Marina & The Diamonds (2012)
Interview Background
I’ve been endlessly fascinated by Marina Diamandis since Rankin’s video for I Am Not A Robot first debuted in 2009. While she seemed blessed with the same pop drive as stars such as Katy Perry, the incredible honesty of her lyrics meant she would never be able to zip her lip and simply play the music game like her major label might have liked. First album The Family Jewels was riddled with enough guilt, ego, failure and narcissism to keep Freud in business for years, but despite Diamandis attempting to dismiss follow-up Electra Heart as a characterisation of fame, it arguably contained even more deep-seated psychological revelations than its predecessor. I’ve interviewed Diamandis a number of times and always find her fantastic company. She probably doesn’t feel the same way, since I’d sometimes use the lyrical clues she’d left for her fans to ask her hard questions she wasn’t yet ready to formally address. Excuse me if I come off as a cut-price psychiatrist in this particular interview, but I could spend days with Diamandis and still not get to the bottom of her ambitions. She might not be the big star she (sometimes) seemingly yearns to be, but I'm always interested in her next chapter.
The following is an edited version of an interview first published in Rip It Up, May 2012.
Marina & The Diamonds - Doll Parts
by Scott McLennan
In a world where pop stars such as Rihanna and Lady Gaga appear to live in airbrushed fantasy realms beyond regular social anxieties, Marina Diamandis is an anomaly. She’s just hit number one in the UK with Electra Heart, a messed up contradiction of honesty and fraudulence, beauty and misery, inhibited admissions and a narcissistic lunge for fame.
Taking a panoramic jump up from her 2010 debut The Family Jewels, Electra Heart is a beautiful paradox made all the more gorgeous by Diamandis’ flawed confessions. In an unsubtle crack at taking her confessional pop to a global audience, Electra Heart sees the solo artist collaborating with proven hit-makers including Greg Kurstin, Dr Luke and Diplo. The production sheen of the resulting tracks merely acts as a Trojan horse for an album filled with dark revelations at odds with Diamandis’ latest frivolous pastel imagery. By writing as blonde, confident siren ‘Electra Heart’, Diamandis was able to purge herself of a bad break-up.
“I could have just done it as Marina Diamandis,” she reasons, “but for some reason at the time it was a relationship that had really hurt me and it was comforting to turn it into a fantasy, if that makes sense. This is a record about being fucked over.”
Diamandis has insisted in most Electra Heart interviews that the album is about a boy, but there’s far more to it than that. When her offhand reference to bulimia on Teen Idle is raised, the 26-year-old evades elaborating on the other personal issues Electra Heart finds her working through.
“Well I suppose… I would say the record is split into three things: one is love, two is dealing with your identity and three is feeling like you haven’t lived your life. The ages of 16 to 20 were blacked out years for me in that I didn’t feel like I had enjoyed my youth, for various reasons. Teen Idle was about that, I’m talking about real things.”
Whether a subconscious attempt to deal with an eating disorder or not, Teen Idle takes Diamandis’ tally of songs mentioning vomiting to at least four (after Hollywood, Philosopher My Arse and Homewrecker).
“No offence, but I don’t really want to discuss that,” Diamandis giggles awkwardly. “I’m not going to discuss my problems in an interview, but what you put in a song has got to come from somewhere.”
Teen Idle is just one of many Electra songs masking a dark heart. The dangerous allure of death creeps into songs including Living Dead and Valley Of The Dolls. Does Diamandis truly have romantic visions of her own demise?
“I’d say only when I’m feeling depressed, when it’s natural to think about death,” the singer answers with alarming candour. “The last time I felt like that was around eight months ago – so I don’t really relate to it now. Until it happens again and I just want to take sleeping pills and sleep…”
Diamandis admits her depressive state isn’t new. Her pre-teen diaries from the 1990s reveals the Haberdashers’ Monmouth School For Girls student was already detailing episodes of fear and loathing.
