1999: Formation Alison Goldfrapp began her musical career performing with Dance Company Catherine Massin throughout the Netherlands during her early twenties. Afterwards, she attended
Middlesex University, where she studied fine art and started creating live performance pieces. In the early 1990s, Goldfrapp served as a guest vocalist with the electronic band
Orbital and
trip hop artist
Tricky. In 1999, she was introduced to composer
Will Gregory after he listened to an early version of the song "
Human". Gregory and Goldfrapp felt a mutual connection and wrote the track "
Lovely Head". Following several months of phone calls, they decided to form a band and began performing under the name Goldfrapp. They recorded their debut album over six months, beginning in September 1999, in a rented
bungalow in the
Wiltshire countryside. The album was well received by music critics, It reached number 57 on the
UK Albums Chart, and was certified gold by the
British Phonographic Industry. In 2001,
Felt Mountain was shortlisted for the
Mercury Prize, an annual music prize awarded for the best British or Irish album from the previous year.
2003–2004: Black Cherry Goldfrapp's second album
Black Cherry was released in April 2003. The band recorded the album in a darkened studio in
Bath, England. The album focused more heavily on
dance music and
glam rock-inspired
synths than its predecessor. Alison Goldfrapp commented that the album differed from
Felt Mountain because the band "felt that we really didn't want to repeat what we had done...we kind of wanted to do something that felt equally as fresh to us as the first one felt fresh to us, and we wanted to put more kind of "oomph" in it." The album received positive reviews from critics.
The Guardian found it to be an "unexpected delight" and
About.com called it a "rare electronica album of warmth and depth...the ultimate chillout pleasure".
Black Cherry peaked at number 19 on the UK Albums Chart and number four on the
Billboard Top Electronic Albums chart in the United States. It sold well, reaching platinum status in the UK and selling 52,000 copies in the U.S. as of August 2006. The first single released from the album was "
Train", which reached number 23 on the
UK Singles Chart. The third single released from
Black Cherry was "
Twist", a song inspired by a fantasy that Goldfrapp had about a boy who worked in a fairground. The reinvented image included false eyelashes, customised T-shirts, military uniforms and fishnet stockings. Starting in March 2003, the band toured the album, with a concert series entitled
Black Cherry Tour. In 2004, the band further toured Australia, Japan, Europe and North America and embarked on the Wonderful Electric Tour. Sections of the stage show featured Goldfrapp in a white dress wearing a horse tail and dancers with deer heads, and were inspired by Goldfrapp's interest in animals and mythology.
2005–2006: Supernature Supernature, Goldfrapp's third album, was released in August 2005. The album comprises pop and
electronic dance music prominently featured on
Black Cherry, The band never intended to create dance music, however, previous releases were popular across nightclubs in North America and as a result,
Supernature débuted at number two on the UK Albums Chart and was certified platinum in the UK. The album received a
Grammy Award nomination in 2007 for
Best Electronic/Dance Album and "
Ooh La La" was nominated for
Best Dance Recording. The song was used for the iPhone 5S's commercial in 2013. "Ooh La La", the album's
lead single, became Goldfrapp's first UK top five single. "Ooh La La" became the first song performed by the band to feature the
electric guitar and was cited as a highlight of the album by
Allmusic. "
Number 1" was released as the album's second single. Constructed around a synthesiser and
bass arrangement, it was written about the importance of relationships. The album's third single "
Ride a White Horse" was inspired by the
disco era and reached number 15 in the UK. "
Fly Me Away" was released as the album's fourth single, but did not perform as well as its predecessors.
2006–2008: Seventh Tree Goldfrapp began writing and recording their fourth album,
Seventh Tree, at the end of 2006 in Bath, England; released in February 2008, it débuted at number two on the UK Albums Chart. The album's lead single, "
A&E", reached number ten in the UK. "
Happiness", the album's second single, reached number 25 in the UK. In 2008, Alison Goldfrapp took inspiration from the character of
Pierrot and English Folk. The artwork for
Seventh Tree featured her dressed as a clown because it is an "iconic image" with "so many different connotations". Goldfrapp chose to tone down her overtly sexual image because she felt that it was taking over the music. Her new image, inspired by Paganism, featured her dressed in white or natural-coloured flowing gowns with loose, curly blond hair.
2009–2012: Head First and The Singles Goldfrapp's fifth album,
Head First, was released in March 2010. Recorded over a six-month period, it was a return to the dance oriented sound on previous albums. Alison Goldfrapp described its sound as "optimistic and vibrant." The album received positive reviews from critics, with Allmusic describing it as "a love letter to the frothy, fleeting, but very vital joys of pop music."
