Marina And The Diamonds’ Starring Role

When Marina And The Diamonds (Marina Diamandis) came to the world of pop she was distinctively unique with the tone qualities in her voice. When she got signed over from Atlantic Records to Chop Shop Records there was a worry that her music would be thrashed to common pop.

However, her hidden gem is an acoustic of Starring Role (see link underneath) from the second album “Electra Heart”.  It is a song about games within a relationship; no matter how much a girl will love her man he will never love her back as long as he has other hearts to please – and she knew this from the beginning before their love began.

Lyrics from this particular song show the thoughts of a girl when she understands that things are falling in s relationship and the man will always want to be centre of attention where her love is not enough. The whole idea of the album is to portray the thoughts and opinions of different characters and personalities of girls. 

Taking tips from Katy Perry, after helping her with her California Dreams tour in 2011, with Marina’s change of hair colour from dark brunette to 20s blonde styling, a striking new image, the recent release is an unmistakable intense and emotional lullaby - extremely different from when Marina first made it big with her smash single Hollywood.

The studio version of the single was released on the 30th April to the public however the demo and acoustic can be played back online.

With new wave electro pop elements to give her music a chart topping chance, the album includes catchy dance tunes with appealing melodies to a wide market.  Primadonna is the newest release which you can dance to and is almost as good as Starring Role.  Both great to listen to; look at the links below to listen!
NEW Primadonna
Starring Role (Acoustic)
An interview from The Guardian with Marina from earlier this year can be found here

Nouvelle Vague celebrates their sixties song style with Dancing with Myself.

Taking Generation X’s 1981 hit Dancing With Myself and incorporating it into a sassy, sixties ‘new wave’ soundtrack, French band Nouvelle Vague have created something marvellously different to the generation of music.

While the lead singer holds their French infused melody with the simple, happy guitar riff remaining constant, in their video she cherry-picks that track from the jukebox and brings another ‘bossa nova’ with a smooth and slinky solo strut through a diner café.

All the men within the cafe, whether sitting in the booths chatting and having a meal or playing at the pool table while she is twirling, arms in the air, looking extremely pleased with herself, they barely acknowledge her. Their blank expressions of uncertainty with this female character portray that she is indeed, dancing with herself.

Comparing this to Billy Idol’s (Generation X) original, it is incredible to see the different takes on both the style and tone of the music and the actual ideas behind the music video.

Billy Idol’s zombie infested video, blasting the tune in an industrial basement of some sort is a complete contrast to Nouvelle Vague’s slowed down, higher octave version.  The girly prancing along a black and white checker floor is quite diverse from the rocky horror thriller show who all want a piece of Billy as this is not the case for the Nouvelle Vague’s girl as it seems that nobody wants to dance with her.

In another scene she lights up a cigarette looking a bit more than unimpressed at the fact that nobody is willing to dance with her no matter how much she hints and insinuates in front of the surrounding men. 

By the end she realises it is not going to happen.

This line sums up a lot about people in life:

“If I had the chance I’d ask the world to dance and I’d be dancing with myself”

Take note, dancing can be fun - have some fun!

Click to see Nouvelle Vague, Dancing with Myself:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5j-ipGFcko