She's Marina, We're The Diamonds, And That Was The Rate [Finalized]

D

Deleted member 30181

Petty Mayonnaise said:
I Am Not A Robot had no business in the top 10. It's cute but not one of her best.
Click to expand...

This is not right. Much like Obsessions, this is in Marina's DNA. Whilst I'm not the hugest Family Jewels apologist (apparently), there are a few songs on there which are completely essential. This is one of them. Love it (hence the 10).

Should've been top 5, babs!

əʊæ said:
"Instead of living in a bubble and worrying about stupid things, I wish I'd lived every day a bit more. I've never been reckless at all and I wish I had been. I've had this realisation in the past year."


6.
teen-idle.jpg


9.01

+1
(+0.09)

11: @dancingwithmyself, @P'NutButter, @Petty Mayonnaise
Highest: 10x22 (@mokitsu, @soratami, @Miyawakiwi, @abael, @Ana Raquel, @lehnw01, @DJHazey, @happiestgirl, @tylerc904, @BEST FICTION, @maverick_79, @Dijah., @Kenny, @nikkysan, @Trouble in Paradise, @Oleander, @evilsin, @Music Is Life, @Vixen, @Sally_Harper, @Posh Spears, @Cutlery)
Lowest: 6x1 (@Cundy)
@əʊæ: 7​

So I have beef with Teen Idle’s production. What the fuck did you think you were doing, Liam Howe? Remaking Jem's hits? The Elite, your thin-ass drums suck. Song with lyrics as cutting as Teen Idle deserves smn more than this kind of mid-00s nursery rhyme wankery. A propos lyrics, they’re obviously quite amazing but I get a little too uncomfortable to give the track repeated listens. I was a fucking miserable teenager too, but also I’ve never had regrets that I wasn’t anything more than that. Just lack of imagination on my part I suppose. So, yeah, I’m not gonna bother with some long ass dissertation analysis of the lyrics. I’m sure we’ve all been there anyway.


@Sprockrooster (7): "I stanned this hard at the release, but I can now honestly say I can do without."

@Verandi (8): "The fan fave. K. It's mostly iconic for that video of her singing it to a group of kids."

@sfmartin (8): "I love the way she says "wasted yurs". Feeling Super super suicidal is an inspired lyric."

@imaduck (8.5): "wordy ballad Marina is my favorite Marina, this hasn't aged a day has it?"

@Maki (8.5): "Another one of those fan favorites, which totally makes sense. The lyrics are amazing, as well as the most of the song. I always wanted something even more sad melodically from it, in order to fit those lyrics even more. The delivery juxtaposition in the 'feeling super, super, super...' bit is great and so clever, though."

@japanbonustrack (9): "when what you thought you had buried very deep comes back from the dead to haunt you 10 years later. the chorus after the middle 8 sounds like the confrontation, the boss battle. the outro sounds like owning your own past."

@OspreyQueen (9): "I weirdly don’t have a whole lot to say about this one, even though I played it like every day when I was 12. But I will say I love how the song’s tone lilts between outright sad to…sort of hopeful-ish, which gives a bit of reprise to such a dark subject."

@Stradiwhovius (9): "While I do, yes, feel this on an emotional level and have certainly listened to it repeatedly when I felt aimless and wanted to die, it feels like fanservice to the Tumblr fanbase beyond a point I can ignore."

@babes aloud (9.1): "Only here because it demonstrates an archetype."

@Miyawakiwi (10): "Wasted youth being the theme here, as a gay guy i surely wish i would’ve spent my highschool years differently lol."

@abael (10): "Production takes a step back so Marina can take center stage for what is one of her best performances so far."

@Ana Raquel (10): "ME????? Giving a 10???? To a BALLAD???????????? And, for some time, this was my most played Marina song. Shocking. I don't know, it just gets me?."

@DJHazey (10): "Objectively, this is probably the crown jewel of the album with astonishing lyrics that hit deep. The contrast between Marina's often playful vocals with such dark themes is so staggering, obviously highlighted by "super-super-super-suicidal" in that sarcastically bubbly manner."

@happiestgirl (10): "This was seventeen year old me's favorite song. Yes, blood, guts, and angel cake was the name of my tumblr. In retrospect it's kind of a ridiculous song, but I'm still throwing it a 10 for nostalgia purposes. Marina really was the perfect popstar for your average depressed teenage girl with a tumblr"

@Kenny (10): "I still go back to my late teens whenever I listen to this song. However I never thought about burning a bible."

@Trouble in Paradise (10): "What self respecting Marin stan can’t help but throw at least 9 points to “Teen Idle!?” Is it absolutely absurd? Yes! Does it crushingly capture my own reflections on my much wasted adolescence? YES! Most of y’all know the wonderful experience of delayed adolescence us queers get to go through hand this song feels like the soundtrack to both that experience and the bitter reality that there really wasn’t another option,"

@Vixen (10): "A classic...literally a classic. Electra Heart at its core."

@Sally_Harper (10): "The cheerleader-esque chants on“feeling super super super...suicidal” are a stroke of genius. I find it so affecting and I can’t even explain why."

@Cutlery (10): "I mean I had "Instead of being 16 and burning up a Bible / Feeling super super super! Suicidal" as my Facebook header for a couple months seven years back. To say this helped shape my early teen years would be an understatement. I breathed this song. I was obsessed. I can write a copypasta about it using that one ATRL "Camila leaves Fifth Harmony" meltdown as a basis. I barely listen to it nowadays but it's just… I have too many memories attached to it that I know this song will stay there as a grateful moment from my middle school years, in the midst of your typical closeted gay drama. Thank you M."

