While many are quick to deem Lana Del Rey’s debut (we don’t acknowledge Lana Del Ray a.k.a. Lizzy Grant), Born to Die, as the “true” album of the millennial generation, and harbinger of “things to come,” those in the know are already aware that it’s actually Marina and the Diamonds’ sophomore record—also released in the apocalyptic year of 2012—that genuinely fits this bill. Indeed, Electra Heart wasn’t just a “moment” or a “concept”—it was an entire cultural shift that, to this day, remains one of the most brilliant artistic pieces ever unleashed onto pop music.
While Born to Die is obvious in its malaise and grudging ode to female subservience, Marina takes a far more ironical approach to conveying the decay of society and the ennui of a generation. She didn’t bother to say, “Money is the anthem/Of success/Everybody knows it/It’s a fact/Kiss, kiss,” but rather, got straight to the heart of millennial misery with, “And I’m sad to the core, core, core/Every day is a chore, chore, chore/When you give, I want more, more, more/I wanna be adored.” That constant craving for adoration being a direct result of newly-created internet realms that could theoretically fill some kind of void through a previously untapped attention-seeking method.
And yes, Marina, too, wields tropes and visuals of a decidedly 60s/70s-inspired era to get this across. After all, millennials have been more influenced by boomer culture than they could ever know. But Marina chose to incorporate the influence of a fresh phenomenon into the persona of Electra Heart: the “mini-stars of the internet.” At the time, said “mini-stars” were beginning to gain traction on a since-abandoned platform called Tumblr (know her? Remember her?). It was being incited by the so-called “Tumblr generation” that compelled Marina to take pictures of herself in different guises and scenarios as she traveled across the U.S. All perhaps to prove the point that the formerly anonymous members of society (read: the hoi polloi) were gaining more clout in an internet-based world where one could truly be whoever and whatever they wanted to be. So long as they had the adroit curation skills.
Marina proved with her own Tumblr “marketing” of the Electra Heart persona that such was the case. In “The Archetypes,” she speaks in the kind of voice one imagines would come out of a more trollish Twin Peaks character, noting at one point, “Through others, we become ourselves.” Well goddamn, if that ain’t the millennial philosophy in a nutshell. Hence, all of these archetypes she’s serving up—from housewife to homewrecker to idle teen. In short, what Del Rey does on Born to Die, but without bothering to package it as a persona (for, according to her, she never had or “needed” one). What’s more Del Rey was also fond of the “Tumblr aesthetic” (a vague upgrade to the MySpace one) that nobody knew would be treated as one until the years passed. Indeed, there are many photos of Marina as Electra that mirror a “Lizzy Grant transcending into Lana Del Rey” look.
Marina has kept the Tumblr photos up for posterity, under the umbrella of electraheart.tumblr.com. And what you’ll find there remains nothing short of genius, perhaps still gone underlooked because it was presented through the lens of pop music, forever doomed to be seen as a “frivolous” way to convey a message of any depth. But a scroll through the images and their captions—including ones like, “I’d rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy”—and anyone can see that blood, sweat, tears and carefully considered thought went into all of this. Not least of which was deliberately embodying the “cold” female image that men automatically pigeonhole any woman as when they’re even slightly ambitious.
Initially conceived as a side project, Marina found that she was churning out quite a prolific number of songs with this character as her inspiration, commenting, “Electra Heart is the antithesis of everything that I stand for. And the point of introducing her and building a whole concept around her is that she stands for the corrupt side of American ideology, and basically that’s the corruption of yourself. My worst fear—that’s anyone’s worst fear—is losing myself and becoming a vacuous person. And that happens a lot when you’re very ambitious.” This very fear was also sardonically addressed on “Hollywood” from Marina’s debut, The Family Jewels, during which she sings, “Hollywood infected your brain/You wanted kissing in the rain, oh oh/I’ve been living in a movie scene/Puking American dreams.” That “puke,” ultimately, all came out in full force on Electra Heart. A sendup of excess, vacuity and narcissism as spurred by the very accoutrements of growing up millennial.
Despite being largely balked at by critics at the time, the legacy of the record is clear even to this day. Manifest in someone like Charli XCX with Crash (for whom and for which Marina clearly paved the way). For there is also a tongue-in-cheek intent behind this highly specific concept album. Concept albums always being a riskier approach to making music (hear/see: Garth Brooks in…the Life of Chris Gaines), the label will rarely support it. But in both Marina and Charli’s cases, each artist, incidentally, being signed to Atlantic Records, the intent was to put a spotlight on the absurdity of fame and the notion of “selling out.” Which is why one of the assessments Marina gave in remarking upon the mixed reactions to the album back in 2012 included, “When I first changed [musical direction] people said, ‘She’s sold out’ and they totally didn’t get the humour. It’s a tongue-in-cheek record but it also deals with the truth about love and commercialism and just being a young person, really.” It’s something one could imagine Charli saying right here, right now as she continues to promote Crash and parody the bravado of her pop star “persona.” And it is with that word in quotes that we must ask, as every pop star has to sooner or later: where does the persona end and the real person begin?
In Marina’s “The Archetypes” promo, she also foretells what Olivia Rodrigo (and Billie Eilish, for that matter) would make her own career out of in maligning youth (e.g. the “brutal” lyrics, “I’m so sick of seventeen/Where’s my fucking teenage dream?/If someone tells me one more time, ‘Enjoy your youth,’/I’m gonna cry”). For it is hardly all “car rides to Malibu” and “strawberry ice cream.” With Marina herself sarcastically demanding, “Ain’t youth meant to be beautiful?” This, in fact, speaking to the idea of how so many millennials of the newly-founded social media era felt the pressure to give off the false impression of constantly having a “good time.” Of course, the teenage years (and into the twenties) are arguably one of the most unpleasant and most confusing times in a person’s life.
However, it does allow plenty of freedom to try on an array of different identities on in order to see what “sticks.” In Electra Heart’s world, however, she prides herself on perpetually being the “queen of no identity.” Adding, “I can be anyone, a study in identity and illusion. An ode to Cindy.” This, naturellement, refers to Cindy Sherman, who also recently got mentioned in a context about identity being well-crafted (or not) artifice in Inventing Anna. To this end, there is an especial obsession among millennials to cultivate an identity that suits their “brand.” Everyone having turned delusional enough to treat themselves as their own mini corporation in the wake of Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and T*kT*k.
Marina probably never meant to (or knew she could) be so “foreboding” on being able to predict that the millennial generation (and now, the one that follows it) would remain fixated on creating the “perfect” artificial persona. One that, beneath the veneer, is so clearly cracking at the edges. Nonetheless, she did. And that’s probably what makes this album so resonant ten years on.
