The copyeditor in me really wants to make Marina put a space in this title…
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[5.00]
Michaela Drapes: Marina continues apace with her postmodern, footnote-providing stomp through the perils of contemporary femininity, a role she occupies with an intense glee that’s the flip side of someone, say, like Lana del Rey. But really, how could I not rate this as almost perfect? I mean, a Stone Roses reference! Also, she can actually, really, amazingly … sing. For all the Zola Jesus apologists in the house, this is what someone with actual training sounds like.
[9]
Anthony Easton: Self consciously dramatic and convinced of its own power, it moves somewhere between silly and ludicrous. Is only really redeemed by Marina’s impure falsetto.
[6]
Iain Mew: Marina sets up a character that I don’t think we’re supposed to like, but she neither skewers her or revels in the unpleasantness. She’s just kind of there. When Marina sings “I’m sad to the core” she swallows the words as if afraid to actually bring emotion into it. Which is a shame, because musically there’s personality to spare. If Marina managed to put across as much in the narrative as in the sounds (The “wow”s! The fuzzy jolts of bass!) it could be an amazing song.
[6]
Jonathan Bradley: The whomping synths that enter during the verse make trudging through this a chore, but even without them, “Primadonna” wouldn’t be any fun. “All I ever wanted was the world,” Marina sings, but with neither the intensity to make the character real nor the absurdity to make her silly.
[3]
Alfred Soto: The rent-a-Guetta beat and Marina’s thick, affected low notes make for the year’s oddest amalgam. But said beat demands an idiosyncratic vocalist, and Marina’s trying too hard to sound like the competition. I do like the idea of failed crossovers though!
[4]
Pete Baran: The harder edged electronic backing suits her sometimes cutesy vocal acrobatics more than some of her past singles, but you do wonder what the Diamonds are doing whilst this is on. But the whilst the song allows for her usual swoops and gulps, the centre has little to recommend it, “Primadonna Girl” is a near embarrassing lyric to repeat over and over. Rescued by the backing, but I can get that elsewhere. File above La Roux, but only just.
[4]
Brad Shoup: Did Robyn and Katy Perry co-write this on tour?
[3]