Despite the fact that MARINA is a firm believer in the Elisabeth Kubler-Ross philosophy theory that, “There are only two emotions: love and fear. From love flows happiness, contentment, peace, and joy. From fear comes anger, hate, anxiety and guilt,” it would seem that through her exploration of fear, she is able to construct more danceable pop melodies. Not to say that its companion, LOVE, isn’t filled with its share of “hits,” but none of them are quite as filled with the 80s electro feel that makes FEAR so danceable.
Perhaps on some level, it was her intent to make it so, for only in our ability to laugh and dance in the face of fear are we able to overcome it (or at least ignore it long enough to pretend we’re not feeling it). For MARINA, who very clearly recently fell in love based on the bulk of the content on both sides of the album, commences with the emphatic “Believe in Love,” immediately differentiating the tone of FEAR from LOVE. Her constant worry over whether or not the object of her affection “truly” loves her as he says he does, she realizes, is detracting from the experience itself, prompting her to assert, “Don’t wanna look back when I’m older on what didn’t happen/Let go of my thoughts, let ’em fly away, swear I’ll be better/Shouldn’t take fear so seriously.” For it is through taking fear so seriously that MARINA apprehends, “Losing you is what I’m afraid of/I need to believe, believe in love.” The person she’s finally willing to believe in love for, in case you’re wondering, is Jack Patterson from Clean Bandit (which explains all their collaborations together, including “Baby“).
While some might be fooled by generic titles like “You” and “Karma,” MARINA imbues each track with her own distinctive take on the human experience and how, ultimately, we all share the same fears and anxieties about being inadequate or not believing in our worth to be loved. This much is solidified on “Life Is Strange,” another 80s-inspired melody with a violin intro that Clean Bandit would surely approve of. Regardless of being a successful pop star with infinite resources at her disposal, even MARINA admits, “Don’t know what I’m doing with my life/But maybe there’s no wrong or right/’Cause everybody feels the same/And all we know is life is strange.” The constant pressure to “be something” or have something more even when we master the rare ability to love and be loved prompts MARINA to note that our collective dissatisfaction with the now causes us to “never make a moment last.”
One moment MARINA has seemed to make last is rumination on the toxicity of past relationships, as evidenced on “You,” a defiant track that assures, “You don’t know me like you think you do.” What’s more, she continues her exploration of how we all make assumptions about people based on the surface of what we see. Applicable on both this level and as it might pertain to her dynamic with an ex, “You” is surely the perfect theme song for the show of the same name. As a slower tempo song, MARINA’s vocals penetrate with especial force as she sings, “Everybody thinks that I’m the heart of every party, but it’s just the start/Deep down, I know that we’re just the same/Burning slowly through the dust and flames.”
This segues into the thematically connected “Karma,” a song that unmistakably must pertain to an ex, for few women can gather as much vitriol for anyone else, even someone as “pure” as MARINA. Set to a similar Latin-infused guitar riff as “Baby,” MARINA, with just a hint of sarcasm in her voice, comments upon someone constantly pushing the limits of their bad behavior as she croons, “It’s funny how it all goes down/Don’t be sorry when it comes around/I’m like, ‘Oh my god, I think it’s karma’/Ain’t it funny how it all adds up/When you’re always tryna push your luck?” As much as it could apply to any ex, the sentiment even goes for some of the collaborators she’s worked with in the past, namely on Electra Heart, and namely Dr. Luke. In short, it’s a dig at just about any of the men (particularly in entertainment) who have “suffered” the consequences of their behavior at long last.
The ironically titled “Emotional Machine” persists in grappling with a seemingly specific relationship that fucked MARINA up as she questions, “Did you ever truly love me?/Were you just too scared to be free?/My god is dying silently/Nobody believes, nobody believes.” That god being, of course, both love and the one she thought she did love for a brief period. The image she conjures of “a velvet glove around an iron fist” speaks to the ways in which, in order to cope with emotions by not coping with them throughout her life, she has hardened her exterior shell for the purposes of animal survival.
For someone who once said, “Love is all that I fear” (on “Radioactive” from Electra Heart), maybe a concept record of this nature was always inevitable as a means to overcome being afraid of the possibility of real love (you know, of the non-softboy variety that runs rampant on our streets). So naturally, on an album called FEAR, it’s only right that MARINA should offer a track called “Too Afraid.” Delineating her stagnation as a result of fear of change, MARINA seems to be speaking of what is called New York City Syndrome when she states, “I’ve been to every party, every bar/Nothing thrills me in this city anymore,” adding, “I hate this city, but I stay ’cause of you/Why, well, why can’t I change?/I wanna move on, but I’m just too afraid.” To intensify the reality of the phenomenon she’s very accurately portraying, there is no resolution by the end of the song, made all the more powerful for, in true Lily Allen fashion, being set against an upbeat rhythm despite its somewhat hopeless content.
The empowered “No More Suckers” (which sounds like the title of a Charli XCX song) is the most anthemic of FEAR, insisting she’s at the point in her life where she has to draw the line on who she lets into her life. Where once she was amenable to letting other people in, she suddenly seems to be aware of just how few quality people there are in this world, most of them perfectly happy to suck you dry if you let them, hence the leech (sucker, get it?) analogy, “You touch like a leech and I’m left with the bruising/Trying to find a fix, but you’re always using me/’Til I’m weak, ’til I need a transfusion/Why can’t you help yourself?” Maybe now said leech can with the none too subtle “hint” of this song.
Compiling all the knowledge she’s learned from the fundamentals of Elisabeth Kubler-Ross’ psychology manifesto, MARINA ends FEAR with “Soft To Be Strong,” a slow jam that posits, “I know that when love is lost It’s only fear in disguise.” Her revelatory and rejoicing apprehension of a lesson that has taken years to learn shines through in her admission, “I took my bitterness and made it sweet/I took a broken heart and made it beat/Somebody hurt me long ago/And though to heal a heart is slow/It’s just a consequence of pain/There is no use in laying blame.” A sort of anti-version of “Cruel To Be Kind,” “Soft To Be Strong” underscores the fact that, in the end, “only the weak ones are cruel” (which would explain much of the legislation in most governments operating throughout the world right now). And FEAR is anything but weak in terms of its triumphant songs of love’s ability to overcome fear. On the road to that discovery, there is no shame in exhibiting the fraught emotions that come with fear, for like Madonna said, “It takes more strength to cry, admit defeat.” In so doing, maybe you, too, can reinvent yourself and begin again, just as MARINA has without “the Diamonds.”
