Review Summary: No diamonds, but definitely a few treasures.
Marina isn’t the artist she used to be when she had The Diamonds, and we all need to just accept that. Her 2020s output has been equal parts camp, cringe and cunty, with a few hits and a few misses – but she’s no Katy Perry, let’s put some respect on her name.
Let’s look at the high highs on
Princess Of Power. The title-track is pure, euphoric hi-NRG disco, with a huge hook that puts Marina’s greatest asset front and centre, which is of course her always-angelic vocals (no it’s not her lyrics, oops). “Cuntissimo” single-handedly saved the album rollout after two shaky singles – Marina won back the girlies and gays with an Electra Heart-referencing balls to the wall synth beat, and endearingly ridiculous lyricism (“I’ve been living in a caftan / do people still say YOLO?”). “Everybody Knows I’m Sad” and “I Love You” are also both top-tier synth pop compositions with opposing moods, the former traces the blueprint of Bloodshy & Avant’s icy-cold synth-work, and the latter is a capital-C Camp, Kylie Minogue-esque winking disco romp.
Even for most of the objective lows of the album, I’m team so-bad-it’s-good. “Rollercoaster” oddly pairs a “Hollaback Girl” handclap beat with arpegiatting synths and an operatic, melismatic chorus, and on paper it shouldn’t work… okay maybe in practice it also doesn’t work, but I can’t help but love it. “Digital Fantasy” is stupid, it does sound like a post-flop Katy Perry hit… yet once again, call me an unapologetic Diamond but I find myself bopping along to the addictive melody. Where even this stan draws the line though is “Hello Kitty”, a neutered and de-clawed ballad that veers too far towards cringe, and should’ve been scratched from the album.
Princess Of Power is silly, fun, and memorable pop music that is full of personality. It might be a mixed bag at times, but Marina has proven that even 6 albums in, she hasn’t run out of tricks.
