Marina & The Diamonds ~Radioactive~Electra Heart<3~

[relmy]

Was thinking of going to the Albert Hall show, but I saw the Froot tour at the Palladium and it was not fun seated. Saw it a second time at the Roundhouse and had a great time. I'm sure she'll do another London show so I'll wait for that, and I'll know if I like the album lol

I've just got to accept we're never getting another Family Jewels!

[Xianghua]

Some info about the album!

-Superstar is one of her favorite songs she has written for this album
-LOVE and FEAR has different tones. FEAR is uptempo and LOVE has lighter energy.
-She wanted to make both albums equally strong as each other

...from Marina's twitter

[xLuna&1LOVE]

Also this: the official album trailer. Filmed in Japan!
I assume she is already revealing some album lyrics in her spoken word.

However I find it soothing and beautiful. Also the repeating tone in the background. It's beautiful!
EDIT: The music in the background is the song Emotional Machine. She sung it live, recently. I will put it in the video after the album trailer.

Album Trailer


Emotional Machine (Live)

[Xianghua]

I like the melody!
I suspect this was filmed during her trip back in November, she was in Kyoto performing Baby with Clean Bandit which is also was prime time to see the autumn foliage, and she spent some time in Tokyo.

Marina has been making quite a few trips to Japan within the last two years so it will be interesting to see if she does some LOVE+FEAR shows there.

[Xianghua]

Orange Trees

I wrote “Orange Trees” about the island that my family and I are from in Greece. It’s called Lefkada and it’s my favourite place in the world... I always feel at peace there. It’s like my body/ biology recognises I’m back home. Hope this song makes your summer sweeter than ever.

We filmed the video in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. It looks so much like where I’m from in Greece... It was uncanny. I love you, Mexico! Hope you all enjoy the video - an homage to Lefkada.
Directed by Sophie Muller

[xLuna&1LOVE]

Handmade Heaven, Superstar, Baby and now Orange Trees are awesome. I am on a roll and listen to Marina non-stop. I remember back in the day, I only liked the hit-songs, like Primadonna and Froot, but I have discovered so many gems. One of my favourite is an underdog song, Buy The Stars. I had it on repeat to get over my breakup.
Now I am headbanging on Bubblegum Bitch, Lies and the new songs from Love & Fear. I can't wait until April 26th! I am so ready for the new album.

Plus, she looks gorgeous in the clips. Listening to her older albums, I understand that Marina was in a dark place, or overcoming sad feelings and loneliness. The four songs on Love sound very optimistic, as if she finally found her happy place. It's beautiful when you think about it. I wonder what Fear will sound like. Will those bad feelings still haunt her someway?? I found her more down to earth right now, and to me - everything I heard from the new album sounds so sincere. I am very happy with the direction she is going. It like growing up together.

[Xianghua]

Yeah, she mentioned once before that The Family Jewels era was a hard time for her. I remember he saying that Froot was the first album she put out where she was happy and that she worked her hardest at it (at the time!)

Buy The Stars, Lies, and Bubblegum Bitch are great songs! Have you heard her acoustic songs? The Acoustic version of Lies is really pretty.

My #1 favorite of her songs is Power & Control!

[xLuna&1LOVE]

She released the 8 tracks from LOVE!
And they are goooooooooodddddd

So check out your Spotify, YouTube... iTunes or whatever you use for your music and listen!

[Xianghua]

Finally listened! Aside from the already released tracks, I think True is my favorite!

I'll post some comments from Marina's twitter:

I created “LOVE + FEAR” as 2 separate records to be listened to individually.

I'm releasing “LOVE” today so you can listen to it in full before we move onto “FEAR”.

“There are only two emotions: Love and Fear. All positive emotions come from love, all negative emotions from fear. We cannot feel these two emotions together, at exactly the same time. They're opposites"

- Elisabeth Kübler-Ross

One of the things I struggled with in the past was letting fear get in the way of love. Love scared me so much. ( Um... remember “Electra Heart”?!). This record is a result of working through that.

