marina and the diamonds – primadonna

Top popstrel Marina and her Diamonds are back!  Hurrah!

Primadonna and the whole Electra Heart ‘project’ is, we have to be honest, slightly on the pretentious end of the pop scale.  As the esteemed Mark at Bitter Fingers points out, whatever is wrong with just picking the best ten songs you’ve got and sticking them on a record?

Well, that’s good for lots of pop artists.  But this is Marina, and lest we forget, The Family Jewels was also A Bit Of A Concept Album about the plight of womankind.  Actually I thought it was mostly an excuse to be wicked funny which is something I definitely wish more pop stars would do.  Especially female pop stars.  Females in general.  I just don’t think funny begins and ends with Sarah Millican, alright?!

ANYWAY.  The point is, it’s in keeping with what Marina wants to do.  She’s intelligent and doesn’t see why she should apologise for it – so yeah, why shouldn’t she be entitled to disappear up her own bum a bit, so long as the songs are still good?   And having had to review lots of albums which have little concept beyond “This sounds cool and I’ve got a haircut so you like it, yeah?”, and stand through even more bands playing gigs with that attitude… well it gets fucking boring.   You do, every now and again, find yourself wanting a longer thing that gels just a bit better than that.  I don’t see that the two posts – Big Smart Concept and Big Dumb Pop – have to be mutually exclusive.  And maybe that’s what Marina’s trying to achieve.

Of course if it turns out an overblown pile of poo then I reserve the right to withdraw all the above.  But ‘Primadonna’s a good pop song so on the evidence of this, so far it’s looking good.