All Hail the Princess of Power

Following the Lorde pattern, it’s been four years since MARINA’s last album, Ancient Dreams in a Modern Land, came out. Before that, there was a mere two-year gap between the release of 2019’s Love + Fear (the album where she first dropped the “and the Diamonds”) and 2021’s Ancient Dreams… But perhaps MARINA needed just a couple more years to prepare for this go-around because she required the extra time not only to “recharge” (introvert that she is/also being diagnosed with myalgic encephalomyelitis/also starting her own record label, Queenie Records [see, in addition: Kesha with Kesha Records]), but to get acquainted with the new person she’s become while transitioning into the “right proper” adulthood era of her forties. Indeed, the subject of transformation comes up frequently on Princess of Power for this very reason. As it does in Eat the World, the poetry collection she also spent some of these four years working on and released in the fall of 2024. 

Naturally, there are some overlapping themes in each body of work, but Princess of Power has the ability to distill poignant ideas through pop music as only MARINA can. And while Electra Heart, her most “successful” album did that as well, it wasn’t on the same level as her later work (e.g., “Nothing’s hidden anymore/Capitalism made us poor/God forgive America for every single war” from “Purge the Poison”). And yet, fans and casual listeners alike still yearn for that “alter ego era” of MARINA’s. Perhaps taking their “note” into account, MARINA did dredge up something like an alter ego for this record, complete with billing herself as the “Princess of Power,” a “character” who shines through in her video for “Cuntissimo” (a song that shows where Charli XCX originally got some of her Brat energy).

Confirming this alter ego, of sorts, to someone who lives behind their own alter ego, Saint Hoax, MARINA said in an interview with Plastik, “My next record is very playful and has a character-led concept, but not in the same way as Electra Heart. I found it weighty to have to commit to [a] character for two years, and that’s not where I’m at now.” Where MARINA is at right now, however, is in a place where she’s never felt more comfortable in her own skin. To be unguarded and “ready to go through a transformation,” as one of the lyrics on “Princess of Power” goes. 

And, naturally, that’s the track that kicks off the eponymous record, with MARINA’s 70s/disco-fied sound lending a joyous, euphoric air to it all as she declares, “Welcome to my world/Princess of Power.” In a certain sense, it channels Kylie Minogue (who MARINA joined forces with as a supporting act for BST Hyde Park last year) urging listeners on Fever, “Come, come, come into my world/Won’t you lift me up, up, high upon your love?” (along with the “Come into My World” verse, “And I’ve been such a long time waiting/For someone I can call my own/I’ve been chasing the life I’m dreaming/Now I’m home”). To be sure, MARINA’s thesis, as usual, is all about love. How it can be scary, liberating and transformative all at once. And, for a long time, she feared opening her heart again (especially after the Jack Patterson breakup), telling Rolling Stone, “It can sound trite, but I think the ability to love is so powerful and brave. It’s a courageous thing, particularly if you’ve been hurt… It can be really hard to reprogram yourself, and I’ve think I’ve finally been able to do that.” 

So it is that Princess of Power is “told from the perspective of a superheroine whose greatest power is love” (per Rolling Stone). Ah, that alter ego again. Except that this one is much more closely aligned to the MARINA of the moment, who sings, “I taught myself how to love again/I’ve been hurt by those were supposed to treat me right/But love is my design.” In other words, there is power in having one’s heart broken and still being able to pick up the pieces and love again. A further sign of MARINA’s maturity after writing a track like “Power & Control” (even if “as Electra”), during which she belts out, “Love will always be a game.” The Princess of Power begs to differ, admitting, “I confused love with control/Love with manipulation/My past has taken its toll/This spaceship has left the station/I’m gonna change my whole life/I’ve had a revelation.” One such revelation being, “Been living lifе locked up in a tower [that classic princess imagery, after all]/But now I’m blooming like a flower.” And turning from a caterpillar into a butterfly, as the next song is called. 

