Marina and the Diamonds interview: ‘Other artists dumb their fan bases down’
By Ben Kelly
Marina Diamandis, aka Marina and the Diamonds, has quietly established herself as one of Britain’s most unique musical exports following the release of her third top ten album, FROOT, earlier this year. We chat to the 29-year-old Welsh beauty in our brand new issue – for our ‘Big Gay Following’ pages, no less. Here’s a taste of the sweet, FROOTy interview…
In terms of the music, is it fair to say FROOT is a bit less pop than your last album, Electra Heart?
Yeah, I think with Electra Heart I really wanted it to sound like a contemporary pop album. With this one I’m just really thirsty for a natural, human sounding record, so that’s why I got a live drummer in and started to have live guitars on it. It still has a little bit of electronic production included but way less than I’d had on the previous album.
You were one of the few artists who spoke quite critically of Tidal on Twitter, after the big launch. Are you surprised it flopped?
No. Even though I don’t want anything to go badly, especially with that because I know initially they probably thought that what they were doing was a really good idea, but it just ended up being something different. I’m kind of relieved that it hasn’t worked because it shows that people are intelligent and won’t just buy into something because of celebrity.
Do you think that something like that might have a bit more leg if it was a bit more collective, lots more artists, smaller artists?
Definitely. If it was sold to people as a co-operative and you had all types of artists in there, so you had for example Everything Everything, Bat for Lashes, as well as Madonna and Rihanna, you know, a huge mix of bands big and small, you’d then get the support of every music fan because they’d be like ‘I’m doing this because I support artistry and music – whereas it was just sold as something completely different and unrelatable, and at a premium cost. So, yeah, I wasn’t really surprised but it’s a shame because it could be something really good. I suppose the opportunity is still out there.
Now you do have quite a big gay following, but you said recently to the Huffington Post that it’s not something you play up to, or contrive. Why do you feel you’ve assumed an LGBT fan base nonetheless?
I don’t know, I’m not sure. I think I definitely noticed an increase with Electra Heart, and I don’t know whether it was because I was doing an album that was really theatrical, really pop, really colourful and visual that people respond to that or if it’s something more to do with the lyrical side which has in the past focused a lot on identity and feeling discriminated in some way, so perhaps that’s something that gay and lesbian people can relate to. I’m not really sure. What do you think?
It was Electra Heart that brought you to my attention, and I think it was a combination of the imagery, the lyrics, but also Primadonna was just a real banger that grabbed everyone’s attention. It’s quite an American thing, isn’t it, to ham up the whole ‘I love my gays’ thing?
Yeah, it’s kind of interesting that the quote got picked up on because I didn’t mean it in a bad way at all, it’s more just being truthful. I just feel like a lot of people kind of dumb their fan bases down and we don’t really need to be dumbed down. Sometimes when you see how people cultivate their gay fan base and kind of give them extra attention and have to almost massage them, I just think there’s no point in that, because all your fans are the same. Of course, if I’m speaking truthfully, I love having a gay fan base because – quite frankly – it makes the shows really fun, really expressive and for some reason our personalities go together very well, but I always find it weird to separate a gay fan base from a straight fan base. We’re all the same at the end of the day.
Marina’s new album FROOT is out now.
You can read all the full interview with Marina plus more in the new June issue of Attitude, which is available to download to your mobile, iPad or tablet device now at Pocketmags.com/Attitude.
The issue is in shops now and you can also have it delivered directly to your door at newsstand.co.uk.
