die Life was a proposed project by Marina Diamandis, originally intended to be her second studio album. The title is a play on words, as 'die' is the German article for feminine nouns, meaning the album is actually called "The (female) Life". It focused on feminism and sex.
Marina initially wanted a release to echo Lady Gaga's The Fame Monster, a second album which is an extension of the first.[1] This is in keeping with Marina's description of Scab and Plaster being a "Family Jewels throw-back."[2] However, by August 2010, Marina wanted to completely move on from The Family Jewels,[3] and had been working a brand new album.
Background[]
- Main Article: For a timeline on the creation of this album, click here.
Inspiration[]
On her blog, Marina talked a lot about feminism, sexuality, female appearance and stereotypes, Barbie dolls, love, the pop industry as well as the image and success of female pop-stars, and her own depression. These all themes were important in the creation of both die Life and Electra Heart, and show that Electra Heart was an abstract idea in her head even back then. For examples, click here.
In November, in a blogpost called "WELCOME TO THE FAMILY GHOULS." Marina posted:
❝ I have now outgrown the Family Jewels era. It's good to be touring it for one last time but the next era has just begun. I started writing the previously mentioned blog on "Female Sexuality and the Politics of Image" around a month ago. It turned into something so mammoth and unmanageable that I am unable to post it as one blog. So I decided to do something else.
The article will now be released in 3 separate parts over a month. The first entitled as above, the second and third on "Pornography" and "Beauty". There are a few things I've been waiting a while to say. And the time is almost nigh!
I feel incredibly strongly about where the next year leads and these articles will serve as a pre-cursor to the next chapter. It has a name..
October 2011, diamonds! ❞
[These blogposts were never published.]
In December 2010, Marina said:[4] "The second record will be all about the lyrics. It's quite political and it’s about feminism and sex. It's an abrasive pop record." Saying a similar thing for the Telegraph:[5] "[it's] about sex in a lot of different ways: it’s about actual sex, it’s about being a female, being a feminist. I’m so in love with it at the moment. It’s exactly how I thought I should progress."
In a podcast, Diamandis explained:[6]
❝ I don't want to rely on provocation to get attention, I want my ideas, thoughts and philosophies to provoke truth or because that's the only way you can do this without letting things like 'ego' get in the way I think. I think my next album is gonna make people understand what I am doing actually. I want to use music to talk about things cause I feel a responsibility to my generation, I don't want to be on TV looking pretty, there's no point, I may as well die. I may as well not be doing this.
[What do you think are the important issues?] For me, I am really interested in gender roles, how you are conditioned from birth, whether you are a boy or a girl, that is it 'masculine' to be strong or it's 'feminine' to express emotions or to be caring. That's definitely getting better our culture is pretty free in the Western World. I'm a huge feminist. I want to talk more about sex in a way people haven't done it before because, bless their hearts, females so far have tried to liberate themselves sexually by being very provocative. I don't think it's working anymore. I think Madonna came along and she opened up a lot of doors, but it's been like 25 years. I don't see anything wrong with dancing in a thong or 'round a pole or whatever but I think it's just reinforcing the idea that women are just being objectified, and we're doing it to ourselves. That's one part of the next album I'm really concentrating on expressing. [..] I think to deny yourself of sexuality is really a unprogressive thing to do as well. ❞
Name[]
On May 26, 2010, Marina tweeted: '"May have to scrap germanic 2nd album title "die Life".'[7]
On July 2, she tweeted: "descending into glittering mist of gatorade and vodka. in weird rocker bar. end of earth and dont care. #diehighlife"[8], which could be a reference to die Life.
In December 2010, Diamandis thought she has a title, and called the title, "Very symbolic of starting something new" but couldn't say the title as the release date was predicted for September 2011.[9] Interestingly, she said something similar about the title for FROOT.
Ultimately, we don't know what the title of this scrapped album was going to be for certain. Marina may have tweeted it out or put it in a blogpost cryptically at one point. However, Marina usually develops a "title track" for each album, so there is a possibility that we could have the title without realising it.
