When I first heard Marina and The Diamonds, I thought of her as somewhere between Lady Gaga and Ellie Goulding until I realized what an oversimplified statement that was for this emerging indie electro dance pop princess.
Marina Lambrini Diamandis is a Welsh singer-songwriter of Greek descent. And maybe it’s her Greek background, but there is certainly something otherworldy yet entirely classic about Marina’s voice. Remember those enticing and hypnotizing sirens from the Odyssey? Marina’s voice simultaneously offers visions of both happily-ever-after and beware-my-pretty. Just like ancient myth or Grim Brothers fairy-tale, Marina and the Diamonds is romantic, enticing, enchanting, yet foreboding, and utterly bewitching.
And oh, that whole ‘The Diamonds” thing isn’t some name for the rest of her band. On her Myspace page she explains that “The Diamonds” actually refers to all of her adoring fans, similar to Lady Gaga’s “monsters”.
Having moved over a dozen times, settling in London at 18, and dropping out of four different colleges, Marina started creating early demos on Garageband. Marina paid £500 to someone she found on Gumtree (think Craigslist UK style) to produce those first few tracks. They later appeared on her EP Mermaids and Sailors that was released on November 23 2007, with a whopping seventy copies sold through her Myspace page. See – every one has to get his or her start, and the inspirational part is that this was not someone with years of formal training. About her career, Marina says to Atlantic Records, “I never even really knew what a chorus was until I went into the studio with a producer… I would just create a lift in mood when the time felt right or the story had been told… My writing had all been either instinctual or accidental up until then.”
Marina’s an artist I find easy to relate with. In many ways she seems enraptured with aspects of Bubblegum Pop in a way I’ve been embarrassed to admit for years. We’re about the same age, so I know Marina and I both grew up listening to the Spice Girls, Britney, Christina, Jessica Simpson, and Mandy Moore. Marina won’t become one of those pop princesses though because the attitude may inform an angle on her work, but it certainly isn’t controlled by the auspices of pop stardom. She’s way more real than these girls, especially since she flat out refused a manager (or men in fancy business suits) to turn her into a beautiful yet lifeless pop idol. She finally landed a deal with Warner Bros. through 679 and then all sorts of important indie writers, co-writers, artists, and producers came knocking. But her biggest stamp of approval was probably when she linked up with Neon Gold.
Then comes the cascade of Marina songs that we love and adore, like my personal favorite Mowgli’s Road, an eerie and foreboding song that’s essentially Robert Frost’s The Road Not Taken set in The Jungle Book. I Am Not A Robot is a damn good song coupled with an even crazier video (diamond covered Marina – check), and it’s inspired some fucking stellar sounding remixes. It’s not just “talent” or a “different voice” that’s exploding Marina and The Diamonds across the charts. What I hear from her work is one of the highest levels of creativity and ingenuity applied in an unrestricted and unconventional manner to form a sound so unique and genuine that if I didn’t know any better, I’d swear that this was ambient noise of my 21 year old indie pop enchanted forest.
