Marina and the Diamonds: Still Obsessed With the Mess That’s America

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She’s better known by the name Marina and the Diamonds even though she’s a solo artist, not the front-woman of a band like Florence and the Machine. If you’re British, you know her already. If you’re American (or any other nationality) then it’s less likely (unless you listen to a lot of British radio). Anyway, although I’m not a huge music person (I have a very eclectic taste, I know what I like, but I’m mostly clueless), I want to spend some time talking about her.

A bit of background on the assumption you’re unfamiliar with Marina. She’s half-Welsh, half-Greek. She grew up in a small village about an hour’s drive from where I grew up. If you want to know more than that, check out what Wikipedia says about her.

Right now, Marina is my favorite musical artist. The fact that she’s stunningly beautiful doesn’t hurt, of course. Nor does that fact that her voice is equally beautiful. Unlike most young singers, however, Marina has some real depth about her. She writes or co-writes all her own songs, and genuinely seems to be the driving force in terms of the direction her career is going and in full command of the “style” of her brand. Check out her Tumblr and some music videos to get an idea of what I mean.

Another thing Marina and I apparently have in common is an obsession with America. As a teen, I was far more interested in US-produced TV shows and movies than British ones. When I got older, I traveled to the US solo. As it happened, I fell in love with a beautiful American girl and ended up settling down over here. But enough about me. Marina’s music is obsessed with the dichotomy of the American dream as both something to strive for and something to be repulsed by. Why repulsed? It’s because of the prevalence of fake, tacky and ultimately plastic commodities which have for so long been routinely accepted as central to the concept that we all believe are now inseparable from it. (Of course, that’s not actually the case). To quote some of the lyrics from her breakout hit Hollywood:

“Your mind is just like mine; all filled up with things benign. […] I’m obsessed with the mess that’s America.”

To me, Marina is like the musical equivalent of a David Lynch film. Blue Velvet and Wild At Heart in particular come to mind, as she seems equally fascinated with the conflict between fantasy and horror which co-exist in that idyllic perception of what the American Dream is supposed to represent, as well as the seediness which exists just beneath the surface. (A good example of this is Britney Spear’s …Baby One More Time video, which was much-loved by both tween girls and middle-aged men alike). I’d pretty much give my right arm to see a Marina/Lynch collaboration which examined the life and legacy of Marilyn Monroe.

Thankfully, Marina’s newest album, Electra Heart, (which was released in the UK last Monday) puts this obsession with America front and center even more so than in her mainstream debut The Family Jewels. You get that impression just from scanning through the track titles which include Bubblegum Bitch, Homewrecker, Primadonna, Starring Role, and The State of Dreaming. This time around her focus is not just on Lala-Land, but also middle America too. She almost seems to be hinting at the question “What is real America?” while simultaneously suggesting that none of it is really real.

But enough of me waffling on… Check out these two videos where Marina briefly discusses the inspiration for each of the songs:

Oh, and for those of you left wondering who I’d pick as the fifth person I’d invite to my imaginary dinner party mentioned yesterday – I’ve made a decision… John Lasseter.

Ground rules if you want to call them that…

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As someone who makes a living in the SEO industry, you might think it’s nonsensical for me to create a blog which does not abide by that golden law of the interwebs that a site must be specific to the point of niche. My answer to that faux pas, my new-found friend, is the point of this site is not necessarily to rank highly on Google or any other search engine for that matter. No, I get enough of that in my day job. This is play time. If I get lots of hits, then great. I’ll do a little celebratory dance. But that’s not the point of this blog.

So what is the point? I’m hoping that this will become a venue for me to share my thoughts (at length whenever possible, in brief when not) and to also share some of the cool stuff done by other people that I have stumbled across on my travels.

Because I too need structured and fucking discipline (yes, that was an American Beauty reference), I’m starting out with a sort-of vision in mind for how this site will actually function and a promise to myself that I will try to post something – anything – on a daily basis for the next 30 days. Gulp. Structurally-wise, contrary to Fox Mulder’s musings, I think that everything here should be programmed, categorized and easily referenced. After some deliberation, I have decided that all posts on this board will be classified in one of the following topics: Entrepreneurship, Creativity, or Pleasures.

Entrepreneurship is something I have become increasingly interested in over the past nine (?) or so months. Without revealing too much publicly right now, let’s just say a big part of that is down to Tim Ferriss’ book 4 Hour Workweek. Previous to that is the fact that I have worked a side-gig as a freelance writer for a number of years, writing mostly about the lives of small business owners. This category will probably include links to a lot of things related to this subject that I find interesting as well as occasionally my own ideas to an extent.

Creativity in my little corner of the internet is going to refer to anything created by yours truly. Over the years I have dabbled in screenwriting, prose, drawing, painting and photography. Mostly, these hobbies are something which I’ve neglected. My interest in screenwriting (and writing in general) is something I’d been most involved with until recently, but over the past year that’s more or less dropped off my radar entirely as well. I really want to get better at doing more creative stuff. Expect the odd (and random) short story in here starting off – hopefully the content (and medium) will increase over time.

Pleasures is probably the category I’ve had the most difficult time thinking of a clever name for. This is where I anticipate talking about things which I am interested in; stuff like books written by other people, films, comic books, a song I just learned existed but the rest of the world has known about forever, etc. I guess I’m leaving the door open for pretty much anything to go in there that’s doesn’t belong in either of the other categories, so you’re welcome to think of it as a virtual sort of Pandora’s box – but in a good way.

Although it might be difficult to avoid doing so in the Entrepreneurial topics, I am going to try to stay away from “political” issues as much as possible. As a liberal Welshman residing in Texas, I’ve found that’s generally the best tactic. That’s not to say the subject is completely off the table as politics by its very nature is something which affects everything. My solution is to avoid Politics with a capital P entirely, allowing me to focus more on viewing the world from more of a moral or ideological stance. I’m sure that’ll become apparent as we go along.

Anyway, thank you for taking the time to read this message. Hopefully you found it several months after it was written, buried beneath a great many other posts… Fingers crossed! Comments are always welcome, yada yada yada… Seriously though, I hope you enjoy consuming whatever it is you find here.

As a sign off on this historic first post I think I’ll answer a question which has been knocking around in my skull for a while for who knows what reason: If you could have a dinner party with five famous people from history, who would you choose and why? Obviously, this is a question to which the answer would be different whenever you asked it. My reason for answering is to give you a time capsule view into my mind at this particular moment in time, knowing my current influences, interests and so forth. So here we go: Richard Branson, Ernest Hemingway, Marina Diamandis, and James Cameron. Not sure who’d be fifth right now…