Marina and the Diamonds - Electra Heart
"Dr Luke is kind of at the helm of American pop music and, in the beginning, I felt really excluded from that world. I was like, “Everything sounds the same; I don’t ever want to do that.” Then Katy Perry’s people asked if I wanted to support her in America. I bought her album and I was like, “This is actually really good.” Then I bought Ke$ha’s and obviously I had Britney’s LPs already. Slowly, I changed my perspective. If you’re in a club, you don’t necessarily want to be listening to super-meaningful music, but it doesn’t take the value away from it."The idea of personas and characters in pop music predates Marina Diamandis' birth. Today, though, there are increasing signs that the ability to reinvent one's image in the most commercial sense is a cheap excuse to sell out and aim for chart stardom. Diamandis, achieving somewhat lukewarm praise for her debut record The Family Jewels despite being a collection of excellent new wave pop songs, has thus created Electra Heart:
"Electra Heart is the antithesis of everything that I stand for. And the point of introducing her and building a whole concept around her is that she stands for the corrupt side of American ideology, and basically that's the corruption of yourself. My worst fear—that's anyone's worst fear—is losing myself and becoming a vacuous person. And that happens a lot when you're very ambitious."
Quite why, given that Diamandis had already garnered three top-40 hits and a #5-placing album, she'd be so willing to conceptualise an Antimarina, is lost on me. The artistic ambition behind her character - "the corruption of yourself" - is such an embarrassing get-out clause for selling out that it staggers me that anyone could fall for it. It's so obvious and uncreative a project that she might as well have brought out a character called Dave because she fancied being a bloke for a change.
Still, onto the music. Thankfully omitting the abysmal 'Radioactive' from the album, we begin with 'Bubblegum Bitch', which launches us into a fast-paced mission statement ("I'll chew you up and spit you out, 'cos that's what this love is about") with some clever allusions to bubblegum pop and vacuousness sadly drowned out in the uptempo delivery and 90s-pop construction. Single 'Primadonna' again documents the "rise and fall" of a young starlet, over a gritty Dr. Luke synth that's relatively catchy but falls into a handful of lyrical clichés: "beauty queen on a silver screen", "got you wrapped around my finger" and "all I ever wanted was the world" just some. Nonetheless, it's a fine pop song. Gottwald (Dr. Luke to you and I) continues on 'Lies', an extremely Katy Perry-sounding loss-of-love ballad that blends poignant piano chords and synths quite well. A spoken intro to 'Homewrecker' adds layers of saccharine hateability to Diamandis, a laughably serious self-worship that opines "boys and their toys and their 6 inch rockets, we're all very lovely 'til we get to know each other, as we stop becoming friends and start becoming lovers". Matching this with a chorus that inanely chants the title is a missed opportunity, but there are hints of a clever swipe at sexual emptiness of the 21st century lurking about.
In 'Starring Role', a midtempo kind of Kelly Clarkson offering, there's the bitterly relevant lyrics "come on, baby, let's get drunk, forget we don't get on". 'The State of Dreaming' ponders the crushing reality of life in contrast to the dreamworld offered in childhood fantasy and Disney's high expectations, but again sadly repeats itself a little too much to be taken as groundbreaking. 'Power & Control' taunts "you may be good looking but you're not a piece of art" to hammer home the whole tacky aestheticism and its derivation from real aestheticism of the Romantic period, but is executed in a childish fashion that rather undermines the whole message. In 'Living Dead', one of the stronger pop tunes, Diamandis repeats her messages with little conviction inbetween the repeated-syllable hooks and ironically euphoric synths. "I want to be a bottle blonde" confesses 'Teen Idle', a painfully obvious but clever piece of titular wordplay that offers a sweetly-delivered vocal and boring balladry.
Let's just say her worst fear's been realised. There's something compelling about watching her sell herself out and I'm not at all convinced that there's not a higher motivation of financial success above her supposed artistic direction, but there are still a handful of decent pop songs here and the ingredients for a clever critique on modern society and youth - but unlike, say, Lily Allen's brilliant It's Not Me It's You, the façade is too convincing and shallow to resonate. The tunes are too similar and dull; the lyrics too predictable and ones we've all heard before. There's also a slight problem in that the idea of an American prom queen alter-ego that's immersed in soul-searching and romantic pursuits has kind of been covered far more persuadingly and poetically by, um... Lana Del Rey. Her lack of any real contextual support of American life and knowledge is ultimately this album's downfall and as a result it feels nostalgic and shallow.
Rating: 5/10
Highlights: Hypocrates, Primadonna, Lies, Homewrecker, Starring Role, The Valley of the Dolls
Avoid: Teen Idle, Fear and Loathing, Bubblegum Bitch, Power & Control
Artwork Watch: If Instagram had been alive and thriving in the 1970s. Also major disapproval of quotation marks.
Finally, a good review on Marina's Electra Heart that as a Marina fan I can appreciate. No 'it's shit, 0/10, never again' but an actual developed opinion on why it's both good and bad.
ReplyDeleteThank you.
Nonetheless, I can't help but disagree with you, but that's what makes opinions good.
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