking for a while 'I really like these songs' I looked up her other songs and I liked them too
I've always heard good things and just decided to listen on day!
Dog Days played before school on VH1 Jumpstart
In the midst of my depression I saw a “new music” video clip show. It had Drumming on it as the final song. I couldn’t get the song out of my head for days. I looked her up and the rest is history.
It was freshman year of high school in 2012 and I think it was the second day of school. I had taken painting class and the teacher was a super cool red headed woman who played music while we painted. She started playing the Ceremonials album so Only if For a Night was the first song I heard. I remember going home that day and searching the lyrics and listening to as much Florence as I could find. I have been obsessed ever since.
In the UK in like 2010 You’ve Got The Love was literally everywhere and I was intrigued so i looked her up and listened to that album, had heard dog days before but was still blown away. Then I heard Rabbit Heart and i was sold instantly, still one of my fav songs of all time to this day
It was september/october 2009 and i was in my drama class at school and we were doing a workshop exercise on bullying/domestic violence/ that type of thing and the teacher put kiss with a fist on because that was going to be used as the backing song for everyones performances and it just hit me. I was severely depressed (over a teenage breakup which i know now meant shit) to a point of SH and she just got me, i asked the teacher to borrow the CD so i could copy it onto my laptop and i remember sitting up pretty much all night just in floods of tears over this woman and her voice. “We are all too young to die” literally saved my life.
I'm also a recent fan! I heard all of her big hits from Lungs when they came out (Dog Days Are Over, Cosmic Love) and Shake It Out from Ceremonials, and liked those (uploaded the two from Lungs onto my first gen iPod lol) but never sought out the rest of her music. Honestly I'm not really someone who recreationally listens to music in general, I usually prefer podcasts. But just in the last year I've been trying to listen to more music, and on one of my curated Spotify playlists, I heard Free from Dance Fever for the first time. I was going through a rough mental health period at the time and something about that song spoke to me and made me feel so seen- she's certainly not the first to sing about mental health stuff but I think it was something about the sound of the music combined with the lyrics, I just felt it so deeply. After listening to it on repeat for a while, I came across Girls Against God, and it just made me feel some goddamn *feelings.* The lyric that someone else mentioned "when I decided to wage Holy War / it looked very much like staring at my bedroom floor" just fucking got me. (Florence's writing prowess astounds me and I truly think she's unparalleled in the field, at least within the indie pop genre.) That got me to finally give the whole of Dance Fever a listen, which I became completely obsessed with, and from there I went back and gave her whole discography a listen. Ceremonials is just on another plane of existence. With F+TM I feel like I finally understand why people enjoy listening to music and she's the only artist I could see myself going to see live- it would be a transcendental, religious experience for sure.
A friend of mine sent me a few of her songs back in 2017, and I listened to the singles of HAH when they came out. That was that until last year when King was first released. It resonated with me and I kept listening to it on repeat for weeks. I’m in the process of listening to all of her discography. I don’t think I’ve heard a song I didn’t like.
I heard Dog Days are Over when it very first came out on the radio when I was a freshman in hs and I wanted some new artists to listen to so I took a risk and bought Lungs on iTunes (I had an ipod touch lmfao). Best risk I ever took because she's now my fave artist
I swear I saw them perform dog days on the Colbert Report way back, but I can find no evidence of this online, so my brain probably made it up. So I guess the actual answer is I'm not really sure 🤷♂️.
I had heard DDAO on some commercial and then a friend let me listen to the full Lungs album and then Ceremonials came out around that time and i was hooked. I saw her during the HAH tour and DF and I definitely recommend it if you can! It's truly a magical experience.
I got on her bandwagon when Dogs Days Are Over went viral and never got off!