Although MARINA might have taken a gamble on naming a song as such considering Mariah Carey’s monopoly on that word, her own “Butterfly” is much more listenable (and less cheesy). Continuing the motif she established on “P.O.P.,” MARINA persists in reminding that, “Sometimes people gonna let you down/Not everybody’s meant to stick around.” But just because that’s the case doesn’t mean you should shut yourself off to the idea that someone new can enter your life. This, too, doesn’t have to mean romantically. In fact, MARINA, after years of being single, has learned that sometimes platonic love is the most transcendent (and enduring). 

Playing up the theme of transformation, “Butterfly” features a chirpy chorus that finds MARINA chanting, “Yeah, I’m a butterfly/You just never see my energy/I’m already high/Floatin’ on a breeze/Butterfly, fly high/Yeah, I’m a butterfly/You just never see me spread my wings/I’m already high/Watch my life go ‘bling, bling.’” (Said in a lilt not unlike, “Big love, big aura/Big heart, big adorer” on “Princess of Power.”) This is intercut with some of her signature melancholy vocal stylings (which reach particular highs on the Froot and Ancient Dreams… albums) to punctuate the bittersweetness of change, and giving in to all that it means. Including letting go of some of those old parts of yourself (whether good or bad) you’ve become so attached to.

The tone and energy shifts instantaneously on “Cuntissimo,” which, needless to say, serves plenty of cunt. And yet, despite its ostensible deviation from the more subdued vibe of “Butterfly,” it makes sense to include it afterward. For this is the butterfly MARINA was talking about. The cuntissimo butterfly she’s metamorphosed into—one with confidence, chutzpah and plenty of joie de vivre, as the accompanying video conveys. Bedecked in a blonde wig (that’s Marie Antoinette-reminiscent) while traipsing around a chateau she and some mates have broken into, MARINA channels Electra yet again, particularly the lyrics from “How to Be a Heartbreaker,” this time repurposing those instructions as, “‘Cause your energy’s precious/Not your fault he fell in love.” Embracing a hyper-feminine aesthetic (as is also apparent on the album artwork) while still having the proverbial “balls” to say “fuck you” to anything (or anyone) that she doesn’t like, this is yet another way in which MARINA engages with subversion on the record, both sonically and visually.

In keeping with her “Cuntissimo” insistence that she “don’t let nobody dull her shine,” “Rollercoaster” is what MARINA billed as a “manifestation song.” Hence, the rhythmic chanting at the outset of the song. Before MARINA delves into the heart of the metaphor with the lyrics, “Baby, I’ve been down, I’ve been down so low/But the more I love myself, the higher up I wanna go/I’m on a rollercoaster ridе, ride/I’ve been low, but I know that I wanna get high/I’vе never been so happy/Smiling so wide/I never thought I’d find the love of my life.” The implication being that the love of her life is actually herself. Because it is the way you treat yourself—the relationship you have with yourself—that opens you up to how you interact with other people. The dynamic you share with them being, in some way, always a reflection of the one you have with, well, you. 

Still on this journey of love (or rollercoaster of love, if you prefer the Ohio Players’/Red Hot Chili Peppers’ saying), it’s only right that “Cupid’s Girl” comes next. Granted, of all the singles MARINA has released from Princess of Power, this one is the most “problematic” (in addition to being seen as the least musically enjoyable when pitted against “Butterfly” and “Cuntissimo”). Crafted as a “surrender”/“fall under my love spell” type of song, MARINA flips the script on Cupid by acting as the aggressor with the bow and arrow in this scenario. Therefore, warning him, “Cupid, you’re so stupid/Trying to resist/My kiss/But you know I’ll never miss/Baby, you just need to relax/Don’t panic when it hits.” Language that borders on being a bit to date rape-y for comfort, but perhaps MARINA is attempting to soften that image with the more down-tempo “Metallic Stallion.”