“I have three diaries from around the ages of nine to 11 and it’s really interesting to see that I was Morrissey-style miserable from that age,” Diamandis laughs. “It was all ‘I want to die! I hate my face!’ stuff. My childhood was really happy in many respects, but here was a diary saying I hated myself and wanted to die.”
It seems not even legions of devoted Marina & The Diamonds fans – many who travel across Europe and the UK to catch multiple performances – can prevent Diamandis from black days. As she wrapped up touring The Family Jewels in Australia in late 2010, the gorgeous Welsh/Grecian artist told Rip It Up “no one is ever truly happy”.
“Oh did I? Oh my God!” she gasps. “If you look at all the videos of me around the time of my Australian tour I look like I’m on the verge of having a nervous breakdown. I was so desperately unhappy I wanted to stop the whole campaign actually, and lucky old Australia was the last leg of it where I started saying my album was a failure, I hated pop and shitty American music. I think it’s not that hard to understand that sometimes artists rally against what they secretly want – and I wanted to be a pop artist. That was very clear from the beginning. I was a really unhappy person and it took a few months of not touring to see things with some perspective, which is when I wrote Fear And Loathing.”
It’s surprising to hear the Electra Heart concept, where imperfect archetypes dwell in a deluded pop dominion, was rapidly realised. When Diamandis was last in Australia she told Rip It Up, “I can’t be arsed with the pretentious bullshit and illusion aspect of the pop world. It’s just not in me and I don’t want to create some character that people can be in awe of.” The singer cackles loudly at her lack of vision.
“Well look what happened!”
I can’t believe a word you say, Ms Diamandis.
“I’m lying right now…”
Whether it's music videos, magazine shoots or CD artwork, Marina Diamandis matches her Marina & The Diamonds music with a strong visual aesthetic. However, while her lyrics are revealing, she’s not one to bare as much flesh as her forming touring partner Katy Perry.
“A lot of my Electra Heart photos are self-shot, so it would be weird if I was on the ground naked shooting myself on a timer! It doesn’t really suit me as an artist. I’ve had a few [men’s] magazine requests before and I have looked at them – it depends if you can style the shoot, have control over the pictures, stuff like that – but it wouldn’t really suit the vibe of my album at all. I also think that any curvy girl is just going to go into a different territory if she’s being photographed in bikinis. I think if you saw a picture of me doing an FHM thing it would be kind of weird, but I’d never say never.”
Now that she’s enjoyed her first UK number one, there must be a certain compulsion to repeat the feat with her third album. Diamandis seems far too creative to go down that route, instead using this success to hopefully bring to fruition an experimental release that melds her Greek heritage with Kate Bush levels of melodic intricacy.
“It’s hard to change and make a jump and be quietly ambitious about that, but I think I am one of those artists who does that. It’s a shame to not explore your artistry and interest in music, so for me every album will sonically explore another part of my musical identity in some way. I have ideas, but I don’t want to talk about them now. We’ll see – I’ve got some stuff...”
Electra Heart (Warner)
Unpublished Interview Material
In Feb 2010 when we first chatted I asked you what happens when you finally have the fame you’ve craved and you’ve achieved pop stardom and you said “You’re left with one big fat nothing!”. So has that happened, or has everything paid off?
“Well I’m not done yet – I still have the rest of the world to impress! (laughs) It’s a really nice form of encouragement for me and I feel really grateful actually. That’s it, really.”
Electra Heart is actually quite subversive though – it’s really a Trojan Horse, isn’t it?
“Yeah, in terms of the imagery but also in terms of being a record about love through the eyes of a fictional character called Electra Heart.”
Now that you’ve tasted your biggest success, are you going to continue on in the vein of Electra Heart or do you feel the fact you’ve hit number one in the UK means you can now do whatever the hell you want?