Composition[]
Marina started writing new songs the new album a month after The Family Jewels came out,[2] and was in the studio a week after writing The Family Jewels. Revealing the next album would be even better,[10] and she was "so focused" on her next record, as it was really important to her, and had socially and culturally important messages with a strong point of view.[10] She was reading "The Second Sex" at the time, and other books on psychology, women and sex.[10]
On September 17, Marina was interviewed by PopBites[11] she said she was onto the next album, the vision would be much more purer than The Family Jewels which would potentially see her becoming "less commercial", and she had started writing for it but she wasn't sure how much time it would take her to write.
Writing[]
In March, after her SXSW show Marina wrote Living Dead, the first song for the album.[12]
She also said she wasn't apprehensive about the second record because she hasn't stopped writing and went into a new direction very naturally, which was darker and heavier, but she was still writing songs that were "like 70s folk."[13]
In an interview with FaceCulture in December.[9] Marina wouldn't say how many songs she had written but said, "[she] could have written the whole album, but I'm going to keep on writing in case I write better songs or songs that are more relevant culturally," and expressed she was enjoying writing it and had lots of ideas.
Production[]
Marina wanted to work with one producer on the album,[11][Greg Kurstin] with her original idea being a "dark electronic pop record", jokingly saying it was something "Britney Spears would have made if she were goth."[12]
In a German Interview, in response to being asked if she would ever scaled down the production Diamandis stated:[14] "for the second record I was so tempted to do an absolutely backwards record, which is very stripped but almost just piano based but that's too easy for me, it's not time for me to do that yet so yeah I'm doing something else."
In an interview with FaceCulture,[9] Marina said she learnt that a "small voice is just as powerful" whilst her new works aren't calmer they were different vocally, more dynamic.
In an interview with X3M Radio, Marina called herself "not some squeaky clean pop queen",[10] later saying she hated "shitty American pop" and specifically named Dr. Luke and his "hit factory", in which "good pop songs come out but have no originality", she stated that none of the female artists she named (in the interview) lacked talent, but she disliked the boring production.[10] She discussed how she was "massively aware" about being "too weird for the mainstream, and too pop for the hipsters", joking that it was all she thought about "an hour of every day for the past five years."[10]
In November, when asked how far along it was she said:[15] "Actually nothing has been officially recorded, but there are like, there are about seven or eight tracks that are done." Likely referring to demos.
Release and Promotion[]
die Life was slated for a September 2011 release; though initially Marina wanted a July 2011 release, and was told by with her touring schedule she wasn't going to manage writing more and getting it produced.[9] Whilst the album was ultimately scrapped before it was released or officially announced, Marina hinted at the way she wanted the album to be released.
In January 2010, she expressed the desire to do a 6 track EP every year instead of a full album.[16] In another interview, Diamandis revealed she wanted to change the way that musicians put out music, as usually they spend two years touring, a year recovering and writing meanwhile new music hasn't been put out for three years. Marina wanted to put out music every year, like a 5 track EP, at the moment she was writing a lot so and was thinking about putting out another full album.[17]
In August, in a blogpost called "HARD GRAFT" she states that she is not doing a repackage for The Family Jewels (despite hinting at it before) but is "working on a new, separate work which you will hear in 2011. I don't know if it will be in a traditional album format or as something else."
Additionally stating in an interview:[9] "I don't care if there are no singles off this album. I just want it to be really thought provoking."
When asked what was a key song from the album, Marina replied:[9] "yeah there's a song called Free Sex [...] The "Free Sex" as in women, it's a pop song but it's definitely not a standard pop song by any means."
'I am afraid of nothing'
In December Marina made a Tumblr blog called "marinaandthefeminists.tumblr.com" which would most likely have been the blog for the die Life era, the first post was "a crushed barbie doll in a graveyard".[18] The blog was changed to 'Electra Heart' on an unknown date, one post can be found via a reblog:[19]
- Too much importance is put upon reinvention. It has become almost a prerequisite to indicate growth/ success/ “innovation” as an artist these days.
- You can change your mask a million times, but your truth, and your lies, will remain the same.