With its sparse instrumentation (on a related note, all songs were written and produced by MARINA and CJ Baran [who produced some of the songs sans MARINA]), “Metallic Stallion” is part torch song, part conquering song. For, on the one hand, MARINA describes how, “My metallic stallion races off/But I’m chasing fast till I get on top [one of a few innuendos]/I’m the one he can’t break off.” This being a bit of a cutting double entendre, for if you can’t “break someone off,” then you’re no good in bed. And yet, like many women, MARINA can’t let go of this “one who got away” type. Or rather, the one who keeps trying to get away. Not realizing they’re tangoing with a love goddess/princess of power who isn’t wont to relinquish a “love object” so easily. 

Flickers of acknowledgement about how this metallic stallion is probably too toxic/emotionally closed off to keep fucking with shine through in lines like, “I been dreaming of you/I been wishing that it’s true/That you were made for me/I been wishing on a star/I been wondering where you are/To keep you close to me.” And yet, shouldn’t the “older and wiser” MARINA know better than to try and keep chasing someone who clearly doesn’t want to stick around? The one that shows a glimmer of herself in the bridge, “Ever since I was young, love had me confused/And now I realize that I’ve been a fool/You know that I’d always stay, but you just keep running away/Now I see that you don’t, don’t wanna be saved.” And yet… MARINA still keeps trying, opting to conclude with the version of the chorus that goes, “My metallic stallion races off/But I chase him fast till I get on top/Till his reins come off/‘Cause he acts so tough, but he likes it soft/Know he’s scared of love, but all bets are off/I’m the one he can’t break off.” In short, she’s going to “conquer” him with her love—again, the Princess of Power’s superpower—whether he likes it or not (which is somewhat in keeping with the rape-y vibe of “Cupid’s Girl”). 

Maybe because he just has that certain “Je Ne Sais Quoi.” This being the dreamy, 90s-esque number that succeeds “Metallic Stallion.” With its more fast-paced tempo, MARINA once more exhibits her newfound penchant for falling in love (even if only for a little while), depicting another tall dark stranger type as she croons, “You’ve got that je ne sais quoi, je ne sais quoi/I’m falling for you, don’t know who you are/Je ne sais quoi, je ne sais quoi/I’m so into you, you’re hotter than God” (that latter line feeling very Lana Del Rey somehow—after all, she’s the Jesus freak of the Tumblr era). However, it’s no secret that attraction based solely on looks can fizzle out quickly. But until that time of “fully knowing someone” (as if that’s ever truly possible), MARINA can still declare/speculate, “So obsessed yet so undercover/Maybe we’re both as bad as each other/Heartbreak is hard, but loving is tougher/When cryptic people mirror each other.” So it is that the fear of love that MARINA claims to have let go of still lingers in the final verse, which insists, “Don’t break my heart.” A request that’s always a tall order for a straight man. 

The kind of straight man who, increasingly, can only project all his desires onto what MARINA calls a “Digital Fantasy” on track eight. Favoring the incorporation of what Gen Z (and now, Gen Alpha) would view as “ancient” internet callbacks, “Digital Fantasy” begins with an 8-bit-inspired sound that paves the way for MARINA to break it down, “Want a digital fantasy, you don’t even want the real me/Say it honestly, you don’t want real love.” This being the ultimate affront to a love goddess who revels in genuine connection. And, like that lyric about the dude in “Je Ne Sais Quoi” being “hotter than God” giving Lana Del Rey, here, too, MARINA seems to be tapping into another chanteuse’s vibe: Lily Allen. Namely, with the Jamaican ska and reggae influence (that many a Brit can appreciate) peppered throughout as MARINA perkily sings (for added ironic flair), “Baby, you just want my light/Maybe you’re just a parasite/Say you forgot to reply/Even though I always see you’re online, online/You just wanna be inside my world/It would take a lot to be your girl/You just wanna like my photographs [another dash of irony here, as “photograph” connotes a more “vintage” iteration of someone’s image]/As if I’m ever gonna take you back.” The Allen influence (whether intentional or not) is also apparent in terms of the song’s theme, addressed on Lily’s 2009 hit, “The Fear,” which details the beginnings of the “digital fantasy” era, eventually mutating into something even more sinister than Allen could have previously envisioned during her germinal MySpace days. 

