The Best of Laura Marling

Joe writes: I know lots of people love Laura Marling's debut album but I didn't get it at the time and, as you'll guess from this playlist, I still don't. But from the second album onwards, she became one of my favourite artists. For me she just gets better and better. She's one of very few contemporary artists who I feel could have stood shoulder to shoulder with the folk rock greats of the early seventies.

my favourite Laura Marling tracks - a Spotify playlist

I think Arctic Monkeys will win the Mercury Music Prize and deservedly so

Joe writes: They are great and their album is great. But Laura Marling's music affects me in a way no other contemporary artist does - I'm in awe, I'm sad, I'm uplifted. I get the same feelings from listening to Blue or Blood On The Tracks (which I do a lot).

Laura Marling - Once

Joe writes: I seem to fall for Laura Marling's music more and more with each album, which I suppose is the way it should be as a young artist grows and develops. Even her style of singing, which felt slightly affected in the past, now makes sense because she seems so at ease with it. Once is the beautiful highlight of the new album Once I Was An Eagle. 

Laura Marling - All My Rage

Joe writes: Another great single from Laura Marling

 

Laura Marling - Sophia

Joe writes: Even if she had emerged in the early seventies when great folk rock was abundant, I think Laura Marling would have been considered a major artist. In the current decade, she is in a class of her own.

A second consecutive Laura Marling single that I love

Joe writes: wonderfully retro yet modern and, despite the title, not at all depressing

Joe writes: I wasn't a Laura Marling fan until now but I love Rambling Man

"If I only knew your name, I'd go from door to door"

Joe writes: I heard Ciara Haidar cover this at the weekend. What a great song, and one that I vaguely knew - surely a classic '80s hit for someone like The Bangles or Cyndi Lauper, I thought.

But no, it turns out it's the current single by the Mystery Jets featuring Laura Marling.

I love it when I group I had written off come up with something really great (when I say "love" I obviously mean "grudgingly accept").

Someone has to cover this and make it a hit.

Mystery Jets feat. Laura Marling - Young Love (iTunes)