Marina and the Diamonds - Electra Heart

Marina and the Diamonds is a curious pop star, her lyrics are full of evidence of her insecurities juxtaposed with her arrogance, slipping between ironic and painfully truthful. ‘Electra Heart’ is the follow up to her debut album ‘The Family Jewels’ and is based around a pop persona called Electra Heart who Marina described as ‘the antithesis of everything that I stand for’. But listening to the album you can’t help but wonder if there’s more of Marina in there than she makes out.

You can hardly fault her for her bold attempts to strive for pop martyrdom. In an age where ambition is frowned upon as arrogance, Marina has consistently come out stating her aims for top ten hits and number one albums, a sentiment echoed on the new album. ‘Electra Heart’ is jammed full of pop songs, some of which are magnificent, others less so. It’s been described as a break up album but if it is, it’s the most twisted break up album ever written all about power games and striving for success. Highlights have to be the bombastic ‘Homewrecker’ featuring Pet Shop Boys-esque spoken word verses and ‘Primadonna’, everything a pop song should be. ‘Lies’ is beefed up with far too many synthesizers until it is almost unrecognisable from the heartbreaking acoustic version, but somehow the song writing manages to pull it off.

When Marina’s good, she blows everyone out the water, which makes it all the more noticeable when she’s mediocre. In her drive for mainstream popularity and attempt to find a ‘big’ sound, she loses sight of the wider picture. Her sound is biggest when the songs are stripped down to their bones and left to speak for themselves, not hidden under layers of club music. ‘Teen Idle’ is simpler than some of the tracks nearer the beginning of the album, more accurately reflecting the sound from ‘The Family Jewels’ and ‘Fear and Loathing’ shows Marina’s remarkable voice at its best, while ‘Starring Role’ manages to sum the whole thing up with the lyric “you don’t love me/big fucking deal”. However noticeable disappointments like ‘Power and Control’ and ‘Living Dead’ taint the overall atmosphere of the album.

It is fair to say that Marina and the Diamonds divides opinion, from being called the ‘Welsh Katy Perry’ to the ‘greatest living popstar ever, except maybe Beyonce’ (ok that last one was just me); the point is that she prompts people to hate or love her music, to discuss it and moan about it, which is surely better than bored apathy. And at the end of the day there are more good songs on this album than bad ones.

Marina and the Diamonds: the marmite of pop music.



7.6

Jessy Parker

Marina and the Diamonds - Primadonna

Marina and the Diamonds straddles a line between intensely satirical or painfully truthful and it is sometimes hard to discern on which side she means to fall. Her latest single ‘Primadonna’ sees her start off sickly sweet, showcasing her criminally underrated vocals, before pounding out enough synthesizer to make any club DJ proud. She’s certainly not slow about her output, as ‘Primadonna’ is already the third song she has released off her forthcoming album ‘Electra Heart’, and all of them have been huge unabashed pop songs. Her voice retains a caustically bitter tone as she spits out lyrics which manage to simultaneously mock and worship the greedy world we live in (get what I want because I asked for it/not because I’m really that deserving of it), something which is becoming a common theme of her songs. Subverting pop music one single at a time, Marina and the Diamonds is clearly not a lady to be messed with.

Jessy Parker        

Marina and the Diamonds - Radioactive

First she cut her hair off. Then she went blonde. Marina and the Diamonds certainly does not want to be pigeonholed as anyone or anything. And any doubters of her raw talent will be silenced with these four minutes of gorgeous pop.

After the success of her debut album “The Family Jewels”, Marina returned stating that "Electra Heart embodies the lies, illusions and death of the American Dream". Although listening to ‘Radioactive’ it sounds as if she’s embracing it. With a synth riff introduction which could easily be played in every club in the world, ‘Radioactive’ is huge. An accompanying video of her running around the desert in a blonde wig and featuring one of the best sing a long choruses of the year, it shows Marina off as confident in her song writing ability, and unashamedly chasing after a hit. In a recent interview she said that she wanted to be ‘the goth Britney’. If this is anything to go by, it’s fantastic news for the world of pop that that’s her ambition.

By Jessy Parker

Marina and the Diamonds - Fear and Loathing

Posted on the 4th day of the London riots, this new track from Marina and the Diamonds (posted under the alias Electra Heart on Youtube) feels like a fitting message towards the rioters, in the words of Marina, "There is no crime in being kind". Moving away from the bouncy pop hits from 'Family Jewels', a more cinematic approach has been taken towards her song writing.  Perhaps this is Marina Diamandis' way of telling people to sit up and listen because she's not just a one trick pony. 

Starting with stacatto beats that sound like morse code and nuanced synths, this is a world away  from Marina's previous work. Although she has kept her trademark vocals, in the video for 'Fear And Loathing', she hastily chops her hair off to signify a new start. Lyrically, she has grown up and it feels like she's delving into the deep core of her emotional stream. She has worded them in such a way that it has her own personal touch on it, confessing "I've lived a lot of different lives/Been different people many times". 'Fear and Loathing' will hit a nerve with many as Marina has encapsulated the thoughts of those who cannot face up to reality and can't admit their own flaws. 

By Aurora Mitchell