Elsewhere, MARINA derides this disappointing man—once a digital fantasy of her own—“You’re lazy, lazy/I was so lovestruck by you…/Want a digital fantasy, I would rather reality/Sad ‘cause, honestly, I just want your love.” In another verse, she cuts to the core of how so much time investment on digital platforms ends up yielding nothing but more heartache in the end. Because if one was investing this time “IRL,” they could at least say that they had gotten the benefit of a tangible, tactile relationship (however ephemeral). But instead, as MARINA accurately sums it up, “Never knew you, but I’ll miss you anyway/Longer than I knew you, it’s the modern way, the modern way.” And, yes, the modern way is, quite frankly, shit. 

After detailing one of the most prevalent ills of the modern world—specifically of modern “dating”—it’s a fitting choice to place “Everybody Knows I’m Sad” after “Digital Fantasy.” In truth, this is the “hangover song” after dealing with the fallout of what happens in “Digital Fantasy.” Prompting MARINA to lament, “Sometimes the truth is, I’ve got nobody to hang out with/I’ve got nobody to go watch a film on a Sunday, a Sunday (Sunday is for lovers)/Sometimes the truth is, don’t wanna live anymore like this/‘Cause I’ve been getting so lonely, and I got nobody to hold me/I try to hide it, protect my pride/So superficial, don’t realize/I’ve been so lonely all of my life/Don’t know if I can, I can survive.” The candor of this admission is a direct negation of MARINA’s 2021 single, “Happy Loner” (released on the deluxe edition of Ancient Dreams in a Modern Land), not to mention Fear + Love’s Pollyanna-esque “Enjoy Your Life.” But it’s “Happy Loner” that finds her assuring herself and others, “‘Cause I’m happy bein’ a loner/Happy bein’ a loner/I’m sick of it all I wanna give it up/But, I’m on the edge and I feel like everything’s too much, too much/Too much, too much.” However, some of the sentiments in this verse reanimate on “Everybody Knows I’m Sad,” wherein MARINA continues to explain her lonerdom as follows: “Maybe I’m not built for this kind of connection [which means being/being attracted to a digital fantasy might suit her just fine in the end]/Maybe I was born to live my life alone/I can’t even look in my own reflection/Don’t wanna admit that I’ve lost all hope.”

“Happy Loner” exudes a similar kind of hopelessness at times, with MARINA also announcing, “They don’t understand why I like bein’ alone/I don’t want to be so accessible/Emotionally, I’m on the edge of a knife/That’s how I learn, that’s how I learn to survive.” In effect, because people are often the cause of her sense of drained emotional energy, she finds it best to be alone anyway. And yet, the dichotomy is that she knows, sooner or later, she’s going to feel too lonely despite being an inherent loner. 

An “ultimate 80s” musical breakdown then occurs during the simple but effective bridge that finds MARINA reiterating Del Rey’s “I feel so alone on a Friday night” aphorism with, “Sometimes I wonder why, why I’m alone/Alone at night in a foreign city/Doesn’t even matter if you’re pretty/Doesn’t matter what I do.” Because her aura of sadness is evidently too much for other people to deal with/be attracted to. And yet, MARINA’s vibrant tone as she sings the shrugging chorus, “‘Cause everybody knows I’m sa-a-a-a-ad/They know I’ve never felt this ba-a-a-a-ad” indicates that, in spite of it all, she still has hope that, one day, she’ll find someone who “gets” her. A feeling that leads in perfectly to “Hello Kitty.”

