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Around the end of 2021, Marina Diamandis found herself at something of a crossroads. The Welsh-born, LA-based musician had recently released her fifth album and, in doing so, completed the contract she’d signed with Atlantic Records as a 21-year-old ingenue doing the rounds of the London indie-pop circuit. The following decade of trudging through the endless cycle of recording, releasing, promoting, and touring had left Diamandis with unresolved chronic health issues. Finally feeling that she had a moment to breathe, she took some time off to get herself well again.
“I was consuming a lot of music and media and books that felt uplifting, and positive, and supportive. It’s kind of difficult to explain, because it doesn’t sound very fun,” Diamandis says from her home in Los Angeles. “But I think when you’re at a place in your life where you’re really desperately trying to change your internal world, you have to give yourself things that feel different energetically.”
The musical product of that reset period? Diamandis’s sixth album, out today and titled, in a nod to her newfound sense of freedom and purpose as an independent artist, Princess of Power. With its mischievous spirit (the lead single, “Butterfly,” features a candyfloss-sweet chorus of the singer’s vocals pitched up like she’s inhaled a helium balloon) and the palpable sense of joy and self-possession that courses through much of the record (the escapist thrill of “Rollercoaster,” say, or the defiant kiss-off of “Final Boss”), it marks a true return to form for pop music’s most playful provocateur.
Here, Diamandis talks to Vogue about striking out on her own, how making the album taught her to love herself in a different way, and the story behind her winking tribute to Salma Hayek on the deliciously titled standout track “Cuntissimo.”
Vogue: Good morning, Marina! Where am I finding you today?
Marina: I’m honestly just in my bed in LA, all propped up. I shot a new video the day before yesterday, and I’m kind of still recovering.
Was it an intense shoot?
It was, actually. It was 14 hours, and really fun, but there was a lot of dancing. There was also some wire work, which I’ve never done before.
Wow. How are you feeling at this stage, two weeks before the album comes out? Do you tend to get pre-release jitters, and does it feel any different this time around?
I don’t get jitters, per se. I feel much more excited, more than anything. And also just curious to see how people are going to react—particularly with this record. It’s definitely a pop record, but it feels quite varied, especially compared to the singles that have come out so far. Obviously, every time I feel really inspired by something, I hope that other people feel similar. But with art, you can never control it. You just don’t know how people are going to connect to it—and if they are even going to connect to it, based on my past experiences. But I feel really good. I’m ready to get into it, and start being out in the world again.
It’s your first record as an independent artist. Can you tell me a little more about your journey there, and why it felt like the right time to strike out on your own?
I had been with Atlantic for five records—and with my publisher, actually—and so after those deals were done, I just didn’t bother re-signing with anybody. I didn’t really see the point, which is a privilege that’s only afforded to an established artist, unfortunately. I think it’s very difficult to be completely independent if you’re starting out. I spent a couple of years just figuring out what kind of record I wanted to make, and then I actually ended up doing a partnership deal for just one record with BMG. So it’s not solely independent, but essentially what it means is that I have my own record label. I have investment from someone else, but I get to decide what to do with it, which is really the key thing. That’s usually the main point of frustration for a lot of artists: you want to do a certain type of video, but then you have to get 20 people to sign off on a budget. I don’t have to do that anymore, which is great.
Take me back to the beginning of writing the record. I read that you were coming out of quite a turbulent period with your health, and that you started writing it almost as something to help lift you out of that. Is that correct?
It’s sort of accurate, although actually, when I started writing the record, it wasn’t too turbulent anymore. I was kind of out of the bad zone. I’d had, basically, seven years of chronic health issues that I couldn’t get to the bottom of. And then the summer before I started writing this record, I really committed to recovering and figuring out what was causing them. And so the first song I wrote was “Everybody Knows I’m Sad,” which is euphoric, but also kind of bleak lyrically. And then as I started to write a few more songs, like “Rollercoaster” and “Butterfly.” I was listening to loads of Kylie [Minogue], a lot of ’70s music, some ABBA, and Madonna, of course, who has always been such a huge influence for me. I think such a big element of this album is play, and reawakening that part of myself. I just hadn’t felt it for such a long time.
Why did “Butterfly” feel like the right single to lead with? Obviously, the butterfly metaphor speaks for itself, but with those zany vocals in the chorus, it felt like a big swing…
Yeah, I know that I don’t always make it easy for myself. [Laughs.] I know that’s a Marmite song. But I couldn’t separate it from the fact that it had to come first. I love a concept, and so how I was unveiling it had to make sense to me as a story, and I couldn’t imagine anything else leading.
I have to ask you about “Cuntissimo,” as well—that title alone. Do you remember where you were when that word first popped into your head? And how did the song unfold from there?
I think I was in the studio on my own, just writing. I think I did actually come up with the title first. I was looking at loads of photos of older glamorous women, and that was really the focal point of the track, but in a silly, playful way. I think, being 39, I’m obviously thinking about aging and how I want to walk into this next chapter as a woman, especially one with a public-facing job. And looking to older, powerful women really inspired me. One of the greatest lies that we’re told as women, or as girls, is that you lose your value as you get older. And by trying to stop the aging process, you deny yourself a lot of the power that lies on the other side of not being young anymore. Sophia Loren was a big inspiration. Salma Hayek, obviously. She’s just fab in every way. I think as women living in a patriarchal society, we always need art—whether that’s films, or music, or books—that support our confidence and empowerment. So that’s what “Cuntissimo” was about.