“You are so right, although I’m not sure if it’s to do with being number one. There’s nothing wrong with changing – people thought Madonna during the ‘80s was just some dumb disco dolly, then 25 years later they’re lauding her as the most amazing thing ever. She is too – she’s my number one. It’s funny how perceptions change. It’s hard to change and make a jump and be quietly ambitious about that, but I think I am one of those artists who does that. It’s a shame to not explore your artistry and interest in music, so for me every album will sonically explore another part of my musical identity in some way. I have always loved artists who do that.”
But The Family Jewels isn’t a failure – just like Madonna, people are going to look back at that in 20 years and see it as the building blocks to what comes after.
“Yeah, I think so. I haven’t written it off before and I love that album, but it's funny doing that jump from being an indie artist to a pop artist. As soon as I released Hollywood I suddenly became a pop artist and those were the parameters I was being measured against. For an alternative album it did incredibly well, but in my mind I was a really unhappy person at the end of that campaign. It took a few months of not touring to see things with some perspective, which is when I wrote Fear And Loathing.”
Dealing with gruelling tour schedules with Coldplay, is your voice being tested?
“Well I can’t speak for how my voice will do, but supporting another artist is a lot less stressful than doing your own shows. They’re a lot shorter with 40 minute sets and you’re part of their touring company, so it’s a really nice experience.”
Were you pally enough with Katy Perry during her tour to get her feedback on Electra Heart before it came out at all?
“I didn’t play her anything, actually.”
You were scared she was going to rip you off, weren’t you?
“Shaadup! No! (laughs)”
You have worked with some amazing photographers and visual artists over the years though.
“Yeah, I’ve been really lucky. The guy who I’m working with now, Kaspar Balcev, is a young Danish guy who’s been doing all the videos and all the photography for the whole album. It’s great to work with just one person and have a certain coherency in all the visuals.”
You must have plenty of fans that go the extra mile when it comes to catching your shows?
“Yeah, I’ve had someone who comes around the whole of Europe actually. He comes to almost every show, which is crazy. A lot of the UK fans also travel about a lot, which is amazing to me.”
I’ve been endlessly fascinated by Marina Diamandis since Rankin’s video for I Am Not A Robot first debuted in 2009. While she seemed blessed with the same pop drive as stars such as Katy Perry, the incredible honesty of her lyrics meant she would never be able to zip her lip and simply play the music game like her major label might have liked. First album The Family Jewels was riddled with enough guilt, ego, failure and narcissism to keep Freud in business for years, but despite Diamandis attempting to dismiss follow-up Electra Heart as a characterisation of fame, it arguably contained even more deep-seated psychological revelations than its predecessor. I’ve interviewed Diamandis a number of times and always find her fantastic company. She probably doesn’t feel the same way, since I’d sometimes use the lyrical clues she’d left for her fans to ask her hard questions she wasn’t yet ready to formally address. Excuse me if I come off as a cut-price psychiatrist in this particular interview, but I could spend days with Diamandis and still not get to the bottom of her ambitions. She might not be the big star she (sometimes) seemingly yearns to be, but I'm always interested in her next chapter.
The following is an edited version of an interview first published in Rip It Up, May 2012.
Marina & The Diamonds - Doll Parts
by Scott McLennan
In a world where pop stars such as Rihanna and Lady Gaga appear to live in airbrushed fantasy realms beyond regular social anxieties, Marina Diamandis is an anomaly. She’s just hit number one in the UK with Electra Heart, a messed up contradiction of honesty and fraudulence, beauty and misery, inhibited admissions and a narcissistic lunge for fame.
Taking a panoramic jump up from her 2010 debut The Family Jewels, Electra Heart is a beautiful paradox made all the more gorgeous by Diamandis’ flawed confessions. In an unsubtle crack at taking her confessional pop to a global audience, Electra Heart sees the solo artist collaborating with proven hit-makers including Greg Kurstin, Dr Luke and Diplo. The production sheen of the resulting tracks merely acts as a Trojan horse for an album filled with dark revelations at odds with Diamandis’ latest frivolous pastel imagery. By writing as blonde, confident siren ‘Electra Heart’, Diamandis was able to purge herself of a bad break-up.