As though addressing what she just said on the previous track, MARINA opens “Hello Kitty” with, “Babe, I’m intense.” A pronouncement that echoes Lorde telling Rolling Stone, “I’m an intense bitch.” So, too, is MARINA, but she can admit it freely now—as well as intimating that her so-called intensity is largely a façade, and that she’s just a kitty behind the jaguar exterior. Because, yes, we’ve shifted animal motifs from “Hermit the Frog” to a jaguar a.k.a. “kitty.” Telling the object of her affection, “When I say I like you, that means I’m obsessed/You’re my one desire/I’m usually shy/Come in for the kill, like I’m ready to die.” The interpolation of her vocals here recalls Thompson Twins’ “If You Were Here,” with the beat dropping around the thirty-six-second mark. 

It’s when she gets to the chorus that MARINA finds her songwriting stylings bordering on the Taylor Swift-esque, playfully urging, “Catch me if you can, ain’t no other man [as Xtina would say]/That can find me in the dark/Got nothing to fear, I can feel you near/Now you know the way to my heart.”

MARINA lends further advice on the way to her heart by counseling her potential “mate,” “Please respect my space, it’s not like me to attack/You can come back to my place, but you must like cats/Leave without a trace, I’m endangered, it’s a fact/I’m just looking for my mate, but you must like cats.” The “must like cats” (something Swift would also readily get on board with) whispered in a way that serves George Michael whispering “Merry Christmas.” And, clearly, she’s referring to herself as the “cat” (standoffish and kind of scary at times, but just a ball of love who needs to be touched the right way in order to show it). So it is that MARINA gives her would-be lover all the most pertinent instructions on how to “catch” her. It’s really just a matter of him following them correctly. Though one wouldn’t be surprised if he was incapable of doing so even when it’s spelled out. 

Going back to a tone of levity on the following song, the sonic callback to the 70s that was so prominent on “Princess of Power” reanimates on “I <3 You,” the fourth single from the record (as chosen by a select group of her fans—with the other choice being “Everybody Knows I’m Sad,” which was “too real” perhaps). As though to underscore that reemergence, MARINA opens the song with the flex, “They’re all going to Y2K/We’re going to the 70s” (the reference to Y2K being an acknowledgement of how that’s the “nostalgia era” of the moment). A decade that was far more, shall we say, “party-centric” (hell, quaaludes were still widely available). Asking, “Where are all the parties now?” in a way that could mean 1) where are they happening tonight or 2) why does no one party at all anymore, MARINA then declares, “I wanna make my way around town/Pink and purple, blue and gold/Glitter catsuits, vintage coats/Get onstage, take a bow [another light Madonna reference]/Marry me, let’s make a vow/Gin, martinis, smoking Vogues [the same cigarette name-checked in “Cuntissimo”]/Let’s make a party of our own.” Which is, in essence, what MARINA and her fanbase have been doing all these years, with the former existing on the fringe of full-tilt mainstream success (far more than her Tumblr counterpart, Del Rey), but still attracting a devoted following. And yes, this following has turned her into a “millionairess” (as she says on “Venus Fly Trap”). 

To amplify the jubilance of the song, wistful, “I Will Survive” (-meets-ABBA)-esque strings come in toward the two-minute-forty-one-second mark. And yes, there is a certain “Kylie aura” here as well, with Minogue being a well-documented fan of disco (to the point of titling her least enjoyable album that). But it’s Mariah ballad realness that MARINA serves on the beginning of “Adult Girl,” which is in keeping with the slowed down pace of Ancient Dreams in a Modern Land as it comes to a close with “Flowers” (yes, MARINA had a song called as such before Miley). 

