Marina and the Diamonds

Okay, I’ll be the first to admit it, I am a true believer when it comes to Marina and the Diamonds. She is a real talent, a rare thing for today’s pop queens (lady Gaga, and Katy Perry excluded, and Beyonce if you consider her Pop in the vein of the aforementioned) Now I’m not saying that Marina is on the stature of these new pop giants but she should be in my opinion just based on her debut the “Family Jewels”. I always wondered why Marina never got any air time on the radio in the States, hell I was even surprised to see here do a show at the famous Stone Pony in Asbury Park, New Jersey (A show that I wanted to go to, but didn’t want to go solo), but now that question is asked even more seeing that her new album Electra Heart, Marina is more pop/radio friendly than ever.

Electra Heart, according to Marina is supposed to be a concept album, starring her as the title character Electra Heart, a trashy American pop star, in which the album chronicles her rise and fall. Well I have to say if this is truly a concept album, the concept is lost. Some of the songs show off this character, portraying her as a selfish, self-centered bitch, who doesn’t believe in love, while others are just your run of the mill modern day pop songs. I'm not saying that these are bad songs, because they’re not, but they don’t fit into the concept of the concept album that Marina thinks she has put out. See the thing about concept albums, is that the songs have to be consistent to the theme.

Musically, this album is pretty good. This is a departure from her piano based Family Jewels debut album. This is strictly a pop album, and not a bad one I must say.  Some of the standouts on Electra Heart are “Primadonna”( The song that best displays the Electra heart character) ,” Living Dead”,” Valley of the Dolls”, “Starring Role”, and “Fear and Loathing”.  Inexplicably another good song, the promo single “Radioactive”, which was the world’s first taste of Electra Heart was left off the album. I wonder who makes these dumb decisions?

For a young artist so obsessed with American culture, negative and positive, hopefully Marina finds what she is looking for which is acceptance from the American mainstream.  Hopefully on her journey to gain this acceptance she integrates elements of her debut with her new mainstream pop sound. If she does that she can really be something special. Give this one a chance and you might enjoy it.

Zowie

I first encountered New Zealand’s  Zowie in 2011 with her  song  “Bite Back”. I thought it was a very cool song,  and I wanted to hear more from Zowie, and I did as she dropped more songs  sporadically over the year of 2011. The songs were good, but there was just one problem, there was no album ready to be released. For someone who was causing such a stir online, setting fire to many popular music blogs, there was no set release date for an album, as the truth was it was still being created. It turns out that from 2010 with her debut song “Broken Machine” to early 2012 she had yet to put out an album. Well now things have changed and the album is out, but can she still carry over her initial buzz over to a much delayed full length album?

Love Demolition (also a song) is a pure Pop firecracker.  While Zowie herself may sound silly at times with the her Katie White of the Ting Tings style of delivering vocals, while occasionally going over the top, delving seemingly head first into nonsense,  the songs are very catchy and after you move past the silliness , they grow on you.  If you’re looking for serious inflection, or depth in lyrics from Zowie on this album don’t bother trying to find it. The girl is good at one thing, making fun Pop songs, and that should not be frowned upon. The Standouts on this album is “Love Demolition”, “Smash It,”  “Anodyne” and “Idiotize”, among others.  Overall the album is good party music, the only negative about this album is that songs like “Bite Back”, and “Love and Hate”, originally used to generate interest in Zowie and the Love Demolition album  are absent the final cut. Those songs along with “Broken Machine” could have been used to replace a few “fillers” and make this a more solid album as there are songs on this album that just seem to be included just to fill space.  Pick this one up and judge for yourself.

Chairlift

Chairlift first came to our collective consciousness   with one of the first commercials for Apple’s I-pod Nano 2008 with their song “Bruises” off of their debut album “Do You Inspire You”. Not only did the marketing campaign work for the Apple product, but it worked for the band Chairlift, or at least it worked on me as I listened to their album just based on the song featured in the commercial. While I enjoyed some songs off of “Do You Inspire You” I found it kinda boring. Now they have returned with their new album “Something”, and I must say that Chairlift have put out one of the best albums of 2012.

There is something about “Something”. Believe me when I tell you this one of those albums that you can put on and everything, every song just flows together perfectly. Maybe I have to revisit “ Do You Inspire You” but to me it seems like Chairlift ( who is now a duo)  just reached their full potential.  

Okay here it is, while this album as a whole is great there are some songs that I have selected as standouts. “ Amanaemonesia", “Sidewalk Safari”, “Met Before”, “Ghost Tonight”, and “Cool as Fire “ are all great songs. Honestly there are plenty of songs off this album that I could’ve chosen as standout songs. I strongly suggest that you check this one out, ASAP!