A lot of us think of love as positive and fear as negative but the truth is there are positives found within fear and negatives found in love.

and explains To Be Human is the most important track on the album for her! https://twitter.com/MarinaDiamandis/...23614972981250

I'm looking forward to hearing what FEAR sounds like now.

[Xianghua]

To Be Human MV

[Uknow!]

What a beautiful album, I loved it, she is incredible. Superstar is my fav song followed by To be Human.

[xLuna&1LOVE]

The video is very nice! So simple, and effective!
Really, the whole LOVE album is so good. There is no song I skip. My top 3 is in no particular order Orange Trees, To Be Human and Superstar. I am really impressed with LOVE, and I haven't really been impressed with an album since a long time. I guess it was 2016's Beyonce's Lemonade I was totally crazy about. So it took 3 years before an album was released I liked everything about.

Well FEAR isn't released yet. But I am sure she knocks us over with that album too. LOVE made me a fan. So happy with her music and videos!

[Xianghua]

Life is Strange preview:
https://twitter.com/marinadiamandis/...059840513?s=21

Soft to Be Strong
https://twitter.com/marinadiamandis/...122624513?s=21

No More Suckers
https://www.instagram.com/p/BwrnN17h...=1a4a6cj037bim

Album drop tomorrow!

[xLuna&1LOVE]

Album is out! See ya in a bit!

[xLuna&1LOVE]

Also, the news we didn't discuss yet:

April 9th
MARINA performing Orange Trees for Late Night with Seth Meyers


April 12th
MARINA designs T-Shirts promoting a few songs from album LOVE
(Handmade Heaven, Superstar, To Be Human) and supporting Elizabeth Taylor foundation.

Spoiler:

April 15th
MARINA on cover of Phoenix magazine and beautiful spread:
https://www.phoenixmag.co.uk/product...-marina-cover/

April 19th
MARINA collab with L'Officiel USA Photoshoot + Interview


April 24th
MARINA for @refinery29 Photoshoot + Interview


We have lots to catch up! The photoshoots are so gorgeous!

[mi|kshake]

I liked Superstar so need to check this album out when I get a chance.

[orbitalaspect]

So, I like certain aspects of this album.

I like the melodies and some of the song ideas, but I can't help but feel a lot of the style of this album is more 2009 than 2019. Nearly every song has an "oo oo oo" or "ah ah ah" or "ooioioieu" or repeating a couple words to close off the hook, and that truly only works well if it's in a couple tracks, and even then, if it's more of an accessory to the track than something the track needs in order to flow well. Marina falls way too hard on her do-re-mi's and lyrical repetition for the songs on this album.

One thing I notice a lot on Love + Fear is how Marina seems to have thrown lyrical creativity out the window. There's literally none of the depth she managed on prior albums. Considering "How To Be A Heartbreaker" is the least "Marina" song Marina has ever done, that thing could win an Oscar compared to all but one or two tracks on Love + Fear. There are a lot of moments in these songs that Marina feels like she's shoving words into the song to make the melody work. Lines like the closing line on the hook of "To Be Human" just feel out of place, like it's obvious Marina couldn't come up with something for those notes of the song, so she just went with a weak emphasis of what she's saying or uncomfortably drew out a syllable or two to fill the melody's notes.

Most of the songs feel disposable given Marina's prior songwriting, especially compared to the rampant symbolism and cryptic lyrics of Froot and the high-brow concept of Electra Heart. What's weird is that there are songs I'm thrilled to hear. "To Be Human", with some extra work on the lyrics, could easily be a staple of her discography. I LOVE the pre-chorus in "Superstar" and in "Karma" (I also love "Karma"'s chorus). And I think the pre-chorus lines in "Believe In Love" are among the best on this record, a well-worded acknowledgement of fault and difficulty in understanding what she can and can't, what she should and shouldn't be able to control. The chorus on "Believe In Love" is probably the simplest, but best use of the style Marina uses on the album. It's simple, to the point, effective. No attempt to say more, not trying to shove less into a melody too big for too few words.

