Album Reviews
Marina and the Diamonds – Electra Heart Album Review
Marina & The Diamonds’ second album, Electra Heart, has got us a bit baffled. The Nicole Scherzinger-esque tracklisting is pretty cringeworthy, with titles including ‘Valley of the Dolls’, ‘Primadonna’, ‘Homewrecker’, ‘Teen Idle’ and (ahem) ‘Bubblegum Bitch’. Then we find out it’s all part of Marina Diamandis’ grand plan: Electra Heart is a concept album, a statement on “American pop culture’s artifice” and “female archetypes”. Oh. It’s meta.
It comes as no surprise to learn she’s called in some big-name producers: Dr Luke (Katy Perry), Rick Nowels (Madonna) and Greg Kurstin (Kylie Minogue; Lily Allen). There’s the whiplash hook of ‘Bubblegum Bitch’, there’s the nursery-rhyme soliloquy of ‘Homewrecker’, there’s her breathy, soaring vocals on ‘Sex Yeah’. It’s shiny, synth-y, radio-ready – if not ground-breaking – pop.
“It’s a very frank album,” Marina said. Throughout the album, she invokes a range of female characters “to enable me to express personal experiences I would never confess in real life”. It’s a kind of doublethink – a purportedly candid “ode to dysfunctional love” refracted through a variety of fantasy feminine stereotypes.
Unfortunately, it all feels a bit tired. Marina’s alter-egos blur into one hackneyed, peroxide yawn of thudding electronica. She laments the emptiness of society, but offers no alternative – much of Electra Heart is pretty vacous itself, both lyrically and musically. The bite, the warmth and the weirdness of songs like ‘Hollywood’ and ‘I Am Not A Robot’ from her debut album, The Family Jewels, is gone.
“I’ve turned into a statue, and it makes me feel depressed/’Cause the only time you open up is when we get undressed” she sings on ‘Starring Role’. On ‘Sex Yeah’, she mourns the lost innocence of those young’uns who grow up too fast: “Nothing is provocative anymore, even for kids/No room for imagining, ’cause everyone’s seen everything”. It’s not quite witty enough; it’s a whimper, not a scream. Marina’s lyrics are as lethargic as her archetypes.
The down-tempo ‘Teen Idle’ is one of the album’s standouts. A sly lyrical nod to Madonna, it’s also the most evocative of American culture and adolescent fantasies. Thematically, comparisons to Lana Del Ray are inevitable – but you can’t help but feel that Lana comes out better off.
And okay, Marina’s aware of the irony; she’s playing with “archetypes”. The entire album pivots around themes of artifice, reality and deception. It’s “black humour”. It’s meta. But it’s not convincing. Electra Heart favours style over substance – ultimately, it’s unremarkable electropop hiding behind the veneer of its “concept album” shine.
Watch the video for lead single ‘Primadonna’:
Tagged Dr Luke, Electra Heart, Greg Kurstin, Katy Perry, Kylie Minogue, lana del ray, Lily Allen, Madonna, Marina & The Diamonds, Nicole Scherzinger, Rick Nowels
There are many criticisms that might be fairly assigned to “Electra Heart”, but at worst it is flawed genius.
Only the vacuous would call it “vacuous”. This is the kind of criticism that those with dubious intellectual qualifications themselves should not throw about. Someone who would say this about “Electra Heart” is either demonstrating their own lack of intelligence, is just too cool to acknowledge artistry in what might not be currently in vogue within their clique, or is too lazy to spend even the tiniest bit of effort to scratch beneath the surface.
As to being “meta”, it is not so much, though it is certainly filled with irony. The album covers tried and true subject matter for pop music: an autobiographical account of having a broken heart. Marina is brave enough, however, to reveal and criticize the negative personality traits that being broken-hearted brought out in herself. Don’t you find this at least a bit refreshing compared to the more typical approach of placing all blame on other parties?
Does this all work perfectly? Perhaps not. At times it might be overwrought. At times Marina’s innate quirkiness seems as if it is being forced a little too much into an “acceptable” pop mold. On the other hand, Marina should be given a great deal of credit for bringing a fresh approach to pop music’s most trodden of subjects.
As to “thumping electronica”, how many songs on the album can be fairly characterized in that way? Three? What a lazy job of reviewing!
Appreciate your comments Douglas. Music reviews are by nature subjective, and all the better if they fuel a lively debate