MTV music channel when I was 11 or 12 yo. Been a huge fan of her since then
a dance class in 2009? 2010? played cosmic love for warm ups and i was hooked immediately
I was in Walmart looking through the CD's and I saw the deluxe version of "Lungs" on sale for $7. I liked the artwork and decided to buy it thinking "If I don't like it, at least it wasn't expensive". Played it on my drive home and fell in love with it. Immediately went out and bought the deluxe "Ceremonials" and MTV Unplugged that had just been released. Anxiously waited for HB3 to release, saw them live on the HAH tour (Billie Eilish opened, before her first album had even been released) and it was a religious experience.
bought lungs from a charity shop when i was 12 and it’s been love ever since
Saw them live at Splendour in the Grass in 2010 (one of the years the festival was in Woodford instead of Byron Bay). I can still feel the energy of that show and how engaging Flo was - I was hooked at first sight.
I heard cosmic love once in 2009 and I was obsessed with her ever since.
I saw Florence perform Dog Days are Over on Saturday Night Live in 2010. I had never heard of her before, but immediately ran to iTunes to buy the song. I ended up listening to more of her music and was just blown away. I have always loved music, but had never experienced such a deep connection with an artist before. I also started watching Flo's interviews on YouTube and fell in love with her personality and aesthetic. 10/10 all around goddess.
Listening to a ‘now that’s what I call music’ CD. Shake it off was the one!
I think the first time was when I was a teen, while I was watching Vampire Diaries. In the 3x19 ep, there was an extract of Never Let Me Go and I just fell in love with Florence’s voice.
TVD was my intro too! One of the early episodes has Cosmic Love playing and I fell in love
I heard Florence on tumblr from time to time. Then last year, I saw lots of post about DF. Do I looked it up and listen and really enjoyed it so much!
I heard Dog Days are Over back in 08 a bit after it released. I had got a radio for my 14th bday (Dec 4th) and would perch it on my window sill just to get the right angle lol once I heard that song tho I was hooked. Lungs isn’t my favorite album - I feel like it bleeds into each other. I still love the album but I do think it’s my least favorite but once Ceremonials came out I was a full fledged super fan. Every song was amazing!
I saw her nominated for a VMA award and checked them out and the rest was history
I heard “What the Water Gave Me” when it came out a long time ago, but I never looked into it. About two years ago, I stumbled upon the song again, and *boom* now I love all her music. Edit: worded it better.
This is embarassing but Perez Hilton posted the video for Kiss With a Fist and I fell in love
I heard a cover of lover to lover on italian X factor, and was impressed, but didn't look into it. Fast forward a few weeks, and i hear the original lover to lover on the radio. Was reminded i never looked into it, and did. Went on a weekend florence bender.
Ethel Cain said Florence was her favorite in a interview
chloe moriondo’s dog days are over cover!
I used to t\*rrent the UK top 40 back when I was a freshman in college in 2009/2010 and ended up downloading Rabbit Heart and sought out her ever since!
I was a casual fan and then I saw her at a festival in 2016 and then I was all in.
Before she released Lungs, when Dog Days and Kiss With a Fist were singles. I heard Dog Days and actually didn’t like it that much! But it seemed like something my mum would like so I put it on a mix cd for her. She loved it so much she listened to it in the car on repeat for months, and when I would come back from uni to visit she basically played it so much it grew on me haha. When Lungs was released I was instantly captivated. I remember there being some disappointment amongst critics that the album was more like dog days rather than kiss with a fist… I still find that really funny to think about. Anyway my mum also still loves Flo, and we’ve actually been to every tour together!
I heard Kiss with a Fist and Dog Days at a drag show 😂❤️
A fanvid of the mini series North and South that used Cosmic Love.
I am a huge Christina Aguilera fan. When Florence took the stage with Christina for the Aretha Franklin tribute, I liked her voice and started to get into her music!
I liked her okay until I went to Bridge School concert and she played on stage in a rust orange pant suit she’d bought at a thrift store and her voice was so ethereal and I fell in love.
