Album of the Month: Marina’s Love + Fear

It has been four years since Marina and The Diamonds had last released her album Froot and now finally she has returned after her long hiatus. No longer does she go by ‘Marina and the Diamonds’ but instead she has decided to go simply by Marina. She has reinvented herself.

It is no secret that Marina had almost completely left the music industry altogether after her Neon Nature Tour. Due to suffering from the grief of loss in her family, she became so distressed by her image in the music industry. She stated said in an interview with the BBC: “I had such a fractured sense of who I was because so much of my identity was attached to music. If I didn’t want to do that anymore, then what can I contribute to the world? What am I good at? What’s my purpose? What makes me feel happy?”

She had fallen out of love with music and it had left her with a void that she took time to heal in order to fill. Thankfully, she did not give up on her love for music. Alongside attending therapy and rediscovering herself, she has released Love + Fear. As she has found an equilibrium in her life that combines both love and fear, her album can be seen as a representation of her human nature. She suggests all positive emotions come from love and all negative emotions come from fear and so it is only human to experience both.

The tracks on the album are split into two discs to insinuate the divide between the emotions of love and fear. The first CD was released prior to the complete album and is the embodiment of love which begins with her euphoric song ‘Handmade Heaven’. Blissful sounds that lace the entirety of the track sets the mood for the love side of the tracklist. As she sings about the creation of heaven by humans, she explores how ecstasy can be achieved if one sets their mind to it. Her evolution of self is present arguably the most within this album due to how personal it is.

She learns to rediscover her love for herself and the world around her

The tracks on this side of the album, ‘Superstar’, ‘Orange Tree’ and others, truly highlight her development and her journey. They carry the same message of growth and love that transcends during ‘Handmade Heaven’, being authentically Marina.

‘Superstar’ can be viewed as a monologue from her own perspective. Despite singing in the second person, she acknowledges her subject’s hard work and the results of it in the form of her success. ‘Orange Trees’ is a representation of her heritage and therefore what authentically makes her who she is. Her Greek heritage is highlighted as she reminisces the orange trees and serenity she finds in her homeland. ‘Enjoy Your Life’, ‘True’, ‘To Be Human’ and ‘End of the Earth’ arguably signify the ‘love’ aspect of her album the most. She explains her ability to have found love within herself regardless of what life has thrown at her.

In an interview with Genius, Marina had stated “Track 7 is ‘To Be Human’ and it’s probably the most important song on this record for me because […] thematically it sums up the headspace that I’ve come from in the past 3 years. I think the subject matter is really important, it talks about unity.” From this, we can see that Marina’s distortion from herself was also paired with a dislike of the fragmentation of society. She is able to convey this through her musical growth as she learns to rediscover her love for herself and the world around her.

Switching to the ‘fear’ aspect of Marina’s album, it becomes evident that the anxieties that follow love and it’s various forms are voiced here. She aims to overcome them in these songs but acknowledges that it is human nature to feel both. She begins with the track ‘Believe in Love’ and follows with ‘Life is Strange’, ‘You’ and ‘Karma’.

She shares her pain and trials with her fans whilst showing us who she has now become 

These tracks discuss the fluctuation of romantic love through the inability to truly believe in love due to fear; the isolation of being shut out; the change in direction in life. A path of realisation can be seen as these tracks follow after each other and so refers back to the idea that all negative emotions stem from fear. Marina states that fear of love and being left behind had also led to the love she found in herself.

The remainder of the tracks on the ‘fear’ side of the album focuses more on herself. Here she acknowledges how she lost herself to her fears at one point through the songs ‘Emotional Machine’, ‘Too Afraid’, ‘No More Suckers’ and ‘Soft To Be Strong’. ‘Emotional Machine’ expresses the duality of herself feeling so much and yet so little. Her inability to express these feelings to others and greater fears are explored within ‘Too Afraid’ and ‘No More Suckers’.

‘Soft To Be Strong’ is the last track on her album. Arguably this song depicts the conclusion she has reached throughout her emotional journey as she says “I’ve found out love has to be soft to be strong”. She has understood that pain and fear is a part of human nature and without it. She suggests we cannot fully enjoy love or know what it is until we know what it is not.

It is evident that the journey Marina has taken her listeners through is very personal. She shares her pain and trials with her fans whilst showing us who she has now become. No longer is she the pained young girl singing in Electra Heart. She is a new woman who has found herself through both love and fear. Marina teaches listeners all that it is only human nature to feel so many different things. We wish her the best of luck and success in this new chapter in her life as she has taught us to stay fundamental to who we are.