CEREMONY | The Heart Rate: 10 Years of Electra Heart

[Cruelty 5,887]

‘I’d love to introduce you all to something soon. An ancient Greek tragedy, old Hollywood fantasy… “Electra Heart”.’
—MARINA DIAMANDIS, 2011

Welcome to The Heart Rate: 10 Years of Electra Heart ceremony!

For the followup to her Gold-certified debut The Family Jewels, Marina Diamandis took a left turn out of indie-pop and headed straight for the dancefloor. The result was 2012’s Electra Heart, a package of taut electropop numbers co-written with industry-leading producers including Rick Nowels, Greg Kurstin, Stargate and Diplo.

Electra Heart represents the collision of Greek tragedy, British humour, and the American Dream. It’s a story about bad romance. About how we understand ourselves and how we interact with others. About what this mess of a world is doing to us all. Its lyrics explore the sinister sides of love; its Valley of the Dolls-inspired imagery saw Casper Balslev photographing Marina as the Housewife, the Beauty Queen, the Homewrecker, and the Idle Teen. Its iconic eyeliner-heart motif and barrage of music videos—which charted the birth, adventures and death of the starring role herself—have cemented the album’s status as a modern pop classic.

Taking inspiration from Madonna, Marilyn, Britney and Depeche Mode, the songs sidestep into eurodance (‘Radioactive’), EDM (‘Primadonna’) and pop-punk (‘Bubblegum Bitch’), all the while discussing rejection, regret, identity, and above all the sheer force that love commands over us all. Sometimes sinister, sometimes euphoric, but always bold, Electra Heart stands as the jewel in the crown of one of our generation’s most unique alt-pop idols.

‘It was like a Britney Spears album had been made by Shakespeare.’
—OFFICIAL CHARTS COMPANY, 2022

We’ll be counting down the 19 songs of the 10th anniversary Platinum Blonde Edition of Electra Heart. There’s a tie somewhere in the middle, so in that case the song with the fewest 11s will be eliminated first; apart from that it’s smooth sailing. Along the way, I’ll be sharing the (excellent) comments you submitted, and providing some information on these songs’ backstories, as well as some of my own thoughts on the tracks.

The ceremony begins in about an hour — 2PM PT / 5PM EST / 10PM BST. Once we get started, I *think* it’ll take us just over 90 minutes to get through it all, but I also said this ceremony would be taking place in May, so you should know that I Am Not To Be Trusted. While you’re waiting for me to get my act together, why not refresh your memory of the songs we’ve been listening to?

So. Fetch your tackiest blonde wig, paint a heart on your cheek, and I’ll see you in an hour…

Spoiler

@whoresup @CatelynnMarie @HeavyMetal Halcyon @itsmebuddy @Born This Way @Grigio Guy @GaGaLB @Galvon @Butters Stotch @VTV @Stephen @juicyjuicy @Poltergeist @ARTPOPe @RAMROD @Admin @holy scheisse @Zed @Torsoface @Benji @DrKindnessKunt1999 @huttont @Chesescake @Lady Gaga 2009 @LovingIsACherryPie

 

[Poltergeist 2,991]

Not sure if I'll make it to the end, but I'll try to 

[ARTPOPe 9,990]

Gonna bet Primadonna wins, just like basically all the other times Electra Heart has been rated 

Also gonna bet Hypocrates leaves first 

[Cruelty 5,887]

INTERVIEWER: Does Electra Heart have a happy love life?
MARINA: No. It’s… tragic!

You know what, let’s go for it.

[Cruelty 5,887]

“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

[Poltergeist 2,991]

25 minutes ago, ARTPOPe said:

Also gonna bet Hypocrates leaves first 

Yes! It's grown on me a lot, but still, there has to be one worst song on the album... And that's it. Not a shame on an album like that 

[Cruelty 5,887]

18 BUY THE STARS — average 7.27

Highest: 11 x 1 (@Butters Stotch); 10 x 5 (@Grigio Guy @VTV @Poltergeist @ARTPOPe @Lady Gaga 2009)
Lowest: 2 (@Stephen, Admin)

So it’s about… capitalism? Unattainable perfection? Lovers who don’t understand one another? I’m not too sure which, and Marina’s reticent to tell us. For my money, Electra Heart’s deluxe closer is sort of a poor man’s Tori Amos song (albeit with a GORGEOUS middle 8), and it’s basically Ms Diamandis’ seventh or eighth go at writing ‘Numb’, so it’s not really my thing, but I know lots of people adore this one. And good for them! But it seems that, when it comes to Electra Heart, the girlies of GGD are in it for the bops — and who can blame us?

