West London’s ornate Bush Hall recently played host to the woman we must call ’2010′s hottest pop sensation’, Marina and the Diamonds. The excellently-named Marina Diamandis (the ‘Diamonds’ part refers to her fans, rather than to her backing band, as might reasonably be supposed) has been tipped by music critics and pundits alike to be one of the most successful acts of the year. She’s been compared to singers as eclectic as Kate Bush, Alison Goldfrapp and, more tenuously, Britney Spears.
The amusing thing about Marina’s rise to fame is that it’s not some five-minute wonder, but the careful culmination of years of hard work. She might only be 24, but she originally attempted to start her career off treading the boards in the West End, before realising that her quirky talent was best expressed through creating her own songs, which have now been released on her debut album The Family Jewels, which has emerged to critical praise and healthy sales.
At her London gig to launch the album, the ever-glamorous Marina might have been feeling slightly under the weather – ‘I’ve got a fever, so I don’t want to sneeze over any of you’, she declared halfway through – but you’d never have known it from her stylish and thrillingly theatrical performance. With a powerful octave-spanning voice that seems more suited to arenas and festival fields that the comparatively bijoux surroundings of the Bush Hall, she performed most of the songs from her album with vim and pizzazz, thrilling the trendy Shepherd’s Bush crowd.
No mean shakes as a keyboardist, as shown by her performing solo at one point, she’s equally at home with finely crafted three minute pop songs (‘Hollywood’) and slowly unfolding torch songs (‘Obsessions). But the highlight of the night, as on album, is her beautiful paean to emotional insecurity, ‘I Am Not A Robot’, which was the first single that she released last year. Chances are that it’ll become one of the year’s defining songs come the festival period, and, on this showing, you wouldn’t begrudge her any of her success.
Find out more about Marina at www.marinaandthediamonds.com