Tracklist[]
Although we do not have an official tracklist, we can make reasonable assumptions about which songs were intended for die Life. Marina stated in a 2010 interview that she wanted to work with one producer,[11] which would be Greg Kurstin who she worked with in 2010 for Living Dead,[20] the other finished 2010 tracks produced by Greg are: Sex Yeah, Power & Control, Scab & Plaster and Starring Role.
Jealousy, originally a The Family Jewels outtake, was performed 59 times between 2010 and 2011.[21] Although not produced by Greg Kurstin, Marina said it would be for her "second album", leading to confusion when die Life was scrapped in favour of Electra Heart, which did not have a song entitled Jealousy on the tracklist. It was performed for the last time in 2012, with the same production, indicating it hadn't been reworked with Greg.[22] Jealousy was possibly scrapped for Radioactive, with similar lyrics.[23]
Unfinished Songs[]
Dirty Sheets was produced at home by Marina and registered sometime in February 2010,[24] she initially wanted to do a repackage of The Family Jewels in late 2009[1] but it's not known when she changed her mind. Dirty Sheets fits the definition Marina gave the album:[5] "[it's] about sex in a lot of different ways: it’s about actual sex, it’s about being a female, being a feminist." No Greg Kurstin produced version of the track has ever leaked, and likely does not exist, as it should have leaked with the other die Life tracks. This means either the song was scrapped or simply wasn't produced before she switched to Electra Heart. In 2021 Marina expressed a desire to re-record the song,[25] along with other home demos, however this only tells us that she likes the song a decade later, not her opinion of it at the time.
Two versions of Miss Y have leaked, both produced by Greg, the "to be great" demo with more finalised vocals, but no bridge, and the "to become great" demo which includes an instrumental bridge, but unmixed additional backing vocals and harmonies. On the register site GEMA, it has the registration status "2" which indicates "a work version is registered but not yet distributable".[26] Meaning the song was unfinished when it was registered.
The lyrics "In the night your heart is full, and by the morning empty"[27] were posted to her blog on October 29, 2010, but the song wasn't completely written when she posted them. Marina has stated in the past she can "hold on" to lyrics for months, and it's worth noting her heavy European touring schedule over October-December 2010 on The Family Jewels Tour, it's likely she simply didn't have the time to finish and produce the song with Greg before she switched to Electra Heart. The song was ultimately co-written and produced by Stargate in June 2011,[28][29] long after the die Life was scrapped. The original demo of Radioactive is similar in production to some of the die Life tracks, and perhaps would be how the die Life version of the song would've sounded, though this is just speculation.
Unknown[]
A picture of the setlist[30] for Marina's Troubadour show was posted online which shows that "die Life" was supposed to be played as an encore, it's unknown why it wasn't played. Living Dead which Marina wrote in March 2010,[12] could be die Life under a different name, all other die Life songs, including the unfinished demos, have been registered on GEMA.
Compiled Tracklist[]
| Name | Producer | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Jealousy | Biffco | Confirmed.[2] |
| Living Dead | Greg Kurstin | Written March 2010,[12] produced 2010.[20] Lyrics teased. |
| Sex Yeah | Greg Kurstin | Confirmed.[9] |
| Power & Control | Greg Kurstin | Lyrics teased.[31] |
| Scab and Plaster | Greg Kurstin | Lyrics teased.[32] |
| Demos | ||
| Miss Y | Greg Kurstin | Likely unfinished. |
| Dirty Sheets | Marina | Home demo. |
| Radioactive (unknown demo lyrics) | N/A | Re-written and produced with Stargate in the Electra Heart era. |
Starring Role[]
Although produced by Greg, the song was likely a very early Electra Heart song and not a die Life song despite the timing. Marina stated as early as May 2010 she was working on two albums.[33] wanting Electra Heart as a "side project" under a different name.[34][35] In her track by track interview for Electra Heart Marina stated:[36]
❝ Starring Role was quite a ground-breaking song for me as it was one of the first written for the new record and it signalled the direction I was going sonically. It's kind of a cold and emotive song and production, and I think that style followed on the rest of the album. ❞
However, we know Living Dead was the first to be written for die Life, and signalled the direction for that album.[12] Marina stated as early as May 2010, she was working on two albums,[33] initially wanting Electra Heart as a "side project" under a different name.[37]
Trivia[]
- Marina made a joke in September 2010 at her gig in Germany, in Baden Baden, telling the audience she would name her second album Baden Baden.