Overall, I like the rhythm of this album. I loathe that the album lacks any big songs, tracks like "Froot" or "Hollywood" or "I Am Not A Robot", songs where Marina is really projecting and using her voice to power the song forward. This album is soft. It's honestly mushy. Not mushy in the sense that the lyrics are corny, but in the sense that it's auditorily corny for a Marina record. I can't bring myself to listen to tracks like "Emotional Machine" because I don't understand why they exist let alone why they make up so many of the 16 tracks on Love + Fear. Truly, I don't get why "Enjoy Your Life", "True", "End of the Earth", "You", "Emotional Machine", "Too Afraid", "No More Suckers", and "Soft To Be Strong" are even songs by Marina. They just recycle beats, synths, ideas and lyrics from other songs on this album that Marina did a far better job writing.

That really ends my good and bad things to say here. Froot set a high bar for Marina, and Love + Fear can't even hit half-way to the relatively low bar she set by comparison with her first album. Between The Family Jewels and Electra Heart, Marina significantly evolved. Between Electra Heart and Froot, Marina significantly matured as an artist again. Between Froot and Love + Fear? All I hear is a decent lyricist trying to make a generic pop album and literally making a record more generic than generic pop. I'm not sure what she aimed for here, but if it wasn't to write a bad joke, she missed the mark.

[xLuna&1LOVE]

Originally Posted by orbitalaspect

All I hear is a decent lyricist trying to make a generic pop album and literally making a record more generic than generic pop. I'm not sure what she aimed for here, but if it wasn't to write a bad joke, she missed the mark.

Ok... that's kinda harsh.

You know, it's quite funny. I sat in the car yesterday with my friend and we have been listening to the album. Put it on shuffle, so we didn't listen it in the meant to be order. My friend, who's not really into MARINA by the way, found most of the songs quite unlistenable for the same reasons you have stated there. A lot of repeating, songs that sound almost the same, generic.

I on the other hand, don't really mind. Most of the times I am into a good melody and I think that both Love + Fear have easy melodies I can follow. That's why I don't really like her first album, thought it was messy, Electra Heart was a good start, but FROOT was for me uninteresting in some way.
Handmade Heaven sparked my interest again and it was for Orange Trees to start liking the direction she is going. It felt more light-hearted. Good music, that don't really require innovative sounds/arrangements or difficult to understand lyrics.

Did MARINA really set the bar high with Love + Fear? I doubt it. But I like the concept, and her using her classes in psychology to put a decent album together. Maybe you experience some lack in depthness, because she really arranged the album in one half: happy, lovely, friendly, care-free, and the other half in anxiety, sadness, and carefulness. It doesn't come together, because as she stated herself: once you are in a place of love, you can't be in a place of fear and vice versa. I think she put much effort in the concept and seperating the songs by mood/vibe, that it might give some listeners, like you, the feeling that the songs sound kinda the same or are filled with 'meh'-songs just to keep the album going. Perhaps if she mixed both albums, she wouldn't be including the songs.

Anyway, I don't mind the division between the two albums. I like singing along with some, and other songs I will skip. I haven't been listening to Fear throughout, to be honest - so I will give this one a go once I am in my car.
Somehow I am really enjoying the 'radio-friendly' / easy-to-listen-to sound of this album. The songs you mentioned are to me sometimes too hard to listen to, or hard to put in any mood. Love + Fear, how generic it might be, is for me a good, light-hearted album I really enjoy. It sparked my interest in MARINA again.

[orbitalaspect]

Originally Posted by xLuna&1LOVE

Ok... that's kinda harsh.

You know, it's quite funny. I sat in the car yesterday with my friend and we have been listening to the album. Put it on shuffle, so we didn't listen it in the meant to be order. My friend, who's not really into MARINA by the way, found most of the songs quite unlistenable for the same reasons you have stated there. A lot of repeating, songs that sound almost the same, generic.

I on the other hand, don't really mind. Most of the times I am into a good melody and I think that both Love + Fear have easy melodies I can follow. That's why I don't really like her first album, thought it was messy, Electra Heart was a good start, but FROOT was for me uninteresting in some way.
Handmade Heaven sparked my interest again and it was for Orange Trees to start liking the direction she is going. It felt more light-hearted. Good music, that don't really require innovative sounds/arrangements or difficult to understand lyrics.

