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CEREMONY | The Heart Rate: 10 Years of Electra Heart


Cruelty

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Butters Stotch

No way Buy the Stars is out so fast. Honestly quite surprised, this song is beautiful!! Though I get maybe it's just because it's the one piano song on a pop record.

FIND YOUR FREEDOM IN THE MUSIC
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Poltergeist
1 minute ago, Cruelty said:

“I was living in L.A., and it can be such an empty place sometimes. And so I wanted to write a song about the void, the emptiness that every person feels in their life at some point, but some people feel it particularly more than others.”

Elim16.png

16 VALLEY OF THE DOLLS — average 7.46

Highest: 10 x 3 (@Grigio Guy @ARTPOPe @DrKindnessKunt1999)
Lowest: 3 (@Stephen)

With a lot of Electra Heart, it’s useful to think about it on two levels—the Electra character is singing these songs, but so is Marina, and ‘Valley of the Dolls’ is a great example. The last song written for the album, ‘Valley’ can almost be understood as a reflection on the whole Electra Heart project, written by a woman who had spent upwards of 18 months ‘living with identities that do not belong to me’. Numbed by ‘Living Dead’ and weakened by the self-reflection of ‘Teen Idle’, this mellow number represents the nadir of the journey. It’s the musical equivalent of a sigh; a wistful ‘How did we get into this position?’; a moment to pause and rest before she rejects the Electra character in the album’s final thrust.

And just as Marina is worn out by her creation, Electra is worn out by society, which forces her to play the housewife, and the homewrecker, and the primadonna, and the idle teen, just to be loved, just to stay afloat. She’s performing these roles, and yet she’s ‘got a hole inside of me’—expected to be everything to everyone, and as a result she only feels empty, feels devoid of identity. In that sense, it makes a nice thematic pairing with ‘Teen Idle’, which is also about the corrosive expectations pushed onto us. So whilst I find it musically uninspiring, I think it slots perfectly into Electra’s journey.

 

Comments

@Poltergeist Used to be one of my favorites, I like the fact that it sounds more mysterious and dark than the other songs. Surely a standout track.

@holy scheisse She's cute

Love/hate it being #16. But as I said, USED TO be one of my favs, so maybe I'm fine with that?

I've been getting messages from my deep waters
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Cruelty

Elim15.png

15 E.V.O.L. — average 7.50

Highest: 11 x 2 (@Grigio Guy @LovingIsACherryPie); 10 x 5 (@GaGaLB @ARTPOPe @Benji @DrKindnessKunt1999 @Lady Gaga 2009)
Lowest: 1 (Admin)

Whatever the schools of Abergavenny are teaching, it ain’t spelling. The cantering, rollicking drum rhythm of ‘E.V.O.L.’ propelled its way into our lives on Valentine’s Day 2013, after missing out on the Electra Heart tracklist first time around. Propulsive, provocative, and with hooks for days, the song almost introduces a fifth archetype (Electra Heart’s art direction having hinged on four archetypal representations of femininity): the Suicide Blonde. The dangerous, impulsive, dying beauty queen; conscious of everything that love represents culturally, all she wants is to die for love and feel f*cking amazing doing it. (@Poltergeist says ‘the whole song makes me feel quite uneasy. But in a good way!’ and that is exactly what I think ‘E.V.O.L.’ sets out to do).

Too lyrically vacuous to fit onto the slightly more highbrow parent album, ‘E.V.O.L.’ is the perfect standalone single. It’s not exactly profound—sometimes when we’re in love, we do f*cked up things and we want f*cked up things—but that works in its favour. Liam Howe’s production is the star here, all lopsided drumbeats and clanging church bells — so just crank up the volume, and rock out into the night. Shame that they clearly couldn’t come up with a middle 8, though.

 

Comments

@Grigio Guy The best song on the new album

@holy scheisse She’s fun and cute

@LovingIsACherryPie Marina put her WHOLE Marinussy in this song. The vocals, the production and the lyrics, goddamn, everything in this song is perfect and I'm glad she finally released it.

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Cruelty

“I think some people like to play the victim; for me, it’s quite embarrassing, and so I wanted to turn the tables and create a character type that was more like the slayer than the slayed.”