References[]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Digital Spy Published: 26 Dec 2010
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Planet Notion Published 16 Mar 2012
- ↑ Blogpost Published: 11 Aug 2010
- ↑ NME Published: 07 Jan 2011 (Interview in Dec 2010)
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 The Telegraph Published: 20 Jan 2011
- ↑ SoundCloud (deleted)
- ↑ @MarinaDiamandis Twitter Published: 26 May 2010
- ↑ @MarinaDiamandis Twitter Publushed: 02 Jul 2010
- ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 9.3 9.4 9.5 9.6 FaceCulture YouTube (Transcript) Published: 16 Dec 2010
- ↑ 10.0 10.1 10.2 10.3 10.4 10.5 X3M Radio Finland (Transcript) Published: 25 Nov 2010
- ↑ 11.0 11.1 11.2 PopBytes Vimeo (Transcript) Published: 17 Sept 2010
- ↑ 12.0 12.1 12.2 12.3 12.4 FaceCulture (Transcript) Published: 30 Jun 2012
- ↑ https://youtu.be/6IE8WsAAUoo?t=670
- ↑ https://youtu.be/6IE8WsAAUoo?t=628
- ↑ https://youtu.be/L0wNjgGUKu8?t=4m24s
- ↑ BBC Published: 07 Jan 2010
- ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KbSVZwNmuw
- ↑ @MarinaDiamandis Twitter Published: 01 Dec 2010
- ↑ @fireandthud Tumblr (Imageless Archive)
- ↑ 20.0 20.1 @MarinaDiamandis Twitter Published: 09 Jan 2019
- ↑ Setlist.fm
- ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=56wlgSyaTW8
- ↑ Radioactive#Song connections
- ↑ Last.fm Forum Published: 27 Feb 2010
- ↑ Dirty Sheet's re-recording
- ↑ GEMA factory number: 4933868-002
- ↑ Blogpost Published: 29 Nov 2010
- ↑ Radioactive#Background
- ↑ @MarinaDiamandis Twitter Published: 10 Jun 2011
- ↑ Losanjealouss.com Published: 09 Jul 2010
- ↑ @MarinaDiamandis Twitter Published: 21 Nov 2010
- ↑ @MarinaDiamandis Twitter Published: 16 Jul 2010
- ↑ 33.0 33.1 Blogpost Published: 03 May 2010
- ↑ @MarinaDiamandis Twitter Published: 14 Jan 2013
- ↑ @MarinaDiamandis Twitter Published: 14 Jan 2013
- ↑ "Marina and the Diamonds | "Electra Heart" Album Interview. Part 2." YouTube. 1 May 2012. Retrieved 13 August 2015.
- ↑ @MarinaDiamandis Twitter Published: 14 Jan 2013
 | |
|---|---|
| Tour ♡ Merch ♡ Photography ♡ Tumblr ♡ 'The Archetypes' ♡ die Life ♡ Collaborators | |
| Discography | |
| Releases | Electra Heart |
| Tracklist | Bubblegum Bitch ♡ Primadonna ♡ Lies ♡ Homewrecker ♡ Starring Role ♡ The State of Dreaming ♡ Power & Control ♡ Living Dead ♡ Teen Idle ♡ Valley of the Dolls ♡ Hypocrates ♡ Fear and Loathing ♡ Radioactive ♡ Sex Yeah ♡ Lonely Hearts Club ♡ Buy the Stars ♡ How to Be a Heartbreaker ♡ E.V.O.L ♡ Electra Heart |
| Non-Album | |
| Outtakes | Double Life ♡ Eternity |
| Interludes | Su-Barbie-A ♡ The Archetypes |
| die Life | Miss Y ♡ Scab and Plaster |
| Misc | Boyfriend ♡ Bump in the Night ♡ Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas ♡ Just Desserts |
| Other Eras | |
| Mermaid vs. Sailor • The Family Jewels • Electra Heart • FROOT • LOVE + FEAR • Ancient Dreams • Sixth Studio Album (Upcoming) | |