After a lot of faffing, the second Marina & The Diamonds album came out yesterday/today.
A reason to buy 'Electra Heart'
Basically, it's hard to see how this won't end 2012 as one of the albums of the year.
In terms of a user guide we'd recommend not giving too much thought (for the first few listens at least) to whether this is or isn't a 'concept album'.
Put all that business to one side and 'Electra Heart' is a wildly brilliant collection of songs which somehow mixes the feeling of confidence and invincibility you look for in a debut album (but which Marina's own debut sometimes lacked) with the relentless brilliance and mastery of the medium you'd want in a greatest hits.
'State Of Dreaming' is the big one.
A reason not to buy 'Electra Heart'
Well the album art is terrible but the main reason we can see not to buy it is that it's on Spotify, complete with extraordinary deluxe bonus tracks like 'Lonely Hearts Club' and 'Radioactive', and you can stream the whole thing here.
A great album.
And there's more! She's also done one of those track-by-track things, which is here.
We suppose if you really like this album but decide not to buy it because you STREAM IT TO DEATH online, but still feel that there should be something 'Electra Heart'-related in your house that you can point at, you could buy the 'limited edition' swanky box set thing.
Thirty quid if you like the look of it.