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14 HOMEWRECKER — average 7.62

Highest: 10 x 5 (@itsmebuddy @VTV @ARTPOPe @Chesescake @Lady Gaga 2009)
Lowest: 1 (Admin)

There’s a diamond-hard edge to ‘Homewrecker’; in this thumping, rollicking paean to chaos, Electra Heart wants love, but she’ll secure it by own means, and on her own terms. This aggressive determination to be in control of love is replicated across the album on slightly more accomplished cuts like ‘Bubblegum Bitch’, ‘Primadonna’ and ‘Power & Control’, which is why I feel that ‘Homewrecker’ is more just an archetype in search of a song. The song is texturally interesting, contrasting spoken and sung portions, soft synth pads clashing against a ferocious 4-on-the-floor chorus. But none of it quite works for me. The coy spoken-word verses are divisive (and not a patch on their obvious inspiration, Madonna’s Erotica), whilst I’m not a fan of Rick Nowels’ production on… any of his tracks on the album, really. Nonetheless, ‘Homewrecker’ has its fans—including Marina herself. The song opened the Lonely Hearts Club Tour, which spanned 79 shows over the course of a year, and I’m reliably informed that it popped off.

I have nothing else to say about a song that could honestly disappear overnight and I’d be none the wiser, so I’m linking the acoustic version of ‘Homewrecker’, because it’s… a million miles ahead of the album version? Stripped to its bare bones, ‘Homewrecker’ truly achieves the glorious campness that I always knew it was capable of. The rickety, stripped-back chorus instrumentation also exposes the fact that Electra Heart is all bluster, that the homewrecker persona is an ultimately impotent reaction to the utterly degrading realisation that you are no longer loved by somebody who matters to you. On these terms, I’m much more on board with ‘Homewrecker’; damn you, Rick Nowels. Anyway, as is frequently the case, Marina’s vocal truly sells it:

 

Comments

@CatelynnMarie The chorus is absolutely incredible & the lyrics are insane, I just personally didn’t enjoy the speaking verses as much as if they were sung. Incredible track

@Poltergeist A fun song, not special in any way, but still lovely

@holy scheisse The anthem for your villain era

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Cruelty

“Lies and Starring Role are the core of the record in some respects. They are very personal to me. I am very proud of them because they are completely honest. That’s what you need but don’t really want to do when you’re hurt — to admit the truth.”

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13 LIES — average 7.69

Highest: 10 x 3 (@HeavyMetal Halcyon @itsmebuddy @juicyjuicy)
Lowest: 3 (Admin)

Written at the legendary Stone Pony (home of Bruce Springsteen), sturdy electroballad ‘Lies’ is about a relationship so corrupted by dishonesty that it can no longer function. So much of the Electra Heart project uses the title character (and the feminine archetypes which constitute her) in order to mask Marina’s genuine sadness, but here the raw pain is front and centre. It’s not one of Electra’s fantasy relationships. This is Marina’s real relationship, and every lyric is saturated with genuine devastation.

Even as the relationship is running on empty, Marina is fighting to resuscitate it: ‘why don’t we just pretend?’. In many ways, the whole Electra Heart project is an exercise in ‘just pretending’, but in this song, pretending everything is fine is just… not an option. Yes, the boyfriend is ‘too proud to say that [he] made a mistake’, but Marina also confesses ‘I don’t wanna admit that we’re not gonna fit’. The lies become contagious; his cowardice is now making Marina lie to herself; ‘Lies’ is as much about the lies we tell ourselves. Understandably, because love is an ideal—it’s one of the ultimate goals that society holds up and judges us by—and because heartbreak hurts.

But ultimately, Marina must ‘admit that we’re not gonna fit’. Because love matters. It’s an investment, two people trading in one another’s happiness, so don’t waste each other’s time with lies and games and false hope. In ‘Lies’, Marina says farewell to the boy who broke her heart, but she also kisses goodbye to the whole cycle of dishonesty that love sometimes instils in us. It might take some time for Marina/Electra to fully purge the unhealthy effects of love, but ‘Lies’ starts the process.

