vrtvie

the promotion of TFJ was really insane especially given how quirky and little commercial the album was. it's no wonder she was disappointed with a lack of fame in the states just because of a different label issues.

Better Than That weak? This bridge is to live for.

The instrumentalisation of Gold is just weird to many people's ears. I also find it hard to enjoy the song.

I reckon FROOT would perform much, much better should it have been promoted properly. Marina handled the single choices herself and didn't care about the chart performance at all, at least that's what she said at the very beginning of the campaign. Was there even any commercial made for FROOT? Because marketing strategy of both TFJ and EH was quite big.

What I meant was that the lyrics are less complicated and more straightfoward, not that it's a bad thing. Besides, choruses from FROOT: yeah ahaa oohoo yeaah yeaaah ahha. blueee gimme gimme gimme! forget forgeeeet forgeeet. weeeeeeds like weeeeds.

I understand your point of view, but "the world sucks and here's why" is 100% better than "hey, enjoy your life"; I guess that is why she got such hatred for L+F from her diehard fans -- such lyrics are completely cringeworthy and remind us of stupid psychologists who think that adding a positive post on social media would actually help somebody. If you stay cool, you'd probably enjoy your life, but she, as an artist who got recognition mostly thanks to the gay fanbase who's known to consist of social depressed outsiders, should rethink her message. And To be Human/Life is strange was "the world sucks but I don't know why", so it wasn't better either. I agree that Marina needs to be pushed sometimes, and truthfully the times when she was depressed and perfectionist, although wasn't good for her mental health, it was the time when she delivered the best. I know there is a misconception that being unhappy means being a better artist, and Marina has really criticised this idea and I agree with her -- some of her songs PROVE that she is capable of producing awesome tunes being happy (like, Froot the song -- one of the most amazing songs of hers, if not the best, actually), although it is the whole album that feels rather weaker compared to her previous records (EH/TFJ). I really like FROOT the album, but one can notice that the lyrics were much simpler (Forget, Blue, I'm a Ruin, etc.) and devoid of any metaphors known from TFJ, which I don't mind personally, but it is just a thing that can be easily noticed in comparison. The thing that I'm bugged about is that there are too many filler songs like Weeds or You (L+F) that are neither lyrically nor sonically spectacular. I wish Marina the best and she just needs to learn to strike a balance in her artistry. For me, Man's World shows that she might've achieved that, but the time will tell.

In EH she/her team clearly wanted radio-friendly tracks, that's why we got Radioactive, Primadonna, Lies, HTBAH and P&C, even though Homewrecker, Bubblegum Bitch or Teen Idle and all other ballads are absolutely amazing and they shape the record much better.

It still is and will be amazing.

I wonder how the Electra Heart project would look and what reactions it would receive had Dr. Luke not been involved in it.

I just discovered her Lykke Li cover, I'm so obsessed! Can she release something like that? Has she? I loved her two first albums but the rest was kind of meh at first glance; didn't bother to dive deeper, but this one sounds amazing.

Banks, Caroline Polachek, Lily Allen, Allie X: hey wanna collab? Marina: no one wants to collab with me

The Family Jewels is a daughter of Kate Bush's The Dreaming. I said what I said.

Not Marina being fake woke again... complaining about black fridays leading to overproduction and so on. Lmao. Rich people don't care about black fridays anyway and this is the social class that is best known for overconsumption. If you wanna change the world, consider philanthropy.

As much as I usually rant about L+F, I cannot disagree with you asserting its stress relieving vibe. I was sleepy in a car once, it was almost midnight, and I listened to the whole album; it was so peaceful and calm, really magical, lullaby-like, and really that's one of the moments where this smooth instrumentalisation does work. But I would fall asleep (not in a bad context!) in the past listening to Ultraviolence or Honeymoon as well, so it is not that big of an accomplishment. However, it's definitely something where TFJ/EH/FROOT fails due to being too upbeat.

Probably Billie Eilish alike.

she's not a liar, she's a libra

How come? TFJ is about her family issues, while solitaire is about her overcoming shyness and a feeling of being "worse" than the rest of the society, but still staying true to her introverted side. But yes, they both use diamond/crystal references.

It's not a problem that she, if it even was her, came up with the concept for love + fear at the last minute; it's just an explanation to why it's delivered so poorly. I understand your point: I am also annoyed by the inconsistency in Electra concept like Electra being a character/alter ego/nobody and all that jazz, but it all works quite smoothly. In fact, the Electra Heart concept was really broad and it touched upon different elements of the American culture as well as feminism; actually, the idea was not an ad hoc concept, Marina had its basics in mind before she even started writing songs like Bubblegum Bitch. Yes, tracks such as Power & Control were not meant for Electra Heart, but it is merely one of many songs on the album and it still fits one of the female archetypes. Marina came up with the idea of Electra Heart herself, not to fulfill the label's wish; what she did though for them was mixing the ideas for a blonde archetype heartbreaker popstar with no identity 'Electra Heart' and feminist-depressed Marina 'Die Life', which is unfortunate indeed, although still makes sense. Besides, I don't understand what an idiot one must be not to let her pretend to be another person during the EH era. I'm sure the press would be amazed by a pop star enigma that no one would know about and additionally she wouldn't get such a backlash from her old diehard TFJ fans. I understand that the campaign to suddenly promote a new artist would be a bit difficult and perhaps even costly, yet I'm sure it would pay off both in artistic and financial levels. Like, c'mon, the label did already pay for Dr. Luke collaboration and she already changed her whole appearence. What do you think?

At least he got fired shortly after. But I can see why an old white straight man wouldn't like it. Amazing that she even worked with him to begin with.

As far as I know it was her manager, the same one who didn't want Teen Idle on the album.

The fact that the material for Die Life is so good that it could easily make quite a solid separate album is insane.

The problem was people were afraid Marina was fading away, no one knew if she lost the artistry/effort whatsoever or it was just one weak/"pop" album. Besides, she shouldn't've said that it was her best record. People got too much excited. We put so much faith in her because how on Earth is your next gonna be better than all FROOT, TFJ and EH combined? And why even say that? Are you suddenly going to say it's your best because it's your newest? Marina clearly doesn't know what she's saying at times. Remember now what she said in Vogue; she didn't have that much control over L+F making process and was unsure. Yet she said what she said.

What a time to be alive

OUR MARINA (as we knew her) is BACK. The production finally has personality. At first the song felt weird but after a few listens I love it. The fact the video presents the Pleiades from Greek mythology made me appreciate it even more. At the beginning I was unconvinced by the lyrics because it felt as though she glued them together from different songs, but the vocal delivery makes it work. Beauty. girl they are completely different kinds of songs, superstar is a track similar to primadonna or htbah, stbs is a ballad similar to end of the earth or fear & loathing, and they are better than it. similarly, i would say i don't like primadonna that much but i cannot imagine electra heart without it and sometimes i can bop to it with no shame.

superstar is a nice bop, generic but at least catchy electropop. would still put soft to be strong somewhere but i don''t know how, since in my mind it's a closing track and end of the earth works better in this role.