Did MARINA really set the bar high with Love + Fear? I doubt it. But I like the concept, and her using her classes in psychology to put a decent album together. Maybe you experience some lack in depthness, because she really arranged the album in one half: happy, lovely, friendly, care-free, and the other half in anxiety, sadness, and carefulness. It doesn't come together, because as she stated herself: once you are in a place of love, you can't be in a place of fear and vice versa. I think she put much effort in the concept and seperating the songs by mood/vibe, that it might give some listeners, like you, the feeling that the songs sound kinda the same or are filled with 'meh'-songs just to keep the album going. Perhaps if she mixed both albums, she wouldn't be including the songs.

Anyway, I don't mind the division between the two albums. I like singing along with some, and other songs I will skip. I haven't been listening to Fear throughout, to be honest - so I will give this one a go once I am in my car.
Somehow I am really enjoying the 'radio-friendly' / easy-to-listen-to sound of this album. The songs you mentioned are to me sometimes too hard to listen to, or hard to put in any mood. Love + Fear, how generic it might be, is for me a good, light-hearted album I really enjoy. It sparked my interest in MARINA again.

So, lyrically, by comparison and performance, look at songs like "I Am Not A Robot", "Oh No!", "Primadonna", "Froot", and even softer tracks like "Fear and Loathing" and "I'm A Ruin". There's a lot of inventiveness happening between Marina and the music, and it's odd to me that a lot of people don't hear how stark of a difference there is between her songwriting and performance now versus then. It just doesn't add up. Almost like she took that song "Baby" a little too far.

This reminds me of Ellie Goulding when she did Delirium. Now, I liked the songs on Delirium regardless, but Delirium was such a non-Ellie Goulding record that I think a lot of fans were wholly split over it. By comparison, Halcyon was such a sharp, messy but polished, visceral and layered record. Love + Fear feels like Marina's Delirium. I just can't see Marina staying this route for her next album. I mean, look at Ellie, every interview she's had about her upcoming fourth album has been "this next album is definitely written by me," and other reassurances that clearly show Ellie saw the flaws in Delirium. I'm hard-pressed to believe Marina will do the same in a few years.

Just FYI, I've been a huge fan since she debuted "I Am Not A Robot" on MySpace. So, I'm familiar with Marina from way back to when Marina was just a MySpace user with a music account. I don't get a lot of her more recent music, but a lot of that stems from Marina being a very cryptic songwriter. Just like in "Believe in Love", Marina can pack an entire treatise on emotional welfare and self-control in 2-4 short lines: "And my mood, it changes all the time / I smile with tears in my eyes". I'm not against Marina going a simpler, less cryptic route, but there's such a thing as oversimplifying, and I genuinely think that Marina either wrote this album because her label wanted a pop record, because she truly thinks most pop sounds this generic, or something. Like I said, if this wasn't intended as a joke good songwriters tell about the minimal effort of popular music, it feels like it missed the mark.

[relmy]

Not listened to the Fear side yet but I agree that it sounds like a regression so far based on Love. Orange Trees had me really confused.

I think pop is what's she's always wanted to do though tbh. The Electra Heart era only went for the 'it's ironic' route after it wasn't the big pop hit they wanted and lost the more indie pop fans The Family Jewels gained her. The whole rebrand they gave her image wise was so odd and a weird way to justify the more mainstream pop sound.

Even the name change is giving her a regular pop image, Marina and the Diamonds kept her very firmly in the British pop singer-songwriter lane. It's where she should have stayed really, and not in a shady way - Ellie Goulding is the perfect comparison! She was huuuge here just with her first album. I get being ambitious though, record labels just suck.

On a personal note, I think for all her insistence on her making better music now she's happy... Her best album is still her first where basically every song is about anxiety in some form.

Unfortunately I think Electra Heart was her label pop record, Froot the fixing it album, and unfortunately I think this is just what she wants her music to sound like