And that chorus is MASSIVE. It’s like she’s astride the world, finally crying out about how this coward has ruined her outlook on love forever. For me, it’s this sheer melodrama that sells ‘Lies’—imbuing every aspect, from [REDACTED]’s thunderous slamming EDM synths to Marina’s operatic wails. The first half of Electra Heart is characterised by this interest in drama and performance, but whereas the campy melodrama of ‘Bubblegum Bitch’ or ‘The State of Dreaming’ is clearly an example of a talented songwriter playing up to stereotypes, ‘Lies’ feels straight from the heart — honest, raw, and unadorned. And that is its unique power.

If it’s not already on daily rotation in your life, I implore you to listen to the acoustic performance of ‘Lies’ from Conan back in 2013. Miles ahead of the album version, this is the song in its ultimate form:

 

 

Comments

@Poltergeist There are some amazing ballads on this album and Lies is a bit bland compared to them. Not a bad song though.

@holy scheisse Didn’t age as well but went so hard back in the day

@LovingIsACherryPie Marina really showcased her wonderful vocals in this track!

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Poltergeist
1 minute ago, Cruelty said:

“Lies and Starring Role are the core of the record in some respects. They are very personal to me. I am very proud of them because they are completely honest. That’s what you need but don’t really want to do when you’re hurt — to admit the truth.”

Elim13.png

13 LIES — average 7.69

Highest: 10 x 3 (@HeavyMetal Halcyon @itsmebuddy @juicyjuicy)
Lowest: 3 (Admin)

Written at the legendary Stone Pony (home of Bruce Springsteen), sturdy electroballad ‘Lies’ is about a relationship so corrupted by dishonesty that it can no longer function. So much of the Electra Heart project uses the title character (and the feminine archetypes which constitute her) in order to mask Marina’s genuine sadness, but here the raw pain is front and centre. It’s not one of Electra’s fantasy relationships. This is Marina’s real relationship, and every lyric is saturated with genuine devastation.

Even as the relationship is running on empty, Marina is fighting to resuscitate it: ‘why don’t we just pretend?’. In many ways, the whole Electra Heart project is an exercise in ‘just pretending’, but in this song, pretending everything is fine is just… not an option. Yes, the boyfriend is ‘too proud to say that [he] made a mistake’, but Marina also confesses ‘I don’t wanna admit that we’re not gonna fit’. The lies become contagious; his cowardice is now making Marina lie to herself; ‘Lies’ is as much about the lies we tell ourselves. Understandably, because love is an ideal—it’s one of the ultimate goals that society holds up and judges us by—and because heartbreak hurts.

But ultimately, Marina must ‘admit that we’re not gonna fit’. Because love matters. It’s an investment, two people trading in one another’s happiness, so don’t waste each other’s time with lies and games and false hope. In ‘Lies’, Marina says farewell to the boy who broke her heart, but she also kisses goodbye to the whole cycle of dishonesty that love sometimes instils in us. It might take some time for Marina/Electra to fully purge the unhealthy effects of love, but ‘Lies’ starts the process.

And that chorus is MASSIVE. It’s like she’s astride the world, finally crying out about how this coward has ruined her outlook on love forever. For me, it’s this sheer melodrama that sells ‘Lies’—imbuing every aspect, from [REDACTED]’s thunderous slamming EDM synths to Marina’s operatic wails. The first half of Electra Heart is characterised by this interest in drama and performance, but whereas the campy melodrama of ‘Bubblegum Bitch’ or ‘The State of Dreaming’ is clearly an example of a talented songwriter playing up to stereotypes, ‘Lies’ feels straight from the heart — honest, raw, and unadorned. And that is its unique power.

If it’s not already on daily rotation in your life, I implore you to listen to the acoustic performance of ‘Lies’ from Conan back in 2013. Miles ahead of the album version, this is the song in its ultimate form:

 

 

Comments

@Poltergeist There are some amazing ballads on this album and Lies is a bit bland compared to them. Not a bad song though.

@holy scheisse Didn’t age as well but went so hard back in the day

@LovingIsACherryPie Marina really showcased her wonderful vocals in this track!