@Dijah. (10): "Alright, I’m gonna be corny and sentimental real quick. Teen Idle is the Marina song that’s closest to my (Electra) heart. This was the song that made me stan her as an angsty 15-year-old who spent too much time on Tumblr and just realized she was depressed as fuck. Upon the first few listens, I internalized the hell out of this song—I couldn’t listen to it without sobbing my eyes out by the end. As much as I wanted to die and shouldn’t have been listening to a song so openly about suicide, I just felt like Marina understood me. I felt seen. I didn’t understand at the time how this 20-something Welsh woman with a life experience so different from mine managed to make me, a 15-year-old Black American girl, feel like I could somehow relate to her. Life got a little better in the last 6 years, thankfully, but I hadn’t connected to an artist this deeply at the time (except for, like, Lana Del Rey, because every sad Tumblr girl already stanned her). The big metaphors on Teen Idle really got me back then, but I think I now appreciate the track more for the production and her voice. Marina sounds amazing on this, the instrumental is hard-hitting, and her mind is so very powerful for coming up with this song and having the courage to share it. Marina is one of the bravest pop girls I stan because she’s not afraid to tell us just how bad things have gotten for her. But she survived. She now ~~enjoys her life~~ Teen Idle, as melodramatic as it is and should be, is a masterpiece and the single best hate letter to adolescence that I could have stumbled upon at such a vulnerable time. Thank you for attending my Ted Talk."
This was so beautiful. Thank you ❤️


@P'NutButter (11): "she may not like it very much, but I do. I have the music video in my head ready to go..."​





​
Click to expand...


Also incorrect. Should've been out at least 20 places ago. So boring. A 6 is generous.

Blue is grand. Of my four 10s on Froot, it's probably bottom of my list, but fuck me it's awesome.

I suspect I'm A Ruin has suffered from being seriously torpedoed by its detractors for the crime of winning the 2015 rate. Which is fine. We all know it will be remembered as her best song (without Clean Bandit, of course).

Radioactive should not still be here. Nor should Oh No, fun though it is. Hence Froot for the win.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Inland Empire

Inland Empire

Staff member
he/she/they
A song can fall in line with the trends of its time without being actively "trend-chasing" or whatever. A lot of forum-favourite songs were made to fit in with the pop landscape of the time, but they endured this long because they're just really good songs at a fundamental level. Trends only become a problem when songwriters use them as an excuse to write crap songs.
 
Filler

Filler

No idea if this is an unpopular opinion or general consensus, but my main problem with Love + Fear isn't the trend-chasing, it's her voice. Her higher register can be lovely in moderation, and even quite forceful when she puts her mind to it (thinking mainly of the propulsive angel howls of E.V.O.L.), but she sings everything on that album, even could-be-bops, in this awful little simpering coo, making a wet album even wetter than it might have been. There's no reason a song like, say, 'Superstar' should sound like she warmed up by singing the "you're just a little BEEBEE!" part of 'I Am Not a Robot' and somehow got her voice stuck up there.

'Radioactive' is nowhere near her best (like just about every track on Electra Heart, it sounds like she forgot to write a chorus and just murmured something off the top of her head) but Love + Fear wishes it had anything as full-blooded as that "NEON GOLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLD" middle 8.
 
Babylon

Babylon

Filler said:
No idea if this is an unpopular opinion or general consensus, but my main problem with Love + Fear isn't the trend-chasing, it's her voice. Her higher register can be lovely in moderation, and even quite forceful when she puts her mind to it (thinking mainly of the propulsive angel howls of E.V.O.L.), but she sings everything on that album, even could-be-bops, in this awful little simpering coo, making a wet album even wetter than it might have been. There's no reason a song like, say, 'Superstar' should sound like she warmed up by singing the "you're just a little BEEBEE!" part of 'I Am Not a Robot' and somehow got her voice stuck up there.

'Radioactive' is nowhere near her best (like just about every track on Electra Heart, it sounds like she forgot to write a chorus and just murmured something off the top of her head) but Love + Fear wishes it had anything as full-blooded as that "NEON GOLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLD" middle 8.
Click to expand...

This crossed my mind the other day as well.

Her voice is the main attraction on her other albums. The power, the theatrics, the range!

It’s a travesty how under-used it is on Love + Fear.

Froot should win this by the way.
 
superultra

superultra

she/they
Okay, despite being someone who also has "I'm a Ruin" in their personal Marina Top 10, people do the absolute most over that song. It performed well in a previous Marina rate anyways. After all, it won if I'm not mistaken.

Let people's opinions change and move onto other slightly better songs.
 
Maki

Maki

I was about to call both "Blue" and "I'm a Ruin", so it's great to see them going back-to-back.

I don't really get the fuss about these two. Okay, "Blue" is very poppy (a bit too much poppy for me) and catchy, so it's reasonably well received, but the chorus lacks a bit of a punch and kind of plods along instead of exploding. Still, it's a great song.

But "I'm a Ruin" is probably one of the most confusingly popular and praised songs on this forum. I will never hear what's so special about it. Yeah, the post chorus is excellent and the lyrics are really nice, but the rest? Just above average. Sonically, it's similar to "Weeds", which went more than 30 eliminations ago (of course that one is weaker, but they both share the guitar and same vibe), which makes it confusing, too. The melody is something that leaves me indifferent, until it hits that amazing post-chorus. Literally in my bottom 3 songs from "FROOT".
Nice to see that I'm not the only one who finds it overrated.

"Froot" should win this. My only remaining 10 since "Primadonna" was eliminated.

And I love how the top 3 consist of a song from all three album, just like in the previous rate. Poor "LOVE + FEAR", or not?

Ideal top 3:
1. Froot
2. Oh No!
3. Radioactive

I gave the same score to "Oh No!" and "Radioactive", so it's not that important which one will miss the finale, because both equally deserve the top 3 (even though "Froot" is much better than both of them).
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Top