marina and the diamonds electra heart

Electra Heart is the second album by Marina and the Diamonds.

The title of this album contains an allusion to the term “Electra Complex”, which is a stage of development where the young female “competes” with her mother for her father’s approval; if this complex is not dealt with correctly (such as having a missing father), the woman can grow up with the urge to dominate men, either being overly seductive (think of “How to Be a Heartbreaker”) or overly submissive (think “Teen Idle”.) This entire album deals with female sexuality and the unresolved Electra complex that Marina had when her father left (in reference to the album Mermaid vs. Sailor).

Marina told The Sun that Electra Heart is a collection that, “personifies love and what you go through when your heart gets broken.” She added that one of the inspirations for the album was a failed relationship:

I’m not the type of girl who writes songs like ‘Baby, I really love you, please come back’. I was more, ‘I hope you get screwed over by another girl!’
When you are hurt by someone, you go through stages of how you feel. At the beginning you feel really angry and you literally want to kill them. But being like that makes you undesirable and bitter. I felt unloved by someone. I was a walking broken heart and I was angry. That’s why some of the songs are really bitchy.
No one wants to look weak. I was upset but I’d moved on. This record is more of an anti- break-up record.

Asked to describe just what Electra Heart is and stands for, Marina told Popjustice:

Electra Heart is the antithesis of everything that I stand for. And the point of introducing her and building a whole concept around her is that she stands for the corrupt side of American ideology, and basically that’s the corruption of yourself. My worst fear – that’s anyone’s worst fear – is losing myself and becoming a vacuous person. And that happens a lot when you’re very ambitious.

The whole Electra Heart concept was inspired by Marina reading Aristotle’s book Poetics. She explained to NME:

It’s about analyzing Greek tragedy and I saw so many parallels between that and Hollywood that I realized old Hollywood is our modern-day mythology; people like Marilyn and Elvis.

Marina, who is of Greek origin, explained her Electra Heart name to NME:

It’s the perfect combination of Greek history and Hollywood pin-ups. ‘Electra’ has the same meaning as my middle name, Lambrini – the one who is full of light. And ‘Heart’ – it’s all about being very shut off from love, and being too proud to admit it.

She added:

I have changed my approach to songwriting completely, and as a result, written songs I would never have written on my own (i.e on my s–t Argos keyboard alone in my bedroom in London).