CEREMONY | The Heart Rate: 10 Years of Electra Heart

[Cruelty 5,887]

"When you are with the wrong person, who doesn’t really love you, all you want is to be adored. It makes you more inward and needy. GROSS. So I flipped the pages and channelled the idea of being a person who didn’t need anybody. A prima donna who was adored the entire world over.”

“Everyone’s vapid to a degree, just like not everyone is 100% pure or innocent or kind.”

“People use characters or stories to kind of mask the truth or make it appear as if it’s the opposite of them, but really to create something you have to relate to that.”

1 PRIMADONNA — average 8.81

Highest: 11 x 3 (@GaGaLB @juicyjuicy @Benji); 10 x 10 ( @whoresup @itsmebuddy @Galvon @Stephen @Poltergeist @Zed @Torsoface @Cruelty @Lady Gaga 2009 @LovingIsACherryPie)
Lowest: 2 (Admin)

‘Primadonna’ is PERFECT. Overplayed, yes. Unadventurous, yes. A little simplistic, yes. But none of that matters to me, because ‘all I ever wanted was the world’ is her best lyric, and because the song glistens with Madonna-esque ambition, and because the fact that the lyrics put the ‘big diamond ring’ before ‘that pretty question’ tells us everything we need to know about Electra, and because the verses are spiky and brash but then that lighter-than-air chorus vocal comes in and it’s like Electra is transmitting directly from heaven…

Marina describes ‘Primadonna’ as being about how ‘every girl has a little bit of that inside of her, I think… the brat!’ It works on multiple levels. Electra Heart is singing ‘Primadonna’ in order to explain herself—being a primadonna is just not Electra’s fault. But it’s so tongue-in-cheek; “I can’t help that I need it all”, sure, but when she promises “you can count on me to misbehave”, you get the sense that’s she’s consciously playing up to the archetype. And in an album that’s consistently explored the idea of identity as both a mask and a bind, you start to wonder why Electra is playing up to the primadonna role — as with so much of the album, there’s a real darkness lurking just beneath the surface.

And on another level, as Electra Heart’s lead single, Marina Diamandis is singing this song, fighting for the life of her new artistic project. "I can’t help that I need it all”, because having been disappointed by the chart performance of her debut record, Electra Heart was a self-admitted attempt at pop stardom. “You can count on me to misbehave”—because in the eyes of the supercilious British music press, transitioning from indie music to electropop constituted ‘misbehaving’, constituted vapidity, constituted rule-breaking. But as Marina realised (as did Gaga, as did Madonna): pop music will never be low-brow. It soundtracks our highs and our lows, our celebrations and our miseries. It is our constant companion, part of the fabric of our identity, and if we want to use it as a route to success, then it’s nobody’s right to stop us. Because as much as Electra Heart is full of intellectualism and sociology, it’s also just a celebration of how amazing pop music can be. Marina’s biggest inspiration is Madonna; she once cancelled her own show to see Britney; she’s spoken very highly of Gaga. Electra sings ‘Primadonna’ to justify her personality, but Marina—a student of the very best pop music—sings it to justify bankrupting her label in order to live out her Madonna fantasies, and that’s utterly glorious in itself.

At the time, Marina said, “I knew deep down that this song was the one that was going to change the game”, and she was absolutely right. Narrowly missing out on the UK Top 10, the song is now certified Platinum in the US and Gold in the UK, and has spent a decade lighting up dancefloors the world over. In all of its 2012 dance-pop glory, ‘Primadonna’ is a lyrical and musical masterpiece, and to prove my point, I’m linking Marina’s encore performance of ‘Primadonna’ in London earlier this year. I was there, and of course videos won’t do it justice, but it was the biggest experience I’ve ever had at a gig. In that moment, for those 5 minutes, Marina was the only popstar that mattered, the best popstar in the world — and it was like we’d never stop jumping.

All she ever wanted was the world, and now she’s got it. ‘Primadonna’ is your well-deserved Electra Heart champion.

 

Comments

@CatelynnMarie Another great track. I personally have ranked it lower for the sheer purpose of having heard it too much and is overrated compared to other tracks.

@itsmebuddy 10/10 perfect pop song

@VTV As much as I hate to say it but the production team of this song did very well in shining Marina’s pop prowess.

@Poltergeist I got to know her thanks to this song so it will always be special to me. Love the vocals and the beat!

@holy scheisse A Katy perry reject of a song imho

@LovingIsACherryPie Even though some fans say this song is overrated, I find the production perfect. One of the best of the album!