Head First peaked at number six on the UK Albums Chart and number 45 on the US
Billboard 200. The album earned Goldfrapp a Grammy Award nomination in 2011 for Best Electronic/Dance Album and "
Rocket" was nominated for Best Dance Recording. The album's first single was "Rocket", a song about an unfaithful lover. Musically,
The Times and
Spin have compared the song to "
Jump" by American
rock band Van Halen. In the US, "Rocket" peaked at number one on the US Hot Dance Club Play chart. The album's third single "
Believer" featured remixes by
Vince Clarke and
Davide Rossi. In February 2012, Goldfrapp released the
compilation album The Singles. The album contained previously released material as well as two newly recorded songs.
2013–2014: Tales of Us In mid-June, Goldfrapp announced their forthcoming sixth album,
Tales of Us, to be released 9 September 2013. The album features ten tracks. All the track titles, with the exception of "Stranger", are given people's names. Goldfrapp confirmed via Twitter that the sound of the album focuses on their softer sounds similar to that of their début piece
Felt Mountain as well as their 2008 release
Seventh Tree. Accompanying this announcement was the re-launch of the duo's website which features a trailer video directed by
Lisa Gunning with the first dates announced for their
Tales of Us Tour. "Drew", the first single from the album, was released on 2 September 2013 with an accompanying film directed by Gunning, the first of five films subsequently released to promote the album. Preceding the album's release, Goldfrapp performed the album in its entirety with a 24-piece orchestra and choir over two nights at the Manchester International Festival.
Tales of Us was nominally successful upon release, charting in the top 20 in over 15 countries. In March 2014, the Tales of Us worldwide cinema event took place, featuring the full Tales of Us film and a live performance from Air Studios in London. Further singles from the album included "Annabel" and "Stranger".
2015–2018: Silver Eye In July 2015, Alison Goldfrapp announced on Twitter that the group had returned to the studio to work on music for the forthcoming seventh album, but as far as a release date she could only state it would be "sometime in 2017". in December 2016 Goldfrapp posted on their
Instagram page the covers of their first six studio albums. On 23 December 2016 Goldfrapp posted an image of two topless figures holding each other's heads, with bleached blonde hair covering their faces, and a black substance slicked across their forearms, along with the hashtag #goldfrapp7. The social media upload was initially assumed to be the seventh album's cover art. This turned out not to be the case. The title of the album was confirmed as
Silver Eye. The first track to be played from the album, titled "Anymore", was premiered on
Lauren Laverne's BBC 6 Music show on 23 January 2017.
Silver Eye was eventually released on 31 March 2017.
Silver Eye: Deluxe Edition was released on 6 July 2018. This was the original
Silver Eye album with an additional eight remixes, including a collaboration with
Dave Gahan of
Depeche Mode on the track "Ocean".
2019–present: Felt Mountain: The 20th Year Tour and hiatus In November 2019, a run of six concert dates was announced for 2020 by Alison Goldfrapp on the group's official website, in celebration of the approaching 20th anniversary of the release of the group's debut album
Felt Mountain. Goldfrapp commented that the album "represents a very special period in my life. It is the first album Will and I recorded as Goldfrapp, launching us in a new musical direction, and the moment for me, after 13 years or so in music, that I found a creative direction that I was truly excited about. Being nominated for a Mercury Prize was incredible and unexpected, and an affirmation that were embarking on an important journey." Initially scheduled to begin on 25 March 2020 at Manchester's
Albert Hall and conclude on 1 April at the
De La Warr Pavilion in
Bexhill-on-Sea, the tour was pushed back to 2022 due to the
COVID-19 pandemic. The rescheduled tour began at
Oxford's
O2 Academy on 31 March 2022 and ended at the
Royal Festival Hall in
London on 15 April. In September 2021, Goldfrapp were awarded the Ivor Novello inspiration award, which celebrates "peer recognition for the excellence of Goldfrapp songwriting catalogue and in particular how it has inspired the creative talent of other creators". Goldfrapp have remained on an indefinite hiatus since their last concert at the
Lytham Festival on 1 July 2022. Both Goldfrapp and Gregory have since embarked on solo projects. While promoting her debut solo album in 2023, Alison Goldfrapp had stated "never say never" to a reunion and that "we've had a pretty good stint together, ... Will has always had other projects in between, going off and doing his thing, and I've always wanted to do my thing for a long time. Everything is great, it's all good between us, ... but neither of us has plans to make any new music together." ==Musical style==