“I could have just done it as Marina Diamandis,” she reasons, “but for some reason at the time it was a relationship that had really hurt me and it was comforting to turn it into a fantasy, if that makes sense. This is a record about being fucked over.”
Diamandis has insisted in most Electra Heart interviews that the album is about a boy, but there’s far more to it than that. When her offhand reference to bulimia on Teen Idle is raised, the 26-year-old evades elaborating on the other personal issues Electra Heart finds her working through.
“Well I suppose… I would say the record is split into three things: one is love, two is dealing with your identity and three is feeling like you haven’t lived your life. The ages of 16 to 20 were blacked out years for me in that I didn’t feel like I had enjoyed my youth, for various reasons. Teen Idle was about that, I’m talking about real things.”
Whether a subconscious attempt to deal with an eating disorder or not, Teen Idle takes Diamandis’ tally of songs mentioning vomiting to at least four (after Hollywood, Philosopher My Arse and Homewrecker).
“No offence, but I don’t really want to discuss that,” Diamandis giggles awkwardly. “I’m not going to discuss my problems in an interview, but what you put in a song has got to come from somewhere.”
Teen Idle is just one of many Electra songs masking a dark heart. The dangerous allure of death creeps into songs including Living Dead and Valley Of The Dolls. Does Diamandis truly have romantic visions of her own demise?
“I’d say only when I’m feeling depressed, when it’s natural to think about death,” the singer answers with alarming candour. “The last time I felt like that was around eight months ago – so I don’t really relate to it now. Until it happens again and I just want to take sleeping pills and sleep…”
Diamandis admits her depressive state isn’t new. Her pre-teen diaries from the 1990s reveals the Haberdashers’ Monmouth School For Girls student was already detailing episodes of fear and loathing.
“I have three diaries from around the ages of nine to 11 and it’s really interesting to see that I was Morrissey-style miserable from that age,” Diamandis laughs. “It was all ‘I want to die! I hate my face!’ stuff. My childhood was really happy in many respects, but here was a diary saying I hated myself and wanted to die.”
It seems not even legions of devoted Marina & The Diamonds fans – many who travel across Europe and the UK to catch multiple performances – can prevent Diamandis from black days. As she wrapped up touring The Family Jewels in Australia in late 2010, the gorgeous Welsh/Grecian artist told Rip It Up “no one is ever truly happy”.
“Oh did I? Oh my God!” she gasps. “If you look at all the videos of me around the time of my Australian tour I look like I’m on the verge of having a nervous breakdown. I was so desperately unhappy I wanted to stop the whole campaign actually, and lucky old Australia was the last leg of it where I started saying my album was a failure, I hated pop and shitty American music. I think it’s not that hard to understand that sometimes artists rally against what they secretly want – and I wanted to be a pop artist. That was very clear from the beginning. I was a really unhappy person and it took a few months of not touring to see things with some perspective, which is when I wrote Fear And Loathing.”
It’s surprising to hear the Electra Heart concept, where imperfect archetypes dwell in a deluded pop dominion, was rapidly realised. When Diamandis was last in Australia she told Rip It Up, “I can’t be arsed with the pretentious bullshit and illusion aspect of the pop world. It’s just not in me and I don’t want to create some character that people can be in awe of.” The singer cackles loudly at her lack of vision.
“Well look what happened!”
I can’t believe a word you say, Ms Diamandis.
“I’m lying right now…”
Whether it's music videos, magazine shoots or CD artwork, Marina Diamandis matches her Marina & The Diamonds music with a strong visual aesthetic. However, while her lyrics are revealing, she’s not one to bare as much flesh as her forming touring partner Katy Perry.