[holy scheisse 20,326]

 

IM GONNA POP UR BUBBLE GUM HEART

[Poltergeist 2,835]

Even though we've all known who the winner was from the beginning, thank you very much @Cruelty! This was not only fun, but made me revisit the whole album for the first time in years, and reminded me of so many memories tied to it. Also I found out some interesting facts about the songs, really good job! 

[Cruelty 5,887]

Last of all, I just need to say THANK YOU to everybody who took part in this rate! Thanks to our 25 voters and anyone else who followed along with the ceremony. This was only my second ever rate, so thanks so much for not letting it completely flop; I hope you had fun rating one of the shining gems of 2010s electropop, and that you enjoyed my subpar design skills and long-winded writeups!

I know my elimination posts are very wordy, but they come from a place of genuine love for the music. It's fun sharing thoughts about these songs, hopefully educating you, and maybe even changing your mind about some of the material. 'Primadonna' might be a predictable winner, but in my writeup I've tried to justify why it truly is a fantastic pop song. 'Hypocrates' is a deeply unpopular song, but I've tried to contextualise it within Electra's journey, and hopefully that might give you a new perspective on it, because I truly think it's one of the most beautiful pieces of music ever composed. Those posts will always be here if you ever want to read them again 

Electra Heart is lots of things, but it’s partly a celebration of the power of pop music, and getting to hear your thoughts about the album (@Poltergeist's prom story!!) means so much, because it just goes to prove that pop music truly is the soundtrack to our lives, and the best genre in the world. And if this rate was your introduction to Electra Heart, welcome on board, and I’m glad that Electra continues to make her mark.

Thank you for your amazing comments, your… interesting scores, and your fantastic companionship!

Goodbye, my friend
Goodbye
—MARINA, 'GOODBYE' (2021)

[LovingIsACherryPie 6,527]

4 hours ago, Cruelty said:

“Electra Heart, if you step back from all the cynical stuff, it actually focuses on the idea of innocence being mixed with darkness. For some reason I really like that combination.”

19 HYPOCRATES — average 6.77

Highest: 11 x 1 (@Torsoface); 10 x 2 (@Cruelty @DrKindnessKunt1999)
Lowest: 1 (@Stephen)

Where are your HEARTS, Gagadaily?! ‘Hypocrates’ is your least favourite Electra Heart track, and maybe it was inevitable on a pop album that the one non-pop song would end up in last place, but here’s why you’re wrong.

Electra Heart forms a loose narrative based on the patterns of classical Greek tragedy. First comes the prologue (“welcome to the life of Electra Heart”), then the parodos (the introduction of the characters: the primadonna, the homewrecker). The first half of the album is about bluster and performance, through to ‘State of Dreaming’ where Electra realises she’s living in delusion. By the time we reach ‘Living Dead’, that delusion no longer sustains her, and in the final third of the album she starts to think about why that is. When we come to the penultimate track ‘Hypocrates’, Electra has reached rock bottom, and she realises it’s all about daddy issues.

Because ‘Hypocrates’ is about her dad, right? That’s the consensus given what we know of Marina’s life, and I can think of few others “who can break me down into a young girl”. However you look at it, ‘Hypocrates’ is a heartbreaking song, but if it’s about her father it’s devastating. Because ‘Hypocrates’ is a song about being denied the love you’re owed (“you say that love is not that easy, and that’s the lesson that you teach me”), and failing to live up to your parents’ expectations cuts deep.

And yet ‘Hypocrates’ represents the moment when the clouds part and the sun begins to shine through. Because, for perhaps the first time, Marina realises that love can be easy, and should be easy, and that she shouldn’t have to contort herself into the primadonna or the housewife just to be loved. In this way, ‘Hypocrates’ is undeniably the most deft synthesis of Electra Heart’s two principal themes of love and identity. That chorus lyric—“Who are you, to tell me who to be?”—is imbued with absolute fury, but backed by the sweetest production, which I think perfectly captures how Marina’s newfound clarity empowers her to rebuke the men who have wronged her, but also to have the confidence to move on with her life.

And why’s it titled ‘Hypocrates’? It’s hypocrisy—a father automatically expecting love from his child, but failing to reciprocate?—fused with the name Hippocrates, one of the most significant figures in the history of medicine. Because love is a medicine, and sometimes we just need it, especially from a father (or perhaps a boyfriend-as-father-figure). Talking to someone who ‘keep[s] all [their] secrets under cover’, Marina has found herself cut off from this medicine — but the cutesy production suggests the song itself is a balm, a healing realisation that she can seek love elsewhere, on her own terms.

