Marina and The Diamonds - Electra Heart

There was a time when I regularly bought LPs on their day of release, even to the point of waiting outside music shops so as to rush inside the minute they opened so as to be heading homewards with a brand new LP clutched in my sweaty paw by 9.01 am.  Happy days.  Since the advent of the CD and now Downloads that initial enthusiasm has waned for the most part although some items have been snapped up immediately but these days that just means clicking the pre-order button.

Despite my aging cynicism, there is one album that I have been awaiting for some few months and it is ‘Electra Heart’ by the strangely accented Marina Diamandis (or Marina and the Diamonds as she has styled herself).  When her debut, ‘The Family Jewels’ arrived in 2010 I decided to give it a listen despite the hype from the music press and found that there was substance to the hyperbole.  In fact it turned out to be one of my favourite albums of the year, melding astute lyrics to crafted melodies sung in that peculiar half Welsh, half Greek accent.  It sounded different.  It was different.

So her follow up album has been on my list ever since and as the months have passed, it has grown into a must buy.  Hence my first day of release purchase like the awe-struck teenager that I once was.  But was it worth it?  Now read on.

Well, after several plays I can report that the voice is still as beguiling as it ever was.  That low register growl that shoots up to a pure falsetto inflected with that kooky Welsh/Greek accent is one of pop’s most unique instruments.  Also present and correct are the thoughtful yet pointed lyrics.  I haven’t found myself really listening to what a song is actually saying since ooh…the days of Joni Mitchell in the 70s.  She really does have a way with words, this girl.

Nevertheless, as with many second albums, the music is not quite up to the standard of ‘Family Jewels’.  There are exceptions, like the storming opener ‘Bubblegum Bitch’ and the atmospheric closer ‘Fear and Loathing’ and one or two in between but generally, it is not quite as consistent, but this was almost inevitable given the quality of FJ.  My feeling is that Marina wants to be a star and is prepared to be drawn into the ‘star-making machinery’ (to quote the aforementioned Ms Mitchell).  There are no less than 8 producer/writers credited on this album, one of them being star-maker writer himself, Rick Nowells.  As a result, the album is all over the place, style-wise and struggles for consistency.  It lurches from crunching cutting edge synthesised ‘beats’ one minute to old-school rock arrangements the next.  Little Boots’ debut ‘Hands’ suffered the same way – it seems that the current music industry is so paranoid of failure that it will dress up all potential new talent with a slick everything-but-the-kitchen-sink production believing this will make them mass audience friendly rather than letting them breathe by themselves.

But in the case of Ms Diamandis, I can’t help feeling that all this paraphernalia is totally unnecessary.  The fact is that Marina has the most important tools required to be a star already on board – her unique voice and her undoubted song writing ability, both with tunes and lyrics.  The issue with this album is that both are submerged in a mess of over-production and too many song writing collaborations.  Aimee Mann and Nerina Pallot have also been pushed down the ‘must collaborate’ path and it didn’t work for them either.  ‘Fear and Loathing’ and the excellent 'Teen Idle' are by far the best songs in the set and she wrote them by herself.  QED.

Despite all this, I still like ‘Electra Heart’, and seeing the ‘acoustic’ versions of some of the songs on YouTube just confirms my views about production (see video attached to this post).  Marina, please just take a deep breath, write some great songs and find a producer who will set them sympathetically to show off your thought-provoking lyrics and that fascinating voice.  Those are your USPs - not an all-enveloping production.  You don’t need to be Katy Perry to succeed.

Marina and the Diamonds - Fear and Loathing

Some time back in the mists of blogdom I raved about Greek Welshwoman, Marina and the Diamonds.  Time has passed since her last release, ‘The Family Jewels’ and she has been a bit quiet of late.  Well, she’s back and if the phrase, ‘A game of two halves’ was invented for anything, it was made to apply to her new material – an album track labelled ‘Part 1: Fear and Loathing’ and a single release, ‘Part 2: Radioactive’.  Videos for both have just been launched on her YouTube site.