 

Comments

@Poltergeist Pure beauty, the lyrics, her voice, the melody. Love it!

@holy scheisse Meh

[holy scheisse 21,218]

Poor hippo cretes 

[holy scheisse 21,218]

Love all my “meh” featured comments  my taste all the mehs leaving first

[Cruelty 5,887]

“[Electra Heart is] a concept and a metaphor for being heartbroken.”

17 LONELY HEARTS CLUB — average 7.31

Highest: 11 x 1 (@whoresup); 10 x 8 (@CatelynnMarie @Grigio Guy @VTV @RAMROD @holy scheisse @Torsoface @DrKindnessKunt1999 @Lady Gaga 2009)
Lowest: 1 (@Stephen, Admin)

I’ve never warmed to this song in the way that others have, but it’s generally well-loved so I was surprised to see it taking residence in the lower reaches of the chart (it started off in the top 5, but then free-fell its way into 17th position, and is statistically the most divisive song in this rate!) As ever, @Poltergeist shares my opinion on this song—‘Fits the album’s theme really well but I’ve never been a big fan of this one’. It’s certainly a mission statement for the album, and yet its relegation to the deluxe suggests Marina’s awareness that the twee power pop of ‘Lonely Hearts Club’ isn’t quite on a par with the other tracks. Still, she’s cute enough — simpering, sucking EDM synths above a lively backbeat — and Marina even named the Electra Heart tour after this song, so that’s gotta count for something.

 

Comments

@VTV This song should have been a single

@holy scheisse So underrated. Shoulda been a standard track. Unstreamable in the US for the past like decade until recently lol definitely one of the best

[Poltergeist 2,991]

1 minute ago, holy scheisse said:

Love all my “meh” featured comments  my taste all the mehs leaving first

If we're the only ones commenting, there's going to be such a big difference between our comments, I remember being drunk while rating 

[holy scheisse 21,218]

Just now, Cruelty said:

“[Electra Heart is] a concept and a metaphor for being heartbroken.”

17 LONELY HEARTS CLUB — average 7.31

Highest: 11 x 1 (@whoresup); 10 x 8 (@CatelynnMarie @Grigio Guy @VTV @RAMROD @holy scheisse @Torsoface @DrKindnessKunt1999 @Lady Gaga 2009)
Lowest: 1 (@Stephen, Admin)

I’ve never warmed to this song in the way that others have, but it’s generally well-loved so I was surprised to see it taking residence in the lower reaches of the chart (it started off in the top 5, but then free-fell its way into 17th position, and is statistically the most divisive song in this rate!) As ever, @Poltergeist shares my opinion on this song—‘Fits the album’s theme really well but I’ve never been a big fan of this one’. It’s certainly a mission statement for the album, and yet its relegation to the deluxe suggests Marina’s awareness that the twee power pop of ‘Lonely Hearts Club’ isn’t quite on a par with the other tracks. Still, she’s cute enough — simpering, sucking EDM synths above a lively backbeat — and Marina even named the Electra Heart tour after this song, so that’s gotta count for something.

 

Comments

@VTV This song should have been a single

@holy scheisse So underrated. Shoulda been a standard track. Unstreamable in the US for the past like decade until recently lol definitely one of the best

Wait this is literall blasphemy I’m disturbed /perturbed 

[Cruelty 5,887]

Just now, Poltergeist said:

If we're the only ones commenting, there's going to be such a big difference between our comments, I remember being drunk while rating 

I was drunk while writing the elimination posts! Don't worry, your comments are always brilliant and your taste in Electra Heart is impeccable 

[Poltergeist 2,991]

Just now, Cruelty said:

I was drunk while writing the elimination posts! Don't worry, your comments are always brilliant and your taste in Electra Heart is impeccable 

It's really enjoyable to read your comments after each song, good work so far, and I'm sure till the end! 

[Cruelty 5,887]

“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.”

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