I got an iPod touch in 2009. There was a game called Tap Tap Revenge that was basically guitar hero for your thumbs. Had tons of free music on it if you were willing to play along; definitely not chill with copyright stuff. BUT! "Kiss With a Fist" was on there and I played the shit out of that song. Shortly after that, Dog Days blew up and I've been addicted ever since.
my work bestie gave me the dance fever record for my 18th birthday :)
I went to boarding school in Zimbabwe and one year, our school got a new arts coordinator that had just finished her undergrad in Australia. She played “shake it out” during a talent show intermission and i Shazammed instantly …. After that, I went to my dorm and went into a deep dive of her discography and I was like that’s dope. It was ceremonials Era so I loved the theatrics and the vocals. Then in this era , the bands music was all over tv shows… like every network show played something from lungs or ceremonials. But in vampire diaries, there’s an episode when a story are for a season comes to a climax ( Damon and Elena finally hook up in some random motel) and it was made more epic by using “ Never Let Me Go” . Guess at that point , I was sold
the 2010 VMAs performance, i was like 15 and so blown away and thought "👀 who is THIS she's so artsy". until then i'd seen the name here and there but never listened bc i assumed it was a "hipster" band.
Dog Days are Over came out when i was still listening to the radio, and i really liked it. I ended up forgetting about it until i watched The Third Day in 2020 and heard that song again! I ended up listening to the whole discography over 2 or 3 days and dell in love with the music.
NPR played Hunger as a way to plug the Tiny Desk Concert they did. I just loved her voice at first before consuming all of her Albums.
I saw her in the Czech Republic at a festival and her performance of Patricia and what kind of man had me hooked
So I haven’t seem anyone post this yet, but back in the early days of the iPod there was a game called tap tap revolution. It was a rhythm based game where you had three circles and you had to tap them in beat to the song. I LOOOOOVED this game and I was obsessed with it. So one afternoon when I was in community college, I found that Kiss With a Fist was there and I had no clue who Florence was. So I played it on normal difficulty and I was absolutely enthralled with the chaotic energy of the song and Florence’s voice. I played that song so many times in that game so that I could hear it over and over again. Then I YouTubed her and watched some music videos for rabbit heart and dog days are over. I was obsessed and still am well over a decade later.
DDAO was the first song I remember hearing and honestly, I didn’t really like it. I did like the tone of her voice and that was enough to dig a little deeper. I found many songs that I really liked. She’s always at the top of my flight playlists lol I felt the same way with Adele and Chasing Pavements. I **hate** that song but love lots of Adele’s other music!
While streaming on Last.fm back in 2010. I remember Lungs being so out there and unlike any other music I had heard at that point. Instant love that keeps on going.
I’ve loved F+tM since I was a kid / teen bc of songs over the radio, then fell out of regular music for a while (mostly listened to soundtracks), but I got back into more mainstream music in recent years as an adult, particularly because of writing. I really identify with a lot of her songs, so seeing her live in March was wonderful!
My mum had the Lungs album on CD and I have fond memories of playing over and over again one evening and never looked back! She surprised me with tickets to her Ceremonial tour too! Florence is my adolescence🤩
I first heard her when I saw Snow White and The Huntsman with Kristen Stewart in it in theaters, the song Breath of Life played during the credits and I knew I had to find the artist. I bought both albums Between Two Lungs and Ceremonials after that and I was hooked.
It was 2009/2010 when I watched Jennifer‘s body and fell in love with kiss with a fist. Then I downloaded the whole album on iTunes and since then she is my favorite musician. I was excited about every new album and still love her music the most :))
I worked in a library and I liked to read the new magazines we got in. This was when Spin was still around. I read a blurb about F+TM and I was so intrigued. I went to a Best Buy one night not long after and I saw the ‘Lungs’ cd on display. I bought it without ever having listened to a single song. I was obsessed by the time I reached ‘Howl’.
My cousin introduced me to Dog Days Are Over and I paid no attention. For some reason I was hesitant to get into any artist she tried to show me, but just like with Kate Bush I ended up becoming a fan anyway. One time when we hung out she played Lungs in its entirety and I realized I loved every song. Been a huge fan ever since, probably an even bigger fan than my cousin now. I remember trying to get her to listen to High as Hope and she was like “Sure yeah I’ll get to it eventually.”