She’s spent so long playing the heartbreaker and homewrecker in the guise of Electra Heart—the vicious coping mechanism, the way of navigating heartbreak by masquerading as another woman. But as the standard album draws to a close, Marina realises that, just because she was denied love, it doesn’t mean she isn’t entitled to love, and to be loved, again. Without self-loathing, without dressing up as primadonnas and homewreckers, without preconditions. Within the scheme of Greek tragedy, this is anagnorisis, the sudden self-realisation that sparks much-needed change (you better believe I'm getting at least some use out of my Oxford English degree). And that makes Electra redundant.

Comments

@Poltergeist Used to be my least favourite song for a long time, but I’ve learned to show it some love, it’s really grown on me!

@holy scheisse Meh

Even as the "worst track of the album", it's still an  amazing song 

[LovingIsACherryPie 6,527]

4 hours ago, Cruelty said:

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.

I'm honestly shooketh by E.V.O.L. being this low! 

[LovingIsACherryPie 6,527]

3 hours ago, Galvon said:

I'm glad to see that The State of Dreaming made it to the top 10

[LovingIsACherryPie 6,527]

3 hours ago, Cruelty said:

And now we have our top 5! Who do you think we're saying goodbye to next?

Power & Control ig 

[VTV 10,793]

aw I missed the ceremony 

to Admin:
 

jk 

 

Well deserved ranking. GGD's taste is impeccable wbk

Thank u @Cruelty 

[berlinforme 4,996]

4 hours ago, LovingIsACherryPie said:

I'm honestly shooketh by E.V.O.L. being this low! 

I'm honestly shooketh that Admin took the time to rate an album he obviously hates 

Thanks for the great Megarate and amazing texts! @Cruelty

[Galvon 1,857]

15 hours ago, huttont said:

Why???? It’s my favorite off the album. So thematic and dramatic. 

I'm just never in the mood Ig

[LovingIsACherryPie 6,527]

23 hours ago, holy scheisse said:

Ooop the best song on the album lost to the TikTok song and the Katy perry knockoff song 

 

I REFUSE to acknowledge Bubblegum Bitch as just "the TikTok song" 

 "Katy Perry knockoff song" nnnn 

[LovingIsACherryPie 6,527]

22 hours ago, Cruelty said:

Last of all, I just need to say THANK YOU to everybody who took part in this rate! Thanks to our 25 voters and anyone else who followed along with the ceremony. This was only my second ever rate, so thanks so much for not letting it completely flop; I hope you had fun rating one of the shining gems of 2010s electropop, and that you enjoyed my subpar design skills and long-winded writeups!

I know my elimination posts are very wordy, but they come from a place of genuine love for the music. It's fun sharing thoughts about these songs, hopefully educating you, and maybe even changing your mind about some of the material. 'Primadonna' might be a predictable winner, but in my writeup I've tried to justify why it truly is a fantastic pop song. 'Hypocrates' is a deeply unpopular song, but I've tried to contextualise it within Electra's journey, and hopefully that might give you a new perspective on it, because I truly think it's one of the most beautiful pieces of music ever composed. Those posts will always be here if you ever want to read them again 

Electra Heart is lots of things, but it’s partly a celebration of the power of pop music, and getting to hear your thoughts about the album (@Poltergeist's prom story!!) means so much, because it just goes to prove that pop music truly is the soundtrack to our lives, and the best genre in the world. And if this rate was your introduction to Electra Heart, welcome on board, and I’m glad that Electra continues to make her mark.

Thank you for your amazing comments, your… interesting scores, and your fantastic companionship!

Goodbye, my friend
Goodbye
—MARINA, 'GOODBYE' (2021)

 THank you so much for doing this!! I loved hearing other people's opinions about EH and I absolutely ADORE your wordy reflections about each track, like, sis, you're so smart! You are capable of giving the songs a whole new meaning!  Thank you so much for doing this megarate, and to everyone for participating!

Yeah, my comments are very simple, but that's because my dumb ass decided to listen and vote at 3 a.m. 

Shout out to @Lady Gaga 2009, queen, I luv you!  I'm glad you enjoyed the album! 

 

[holy scheisse 20,326]

15 minutes ago, LovingIsACherryPie said:

I REFUSE to acknowledge Bubblegum Bitch as just "the TikTok song" 

 "Katy Perry knockoff song" nnnn 

I know bubblegum b is and always has been that girl I was just being shady haha

 

the teenage dream b side song tho  I maintain

[Galvon 1,857]

33 minutes ago, holy scheisse said:

the teenage dream b side song tho  I maintain

I still don't know which song you mean