MARINA’S Ancient Dreams in a Modern Land: Social Critique Meets Pop-Rock Excellence

By Sergio Niblett-Morales 11 November 2021

Image Courtesy of Atlantic Records

MARINA (formally Marina and the Diamonds), a staple of Pop-Rock music in the 2010s, returned this year with her fifth studio album Ancient Dreams in a Modern Land.

From infectious choruses to unique melodic variations, the album is punctuated by MARINA’s creative flair and cements her place as one of Pop-Rock’s greatest visionaries.

Album Analysis

MARINA’s powerful songwriting is one of the album’s strongest aspects. Ancient Dreams in a Modern Land provides a vast social critique of the 21st century, extending from the mistreatment of women to climate change.

The title track, Ancient Dreams in a Modern Land, opens the album and sets MARINA’s lyrical tone excellently. Here MARINA tackles the notion of conformity to societal expectations and how they should be challenged.

The rolling rhythm of ‘You don’t have to be like everybody else/You don’t have to fit into the norm/You are not here to conform’ emphasises this critique and is a lyrical strongpoint of the track.

MARINA then tightens this critique at the end of the second verse, with ‘We’re now living in seminal age/The walls are being broken and we’re ready for change’, alluding to the need to break down barriers between people and embrace individuality - which is at the crux of her critique of conformity.

This willingness to embrace individuality is synthesised with her musical presence as an artist who is willing to break the mould with her unique Pop-Rock sound.

Like many of the songs on the album, Purge the Poison is a Pop-Rock track infused with electropop elements and drumbeats. In the song’s post-chorus, MARINA goes into her upper register, reaching an almost operatic tone.

In a bold move, she assumes the voice of Mother Earth in the lines ‘Need to purge the poison from our system/Until human beings listen/Tell me, who’d you think you are?’. Despite MARINA questioning the state of humanity’s existence and social acceptability, she handles the content well and avoids preaching to her audience.

My favourite track on the album, Venus Fly Trap, is a flamboyant and wonderfully garish song that is reminiscent of Pop-Rock tracks from the early 2000s. MARINA described the song on Twitter as a ‘celebration of self-ownership, confidence + joy that comes from truly being free’.

The chorus, ‘I got the beauty, got the brains/Got the power, hold the reigns/I should be motherfucking crazy’ is outlandish in its lyrical content and brimming with boldness.

The mistreatment of women, LGBTQ+ rights and climate change are at the core of the album’s next instalment - Man’s World, a midtempo piano-backed track.

MARINA’s lyrical genius shines in the first and second verses (‘Burnt me at the stake, you thought I was a witch/Centuries ago, now you just call me a bitch’). Moreover, the song’s many lyrical flourishes are both intelligently crafted and emotionally impactful.

In Highly Emotional People, MARINA discusses men’s emotional health: ‘People say men don’t cry/It’s so much easier to tell a lie/’Til someone takes their life/Emotions are part of our design.’

As she stated in an interview with Nylon, ‘It just doesn’t seem fair that men are kind of punished for being emotional in a way.’ One of the strongest tracks on the album, this soft piano ballad with a flush of synths, details the vulnerability of emotions exquisitely.

New America, a relatively fast-paced track adorned by strings and drums, is another song in which MARINA takes on social critique.

The pre-chorus tackles racial injustice head-on in the lyrics ‘You got a white picket fence and your dad’s got a gun/And when you see the police, there’s no reason to run,' whereas other aspects of the song critique modern food production.

The album’s slower tracks are just as melodically strong as their faster counterparts. The way that MARINA repeats ‘my friend, my friend’ into a fade-out in the closing track Goodbye, perfectly captures the emotion of leaving behind your past self in order to grow and evolve.

Verdict

Ancient Dreams in a Modern Land delivers on everything that MARINA stands for, both sonically and lyrically. From Pop-Rock anthems (like Venus Fly Trap and Purge the Poison) to slow ballads (like Highly Emotional People and Goodbye), the album is unique and memorable.