It appears that they are supposed to be linked but I’m buggered if I can see what the connection is.  ‘Part 1: Fear and Loathing’ is by far the better of the two.  It is a smouldering ballad wallowing in a massively atmospheric backdrop, the type of which she seems more than adept at writing.  This sort of tuneful yet slightly dark song suits her unique vocal delivery down to the ground.  It makes you realise that there is no one around currently who sounds exactly like her or has her peculiar accent.  I find it very endearing, but that’s probably just me.

It takes a few listens to get all the hooks but this in itself is a plus as there is nothing worse than a song that you can sing on first hearing – there is nothing left to know.  If this is a taste of what’s to come on the new album then bring it on.

Unfortunately, ‘Part 2: Radioactive’ rather lets the side down.  The polar opposite of Part 1, it is the type of up-tempo electro-pop that everyone and his dog is putting out at the moment from Katy Perry to Jessie J and it just doesn’t stand out from the crowd.  In fact, I struggle to stick with it all the way through which is a dreadful shame as these types of songs on her debut CD all had tremendously hook laden tunes but this is just not strong enough.  I just hope that this one is not representative.

Either way, I shall await the new material, to be entitled, ‘Electra Heart’, with much agog-ness as ‘The Family Jewels’ was close to being my Album of the Year, 2010.  Second albums are always a bit of a decider for me as to whether I stick with them or not so there is much resting on Ms Diamandis.  I hope she pulls it off again, as I consider her a rare talent.

Marina and the Diamonds

There is clearly something in the water that trickles down those Welsh valleys that produces more singers than I’ve had hot dinners. Dame Shirley Bassey and Thomas the Jones became international stars eons ago and even now the well, to stretch an analogy, has not dried up. Since then we have marvelled at ‘Voice of an Angel’ Charlotte Church, had fragile chanteuse Duffy (retired?) grace us with her presence and now we have Marina Diamandis.

Born to a Greek father and Welsh mother in Abergavenny in the decade of big hair and shoulder pads, she is the latest in a line of Welsh musicians to entertain us with those Celtic vowels. Under the stage name of Marina and the Diamonds, she and her band played an entrancing set on the John Peel Stage at Glastonbury this year and as a consequence, I have been listening to her debut album, ‘The Family Jewels’.

From what I gather, the ‘The Diamonds’ bit of her name is not her backing band but represents her fans, so says she, presumably in the same manner as Lady Gaga’s ‘Little Monsters’. Accordingly, the musicians she plays with form a somewhat fluid community but certainly the guys who played at Glasto were an exceptionally tight little keyboard-led ensemble who underpinned her rather quirky songs with real panache. I’d keep hold of them, if I were you, Marina.

Those of you who read these missives will, no doubt, be pleased to see the return of the Music Obsessive Influences Pie-Chart from which you will gather that Marina’s vocal style is towards the idiosyncratic end of the spectrum being possessed of a pleasingly rich contralto (or possibly mezzo-soprano, what do I know?) with an indefinable touch of the Greek about it which can soar into the heights and back quite effortlessly.

The songs on the album are probably best described as hook-laden pop tunes with overtones of Sparks and Lene Lovitch. In fact, with all this quirkiness going on it is all too easy to believe that it is all a front to catch the media eye and this may be so especially as her songs are designed to give a feelgood vibe. Nevertheless, there is a darker side lurking in the lyrics which gives a glimpse into a potential depth of talent that is not so apparent at first hearing. Certainly, I found the studio versions of the songs slightly less immediate than the live versions I had witnessed on stage and that bodes well. She is clearly an artist that thrives in a live environment where the performance and relationship with the audience allows her to add nuances to the content and add value to the experience.

I shall be intrigued to see where her career takes her. Take a look at her Glastonbury set-closer, ‘Guilty’, a song that seems innocuous enough, but then goes on growing in the mind until you are completely hooked and see what you think. Now, where did I put that bottled Welsh spring water?