One of the most recognizable voices in British pop music belongs to Tracey Thorn, who has been crafting thoughtful songs for several decades. Born in Hertfordshire, England, in 1962, Tracey Anne Thorn began her music career in the late ’70s, joining the post-punk band Stern Bops. In 1980 she helped form Marine Girls, whose quiet, spare guitar-pop stuck out amid London’s noisy punk scene; in 1982, Thorn released her first solo album, A Distant Shore, and Marine Girls broke up the following year. She met her Cherry Red Records labelmate Ben Watt around that time, and the two became creative partners in the sophistipop act Everything But the Girl; they released their first album in 1984 and would go on to release nine more until taking a hiatus in 1999. In the mid-’90s, a guest vocal on the Massive Attack trip-hop cut “Protection” and a Todd Terry remix of EBTG’s longing “Missing” made Thorn a dance-floor staple, her wounded voice blending with thumping beats to arresting effect. Thorn resumed her solo career in 2007 with the beat-centric Out of the Woods and released three more albums over the 2000s and 2010s, balancing her music career with a writing pursuit that included regular columns for New Statesman and four memoirs.