PRINCESS OF POWER marks MARINA’s first album since starting her own label (Queenie Records), and is described in the Welsh artist’s official press release as “her boldest, most unapologetic statement yet.” Respectfully, bullshit.
PRINCESS OF POWER is everything Ancient Dreams in a Modern Land (2021) was not—it’s flowery, it’s meaningless, and it’s all so cynical. Written during a period of “deep personal reflection” (when will artists release during periods of deep personal vacuity?), PRINCESS OF POWER marks the beginning of MARINA’s chronically online era, with tracks such as ‘EVERYBODY KNOWS I’M SAD’ appealing to that internet brand of palatable depressiveness: such shocking revelations as “I spend the weekend in bed.” The album is also peppered with her long-time artistic trademarks (singing about “wanting to die,” vague L.A. spiritualism, a musical theatre edge), alongside some new zeitgeisty references to “girlhood” and being “cunt.”
‘CUNTISSIMO’, the album’s biggest single so far, is described as a “tribute to powerful women who own their sexuality”—a complete nothing sentence that perfectly encapsulates the ever so slightly past-its-sell-date brand of feminism that underscores PRINCESS OF POWER. Lyrically, the album finds itself in that impossible Lana Del Rey matrix of being pathetic but powerful, insecure but really hot. Musically, it remains an unmistakable MARINA album, which means a slight veering into the overly-syrupy.
Arguably—and you’d really have to argue—there IS something almost touching about songs like ‘HELLO KITTY’ and ‘ADULT GIRL’ in their inescapable triteness. Maybe it’s the triteness that makes them memorable, that means you end up with the lyric “Hello Kitty, make me go rah-rah” actually revealing itself as something that could be meaningful. “When you say Hello Kitty… make me go rah-rah,” you whisper to yourself, the words offering you comfort in their sheer mundanity, a single tear catching you off guard, pent up feelings released to this soundtrack of saccharine balladry. Perhaps this is the power of 2025’s MARINA—so sincere as to render herself insincere and back again. Or maybe it’s just a song about Hello Kitty, and psychosis is setting in after listening to whatever’s going on with ‘ROLLERCOASTER’.
There are still moments of your usual MARINA transcendence: ‘I <3 YOU’ is Eurovision excellence, ‘JE NE SAIS QUOI’ is silly and slinky (“You’re hotter than God!”), and ‘CUPID’S GIRL’ is an undeniable dancefloor banger. If PRINCESS OF POWER wasn’t trying so hard to have a Serious Societal Message, these tracks would be more than enough to satisfy your most curmudgeonly MARINA critic.
Throughout the entire album, you keep waiting for some subversion, a clever lyric, even the slightest hint she’s in on the joke—and it just never comes. PRINCESS OF POWER stays resolute in its commitment to being a musical montage of being a POWERFUL WOMAN who CRIES AT NIGHT. It’s auditory Tumblr feminism with pop princess production, year of release somehow 2025: camp, in spite of itself. You can’t shake the image of marketing men in a meeting, scheming over a slideshow of Pinterest users / Twitter stans / The Online. Ultimately, PRINCESS OF POWER is fine; just don’t expect anything beyond that.
“Marina Diamandis @ YouTube Theater 03 09 2022 (52297979764)” by Justin Higuchi is licensed under CC BY 2.0.