I saw the video of Salma Hayek dancing to the song and saying she loved it, which is pretty major.
Oh, my God. I literally shed a tear when I watched it.
You used the word playful, and I think one of the traits that shines through on this album is your sense of humor. That felt like a big part of your music at the beginning, but was maybe less present on your past two albums. Why do you think that returned to the forefront this time around?
I think it’s because I’m feeling alive, and good in life. Obviously, as an artist, sometimes you are in a different phase. The previous record was made in 2020, so we were living in very different times, and they were very political, partly because of that. And yeah, I just hadn’t felt like myself for a long time. I think humor is really just a sign that you’re thriving. If you’re feeling playful, you’re not in survival mode anymore. And I think, again, it wasn’t something that I decided. I was just following my gut instincts, and how I was feeling. And that was making me feel really happy.
The theme of power, and how power expresses itself, does still feel quite political. Do you think that came to the forefront because you’re a newly independent artist? Or were you just interested in trying to define or discover those different—and often more feminine—modes of what it means to be powerful?
I think that’s just been something on my own journey that I’m learning. I think also, particularly with entertainment and celebrity, we have been sold this archetype of what it is to be powerful. And now that we’ve seen so many men fall, and the systems they relied on having been exposed, a lot of us now realize that power has really been about manipulation and control of people. And that, actually, a lot of people aren’t who we think they are. And so it makes you think, Okay, well, what does it mean to be empowered?
I think one of the biggest themes for this record really is teaching myself what love is. I just wasn’t ever very good at protecting myself. And I think that making this has given me the ability to redefine love for myself. Even in everyday relationships, what is actually attachment-based behavior, or behavior that is trying to keep our nervous system secure, is taught as being love—and it actually isn’t. It’s kind of hard to talk about, but it really has been a main inspiration in the last 18 months. Which is strange as well, because I haven’t been in a relationship during that time. I’ve actually not really dated at all.
That’s another big theme of the album, though: that showing or expressing love doesn’t have to be seen as an admission of weakness. Did those realizations feed into the music in ways you found interesting or unexpected?
Yeah, massively. I think I’ve always struggled with that: that if I show love in some way, I’ll be taken advantage of. I’ve had that since I was pretty young—definitely since my late teens. That was a very formative stage for me in life, the events that happened around that time. My process is still trying to remove all of that debris so that I can actually be myself, and love as myself. It’s been incredibly tough. But that’s just part of my journey and what I’ve had to do, so it always bleeds into the music.
Tell me a little more about the visual world you wanted to build around the album.
I was doing something unusual when I was writing the record. I’d have a title idea for a song, and then I’d make a whole mood board for it before writing it, which I’ve never done before. For “Rollercoaster” and “I <3 U,” I had these mood boards that were really explosive in color, and felt textural and very vibrant. I don’t know if I’ve communicated that in the final product, but that’s what the nucleus was. It was definitely very vintage; a lot of throwback references. I have a really good creative director, I have to say, who has really been integral to shaping all of this, Bethany Vargas. But I think aside from the mood boards, it’s being about communicating femininity in a way that feels natural for me at this point in my life as a woman. Even with the album cover, I knew that I just wanted a bare, or semi-clothed back on the cover. I didn’t know anything else at the time—that there would be a corset, or ribbons. I just felt like it communicates sensuality, but not in a male gaze-y way. It’s more just letting femininity and sensuality shine, and not in a way that’s overtly sexual or shocking. And again, that’s just reclaiming parts of myself that I feel like I have had to keep wrapped up to keep people around me comfortable. I’ve come from quite a conservative culture on my Greek side. I’m sure a lot of women feel this, but with our sexual energy, it can feel like we’ve been taught that it’s this thing we have to temper. But if you do temper it, I think it throws your internal balance off. I think sexual energy is really important to our general health and contentedness, and again, it’s just gone so skew-whiff because of history. So I’ve been healing some of that as well.
Returning to what you said earlier, about having more control over where you can allocate budget—did that have anything to do with the videos being a bigger thing this time around?
Yeah, definitely. The last two records, they actually didn’t have a creative director on them, and I think it’s really important to have that person as a team member that helps you pull everything together, instead of doing it all solo. So with this one, it was like I had this intention for the album to create a kind of energy, and I was sort of writing it for other people—but the visual world was very much for myself. It might be because I haven’t had a distinctive visual world for a minute, but I was like, I just want to be able to create this beautiful landscape around the album for me, so that I can feel good about it in years to come. And it’s worked so far.
And how are you going to celebrate when the record comes out?
I’m just thinking about what I have on. I think I’m doing Pride that day, and then I have Governor’s Ball the next day. So I honestly don’t know. I’ll probably just have a beautiful martini somewhere with my team. But at some point in that week, I do want to have a crazy one. I just don’t know which night we can do it… we’ve got a lot on. But we’ll find a time.