After a couple of years of hardship and recovery, Ben Howard has returned to the music charts with smash hit album, Is It?. Here, we’ll take a look at Howard’s career, and his journey to get back into music.
Only Love – getting started
Over the years, romance – both mutual and unrequited – has served as a solid basis for a variety of music, with love songs aplenty. In fact, the world seems to love love – love has long since been the beating heart of a wide range of popular entertainment, with dating shows dominating in many countries. The theme of romance is even utilised in casino games – for example, when playing online bingo at Paddy Power, players can get the villa vibes with Lots of Likes, enter the world of burlesque with Risque Megaways, or enjoy the embrace of Love Lines. With such a variety of media out there, let alone music, that tackles the feelings of falling in love, it might seem nigh-on impossible to create yet another unique spin on such a topic – enter Ben Howard.
Despite self-releasing EPs before being signed to Island Records, London-born and Devon-raised Ben Howard shot into the spotlight with his debut studio album in 2011, Every Kingdom. The album went double platinum, and reached a height of number four in the UK Albums Chart. Perhaps the most notable singles from Every Kingdom are Keep Your Head Up and Only Love, the latter of which peaked at number nine in the UK Singles Chart. What Howard achieves in both of these tracks is something truly powerful and unique – they are anything but your typical song about love, instead touching on the darker aspects and struggles in a relationship, and how a partner can shelter and support through those storms.
Poigniant lyrics addressing identity and all-encompassing love are accompanied by Howard’s unique guitar style, drawing inspiration from folk artists like fellow Devonian John Smith. Howard is known for using a multitude of alternative tunings, and laying the guitar horizontal to make use of a percussive strumming technique. With this distinctive style alone, Howard’s music is instantly recognisable and full of soul – even adding depth to Carly Rae Jepson’s Call Me Maybe in Radio 1’s Live Lounge in 2012.
After this, Howard won two Brit Awards in 2013, and released three more studio albums – I Forget Where We Were (2014), Noonday Dream (2018), and Collections from the Whiteout (2021).
Return to music with Is It? (2023)
In 2022, Howard took a step back from music. Is It? marks Howard’s return to the charts, his fifth studio album, released on 16 June 2023.
Without giving too much away, throughout the album, Howard addresses and explains the reason for his break from making music, which artistically has caused a shift both lyrically and musically. Particularly, Howard achieves something astonishing in the track Total Eclipse, where he loops samples of abstract sounds and broken speech for a somewhat-uncomfortable-yet-reflective 90-second interlude.
However, the album is by no means dark or lamenting. Whilst Every Kingdom was about love and questioning identity, Is It? shows an unequivocal love for life and surety in expression.