Yes, thank you. Could be out ~2 songs ago tho

I've been getting messages from my deep waters
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Cruelty

“I’m just waiting for the moment where it’s accepted that women are just as sexual as men without women having to be overtly sexy just to prove how “liberated” they are.”

Elim12.png

12 SEX YEAH — average 7.81

Highest: 10 x 9 (@CatelynnMarie @Grigio Guy @GaGaLB @juicyjuicy @Poltergeist @ARTPOPe @Benji @Lady Gaga 2009 @LovingIsACherryPie)
Lowest: 4 (Admin)

Whilst Electra Heart’s songs are generally about love and how we react to it, the album’s imagery focuses on the concept of the archetypes: four paradigmatic representations of female sexuality. ‘Sex Yeah’—which features on the UK deluxe and US standard album—is the project’s best attempt at reconciling the two aspects. The song challenges the constricted views of sexuality that spawned the intentionally antiquated archetypes. So the opening chant of ‘SEX SEX SEX SEX SEX SEX SEX SEX’ is such a troll start to the song, but it also emblematises that claustrophobic, insistent urging of society towards women: sex is all you are. So when the song explodes into that absolute banger of a chorus, it feels like a liberation, expelling stereotypical expectations of female sexuality. In that respect, ‘Sex Yeah’ almost feels like Marina herself singing to Electra, asking ‘why on earth are you conforming to these archetypes anyway? Who… are you?? Just be yourself, it's far more freeing’.

And yet ‘Sex Yeah’ is far from perfect. The conservative 50s housewife attitude—that ‘nothing is provocative anymore… everyone’s seen everything’—is… truly unnecessary, and I’m unconvinced by the song’s thesis that women are only sexually provocative because that’s how you prove you’re free. In context, it’s also really disappointing that the followup to Electra Heart contains a sl*t-shaming anthem.

But the production strikes a nice balance between the electronic and organic elements, and I like the paranoid ‘Question good and question bad… question what a popstar sells you’, because that’s Electra Heart’s mission statement: Marina Diamandis becomes a popstar to show you that they're just normal people, falling in and out of love and feeling sh*t about it. It just feels like those interesting questions about image and authenticity are marooned in an incomplete musing about an unrelated subject.

 

Comments

@CatelynnMarie Important, relatable, stunning message

@Poltergeist It was my favourite song on the album since I first heard it, and it probably still is, but Teen Idle deserves the 11. I love the chorus, the whole song is quirky and fun!

@holy scheisse Meh

@LovingIsACherryPie This is another of the best tracks lyrical-wise!

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Poltergeist
Just now, Cruelty said:

“I’m just waiting for the moment where it’s accepted that women are just as sexual as men without women having to be overtly sexy just to prove how “liberated” they are.”

Elim12.png

12 SEX YEAH — average 7.81

Highest: 10 x 9 (@CatelynnMarie @Grigio Guy @GaGaLB @juicyjuicy @Poltergeist @ARTPOPe @Benji @Lady Gaga 2009 @LovingIsACherryPie)
Lowest: 4 (Admin)

Whilst Electra Heart’s songs are generally about love and how we react to it, the album’s imagery focuses on the concept of the archetypes: four paradigmatic representations of female sexuality. ‘Sex Yeah’—which features on the UK deluxe and US standard album—is the project’s best attempt at reconciling the two aspects. The song challenges the constricted views of sexuality that spawned the intentionally antiquated archetypes. So the opening chant of ‘SEX SEX SEX SEX SEX SEX SEX SEX’ is such a troll start to the song, but it also emblematises that claustrophobic, insistent urging of society towards women: sex is all you are. So when the song explodes into that absolute banger of a chorus, it feels like a liberation, expelling stereotypical expectations of female sexuality. In that respect, ‘Sex Yeah’ almost feels like Marina herself singing to Electra, asking ‘why on earth are you conforming to these archetypes anyway? Who… are you?? Just be yourself, it's far more freeing’.

And yet ‘Sex Yeah’ is far from perfect. The conservative 50s housewife attitude—that ‘nothing is provocative anymore… everyone’s seen everything’—is… truly unnecessary, and I’m unconvinced by the song’s thesis that women are only sexually provocative because that’s how you prove you’re free. In context, it’s also really disappointing that the followup to Electra Heart contains a sl*t-shaming anthem.