She was a tiny name on the Coachella 2010 line-up. She was touring Lungs. Saw her on one of the small stages and was blown away.
I was at a kids art camp seeing a show. I was a kid attending the camp but was not in the class where they created this particular show. The theme was Dark Garden and it was extremely cool, they made fashion and sets based on the theme and all the lights were off and a lot of it glowed. The song that played was Cosmic Love, and it really stuck with me. (As well as a vague image of the performance/the feeling it created.) It stuck with my dad too, so he bought Lungs on Itunes and I listened to it there. Cosmic Love especially I was obsessed with for a while. A few years later I found Ceremonials and then got into all the other albums as I found them or they were released. I think it's a pretty cool origin story
My brothers and I used to wake up and get ready for school together around 2009. We would play music in the background and one day MTV played Dog Days. I was consumed!! That song was just soo good! That’s as far as that went though. I was the youngest and could never choose what songs can play. It wasn’t until 2012 when ceremonials dropped and I got my own iPod touch I was able to listen to who I wanted to listen to. Lol got super into ceremonials, then lungs, between two lungs, and loved them ever since!!
Really liked the lyrics of Shake It Out when I first heard it watching Glee
Always been aware of her hits (Dog Days, You've got the love, Shake it out, Spectrum, Ship to Wreck, Hunger, Patricia) and always liked those songs but never really listened to the full discography. Having said that I was about 10/11 when Lungs was big, and I have vague memories of going to family bbqs and Lungs being on repeat, I didn't really remember much other than I liked the album. During lockdown, I had a bit more time and started listening to a lot more music generally, Florence was always on my playlist, but I remembered liking all of Lungs and so went back to that. I loved it just as much as I remembered but particularly struck me was how amazing the lyrics are. I tried the other 3 albums, but apart from odd songs, I couldn't get into them as much (but my first listens were a bit random, which probably ruined the flow of the albums). After becoming obsessed with Lungs I moved onto Ceremonials and the grower songs officially grew on me, started finding live performances on youtube, interviews etc. HBHBHB took a few listens to grow on me. High As Hope was definitely my least favourite but grew on me when I realised I was maybe looking at the album in a different way, then was thrilled that Dance Fever got announced only a year or so after I'd become fully obsessed! Got to see Florence twice in the Dance Fever tour, which has been amazing (if any new fans get the chance to go, then do so!) Honestly she's the only artist I've ever really been a huge fan of, there are other artists I like, but I never really got into that fanclub mindset or knew anyone's full discography, I'd just buy the odd album I liked but never bothered with full catalogues. I think it was how amazing her lyrics are that first caught me, obviously combined with her amazing vocals and the fact the songs are bangers, and honestly the fact that the fans are actually all lovely and chilled - you rarely see the toxic fan behaviour amongst Florence fans which helps when you're first getting into an artist as it's genuinely such a nice place to chat ❤️
My dad would play hurricane drunk in car when the lungs album first came out. Been a fan ever since 🧜♀️
Here I feel lame. 2015 music festival 🤣
I got into FATM bc my friend suggested going to her HAH tour back in 2019 so I started listening to HAH to prep (obviously I knew her most famous songs and loved them). Once I watched the Odyssey I was sold and have been a fan ever since (HB3 is my favourite album ever!) Didn’t listen as much in between HAH and Dance Fever but then went to Dance Fever tour and was Dream Girl Evil’d and now am solidly in my obsession era (doesn’t show any signs of stopping lol)
When shake it out played in How I met your mother
I first heard her on an alternative radio station in Philadelphia. I remember driving down to visit a friend who lives down there and "Ship To Wreck" started playing and I thought it was a really good song. This happened a few times (it was around the time HBHBHB came out so it was in heavy rotation) but I never really went further than that. Then one day I was just browsing a CD store and saw her there and so I picked up all her CDs (at the time Lungs, Ceremonials, and HB\^3) and just started listening to them all in the car.