It’s the opening piano notes that remind one of Mariah’s “Without You” (a cover of, of all bands, Badfinger’s version of the song) before MARINA circles back to her own distinct sound. And yes, it does feel like a kind of “mash-up” of both slow jams at the end of Ancient Dreams…, “Flowers” and “Goodbye.” What’s more, the lyrical theme of “Adult Girl” is aligned, in its way, with “Goodbye,” during which MARINA belts out, “Goodbye to the girl that I was.” But, as it turns out, MARINA can’t say goodbye to her inner girl at all, “stuck somewhere in between.” A very Britney Spears dilemma, obviously. 

Except that MARINA seems more partial to girlhood, commenting, “Try my best to act my age/But the child won’t behave/She wants to scream and cry and rage/And who am I to dig her grave?” In another instance that feels “Electra Heart-coded,” Marina bemoans, “The teenage years I never lived/The innocence of high school kids/Young romance and endless nights/Of carefree joy and pure delight/Didn’t grow up in a normal world/And now I’m just an adult girl.” A phrase that has its correlations to “manchild,” except it sounds more elegant. Less derisive. But that doesn’t mean MARINA can make the pains of remaining pure at heart as an adult sound glamorous, adding, “Now I’m too old to die young/But at least I had some fun/Spent my twenties on the run/Drеaming of suicide and love/Think I’m stuck somewhere between childhood and va-va-voom/Always cycling in between existential dread and doom.” 

As though to emphasize that “girl-ness” still pervading her adult self, “Final Boss” (which tries to give Lana a run for her money on songs about video games), the big finish to Princess of Power and its many powerhouse anthems, is extremely playful. Both lyrically and musically. As for the latter, MARINA and Baran add in some of those “early” digital flourishes like they did for “Digital Fantasy”—except it’s more video game-y on the sounds front. And since video games didn’t really start to pop off until the 80s (with both arcade culture and at-home consoles), it makes sense that “Final Boss” has one of the most 80s-inspired musical backing tracks. A decade that Robyn, too, has always shown appreciation for. So maybe that’s why MARINA sounds so much like her (namely, on “Don’t Fucking Tell Me What To Do”) when she sings, “I’m fucking sick of you bullying me/You only did it ‘cause I acted so sweet/You don’t like anything you can’t control/But now that means that you end up on your own.”

Wielding the video game construct as a metaphor for her own realizations about her worth and not wasting time on fuckboys anymore (hence, “Guess I beat you at your own game”), MARINA is now confident she can take out the “final boss” again and again. That’s how strong and sagacious she’s become. The only drawback is that she feels obliged to make mention of Mario (that horrendous stereotype of an “Italian”), so that she might also make one last princess reference for the road as she taunts, “Now I know all your games/People like you never change/Thank you, Mario, but our princess is in another castle.” One that she paid for herself. Even if it means further isolating and alienating herself the dearth of available men who are so easily intimidated by a woman with power (as Del Rey put it on “Blue Banisters,” “She said, ‘Most men don’t want a woman/With a legacy, it’s our bane’”). 

To that point, it’s on “Princess of Power” that MARINA (like Lorde singing “we’re L-O-V-E-L-E-S-S generation”) says we’re “stuck in a loveless generation.” But that doesn’t mean she isn’t still trying to imbue that generation with a sense of love. Even if it’s not the still-put-on-a-pedestal romantic love. Instead, MARINA more than slightly hints at the idea that there are so many forms of love to give and receive. This being part of why she commences “Princess of Power” with the “fairy tale language” of, “A tale as old as time.” In contrast to Beauty and the Beast, MARINA subverts the “it is written” nature of a fairy tale by asserting, “It’s not too late to change the way you love, the way you care/‘Cause love is in the giving, not on the receiving end/You see, love don’t make you weak/It’s a superpower in me/Can’t you see?/It set me free.” Just as listening to Princess of Power will set its listeners free, too. Free from hang-ups, inhibitions, fear of “cringe,” etc. Which is why everyone should hail the princess of power this summer, while also tapping into their own inner P.O.P. Even if Charli XCX pointedly didn’t suggest it could be a MARINA summer—but oh, it can be. And it will.