But the production strikes a nice balance between the electronic and organic elements, and I like the paranoid ‘Question good and question bad… question what a popstar sells you’, because that’s Electra Heart’s mission statement: Marina Diamandis becomes a popstar to show you that they're just normal people, falling in and out of love and feeling sh*t about it. It just feels like those interesting questions about image and authenticity are marooned in an incomplete musing about an unrelated subject.

 

Comments

@CatelynnMarie Important, relatable, stunning message

@Poltergeist It was my favourite song on the album since I first heard it, and it probably still is, but Teen Idle deserves the 11. I love the chorus, the whole song is quirky and fun!

@holy scheisse Meh

@LovingIsACherryPie This is another of the best tracks lyrical-wise!

First one I strongly disagree with, but otherwise I'm pretty happy!

I've been getting messages from my deep waters
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Benji

Really shocked at some of these rankings so far, my babies EVOL and Sex Yeah deserve better :cyanlights:

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Cruelty

“I started saying my album was a failure… 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.”

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11 FEAR AND LOATHING — average 7.85

Highest: 11 x 1 (@RAMROD); 10 x 5 (@Grigio Guy @GaGaLB @Galvon @Cruelty @DrKindnessKunt1999)
Lowest: 1 (Admin)

The first piece of Electra Heart released to the public, ‘Fear and Loathing’ is a song of freedom. Inspired by Marina’s increasing willingness to collaborate with other people, and assisted by a truly bizarre vocal cameo from Granny Diamandis, the album’s autobiographical closing track is about letting go of bitterness and self-loathing, and opening yourself up to joy. Because yes, the world is a terrifying place, but being perpetually scared—in the way that the character of Electra Heart is so scared—isn’t the way to face it.

Electra Heart is variously about love, about heartbreak, and about identity. About the way we’re supposed to live, the way we’re supposed to love. As the album plays, the chaos of heartbreak and the constrictions of prescribed identity build up, build up, build up, until there’s nowhere left to go. In ‘Living Dead’, Electra realises she’s a shell of a human being. In ‘Teen Idle’, she ruminates on a life only half-lived because she couldn’t conform to how teenagers are ‘supposed’ to behave. In ‘Valley of the Dolls’, she enacts her own death, and in ‘Hypocrates’, she begins to evaluate why she’s turned out like she has. But ‘Fear and Loathing’ is a different beast. ‘Fear and Loathing’ is about letting Electra go; about freeing yourself from the chains of prescribed identity entirely (and the fear and loathing that this inevitably produces). About just floating, just existing as you. Goodbye to the angst of Teen Idle, the dissociation of Living Dead, the delusion of State of Dreaming, the anger of Power & Control, the performativity of Primadonna, the desperation of Lies, the self-destruction of Homewrecker. Goodbye to the fear, goodbye to the loathing. Just float.

When we eliminated ‘Hypocrates’, I talked about the album’s narrative. If ‘Hypocrates’ was the moment when Marina realises that she’s entitled to be loved on her own terms (without conditions, without dressing up as someone she’s not), then ‘Fear and Loathing’ is the peripeteia, the sudden change in circumstances. In this song, Electra is vanquished by Marina. Because Electra Heart is nothing more than a concept used to talk about and rationalise Marina’s painful experiences of love, and in ‘Fear and Loathing’, Marina reaches a clearer headspace that makes Electra suddenly superfluous. She may die in the bubbling fury of the album’s title track, but ‘Fear and Loathing’ sounds Electra Heart’s death knell. But oh, what a beautiful way to go.

 

Comments

@Poltergeist Ethereal and beautiful. While her voice in it annoys me sometimes I still love it, especially the instrumental

@holy scheisse Good song to wallow in depression to

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holy scheisse

I love how admin is almost always in the lowest ranking of each song lmao 

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Poltergeist
Just now, Cruelty said:

Top10.png

We've made it to the top 10! Who are you supporting? And who do you think is next to go?

Time for State Of Dreaming!

I've been getting messages from my deep waters
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