Dance Fever debuts at No. 1 in the UK

Florence + the Machine’s much lauded new album, Dance Fever, debuts at No. 1 on Billboard’s Top Alternative Albums and Top Rock Albums charts, No. 2 on Top Album Sales and No. 7 on the Billboard 200. This marks the group’s fourth consecutive album in the top ten. In addition, the album debuts at No. 1 in the UK, the band’s fourth LP to reach the top spot.

Last week, Florence Welch shared the deluxe version of Dance Fever featuring a cover of The Stooges’ “Search And Destroy” and acoustic versions of four album tracks — “Cassandra,” “Free,” “Morning Elvis,” and “My Love.”

The highly anticipated original version features acclaimed tracks “My Love,” “Free,” “King” and “Heaven is Here,” all of which arrived alongside videos from acclaimed director Autumn De Wilde.

Following two wildly acclaimed, very intimate shows in New York and LA ahead of the album, Welch will tour the US later this year. She confirms second shows at New York’s Madison Square Garden and Los Angeles’ Hollywood Bowl, in addition to previously announced stops in Chicago, Boston, Austin and many more. Arlo Parks, Sam Fender, King Princess, Yves Tumor, Japanese Breakfast and Wet Leg will join as support on select dates and one dollar from every ticket sold will benefit Choose Love to aid refugees worldwide. Tickets are on sale now.

The group will also perform six arena shows in Australia and New Zealand in March 2023. Due to overwhelming demand, Welch added an additional show in Melbourne with stops in Perth, Sydney, Brisbane and Auckland.

Dance Fever was recorded in London over the course of the pandemic in anticipation of the world’s reopening. It conjures up what Florence missed most in the midst of lockdown — clubs, dancing at festivals, being in the whirl of movement and togetherness — and the hope of reunions to come.

The image and concept of choreomania — a Renaissance phenomenon in which groups of people danced wildly to the point of exhaustion, collapse and death — became a focal point of inspiration. Forced off the road for the first time in more than a decade, dance offered Florence propulsion, energy and a way of looking at music more choreographically.

Starting, as ever, armed with a notebook of poems and ideas, Florence had just arrived to New York in March 2020 to begin recording when COVID-19 forced a retreat to London. Holed up at home, the songs she had begun started to transform.

Dance Fever is an album that sees Florence at the peak of her powers, coming into a fully realized self-knowledge, poking sly fun at her own self-created persona, playing with ideas of identity, masculinity and femininity, redemption and celebration.

Dance Fever was produced by Florence, Jack Antonoff and Dave Bayley of Glass Animals.