International Achievement - Florence Welch

“The world’s a beast of a burden,” Florence Welch once sang on What The Water Gave Me, a song from Florence + The Machine’s second album, Ceremonials. If so, it’s one her songs bear lightly.

Because the songs Welch has written and co-written – as the primary songwriter across Florence + The Machine’s three albums to date – have travelled around the planet with an easy grace usually only achieved by an awful lot of air miles and free upgrades.

High end travel seemed a long way off when Welch emerged as a South London indie rocker at the tail-end of the Noughties, but via three hit albums – 2009’s Lungs, 2011’s Ceremonials and 2015’s How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful – and some glorious songs, she has transformed herself into one of the world’s biggest stars.

So, as well as headlining Glastonbury Festival and winning BRIT Awards, she has also performed at the Oscars and been nominated for multiple Grammys, thanks to her trademark powerhouse vocals and ethereal writing style.

You can trace the latter from the ragged punk glory of Kiss With A Fist through the tumultuous Dog Days Are Over and Rabbit Heart (Raise It Up) to the epic Shake It Out and Spectrum (Say My Name), all evidence of Welch’s increasing songwriting sophistication.

But it was How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful – home to emotional anthems such as What Kind Of Man, Ship To Wreck and Delilah – that really cemented her as a global star. It went to No.1 in Australia, Ireland, New Zealand, Poland and Switzerland as well as the UK and the US, and went Top 10 in a further 12 countries.

It means Welch is now known from one end of the globe to the other. But wherever she may roam, those songs will always carry her home.