“A lot of my Electra Heart photos are self-shot, so it would be weird if I was on the ground naked shooting myself on a timer! It doesn’t really suit me as an artist. I’ve had a few [men’s] magazine requests before and I have looked at them – it depends if you can style the shoot, have control over the pictures, stuff like that – but it wouldn’t really suit the vibe of my album at all. I also think that any curvy girl is just going to go into a different territory if she’s being photographed in bikinis. I think if you saw a picture of me doing an FHM thing it would be kind of weird, but I’d never say never.”
Now that she’s enjoyed her first UK number one, there must be a certain compulsion to repeat the feat with her third album. Diamandis seems far too creative to go down that route, instead using this success to hopefully bring to fruition an experimental release that melds her Greek heritage with Kate Bush levels of melodic intricacy.
“It’s hard to change and make a jump and be quietly ambitious about that, but I think I am one of those artists who does that. It’s a shame to not explore your artistry and interest in music, so for me every album will sonically explore another part of my musical identity in some way. I have ideas, but I don’t want to talk about them now. We’ll see – I’ve got some stuff...”
Electra Heart (Warner)
Unpublished Interview Material
In Feb 2010 when we first chatted I asked you what happens when you finally have the fame you’ve craved and you’ve achieved pop stardom and you said “You’re left with one big fat nothing!”. So has that happened, or has everything paid off?
“Well I’m not done yet – I still have the rest of the world to impress! (laughs) It’s a really nice form of encouragement for me and I feel really grateful actually. That’s it, really.”
Electra Heart is actually quite subversive though – it’s really a Trojan Horse, isn’t it?
“Yeah, in terms of the imagery but also in terms of being a record about love through the eyes of a fictional character called Electra Heart.”
Now that you’ve tasted your biggest success, are you going to continue on in the vein of Electra Heart or do you feel the fact you’ve hit number one in the UK means you can now do whatever the hell you want?
“You are so right, although I’m not sure if it’s to do with being number one. There’s nothing wrong with changing – people thought Madonna during the ‘80s was just some dumb disco dolly, then 25 years later they’re lauding her as the most amazing thing ever. She is too – she’s my number one. It’s funny how perceptions change. It’s hard to change and make a jump and be quietly ambitious about that, but I think I am one of those artists who does that. It’s a shame to not explore your artistry and interest in music, so for me every album will sonically explore another part of my musical identity in some way. I have always loved artists who do that.”
But The Family Jewels isn’t a failure – just like Madonna, people are going to look back at that in 20 years and see it as the building blocks to what comes after.
“Yeah, I think so. I haven’t written it off before and I love that album, but it's funny doing that jump from being an indie artist to a pop artist. As soon as I released Hollywood I suddenly became a pop artist and those were the parameters I was being measured against. For an alternative album it did incredibly well, but in my mind I was a really unhappy person at the end of that campaign. It took a few months of not touring to see things with some perspective, which is when I wrote Fear And Loathing.”
Dealing with gruelling tour schedules with Coldplay, is your voice being tested?
“Well I can’t speak for how my voice will do, but supporting another artist is a lot less stressful than doing your own shows. They’re a lot shorter with 40 minute sets and you’re part of their touring company, so it’s a really nice experience.”
Were you pally enough with Katy Perry during her tour to get her feedback on Electra Heart before it came out at all?
“I didn’t play her anything, actually.”
You were scared she was going to rip you off, weren’t you?
“Shaadup! No! (laughs)”
You have worked with some amazing photographers and visual artists over the years though.
“Yeah, I’ve been really lucky. The guy who I’m working with now, Kaspar Balcev, is a young Danish guy who’s been doing all the videos and all the photography for the whole album. It’s great to work with just one person and have a certain coherency in all the visuals.”
You must have plenty of fans that go the extra mile when it comes to catching your shows?
“Yeah, I’ve had someone who comes around the whole of Europe actually. He comes to almost every show, which is crazy. A lot of the UK fans also travel about a lot, which is amazing to me.”
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