Happiness

It came out in Germany on August 27, 2010, with the UK on September 6 per the Electricity Club; Mark Spike Stent mixed and George Marino mastered. Sound on Sound's April 2011 interview says Hurts worked in a basement under Sunshine Dance Studios in Manchester on a laptop with Logic 9, while Quant worked about 600 miles away in a former radio station in Gothenburg and files went back and forth online; the album took about 16 months, "Stay" came around Christmas after the writing stalled, a 20-piece orchestra recorded strings for "Unspoken", and "Silver Lining" went through about 72 mixes with Stent. The Gothenburg Gospel Choir is named by Sound on Sound, while Anderson told PopMatters in 2015 the choirs were computer-generated for lack of money, and the two accounts are unreconciled. Kylie Minogue sang on "Devotion".

It entered the UK at 4 with 25,493 copies, the fastest-selling debut by a UK band of 2010, and sold 180,218 there (Gold); it reached 2 in Germany, Austria, Poland and Switzerland, and went double Platinum in Germany and Poland. Metacritic scores it 58 from 9 reviews: NME's Luke Lewis gave 8 of 10, the Guardian's Alexis Petridis 2 of 5, Q 2, the Independent 3, AllMusic 4 of 5. The Electricity Club praised many outstanding moments while warning of style over substance.