electra heart was a concept album released in 2012 by MARINA , all from the perspective of electra heart , a character marina pretended to be to change her music style completely without seeming inconsistent and to be everything she wasnt in a fictional character

marina describes electra heart as:

“Electra Heart is the girl you run into in the supermarket wearing a faux fur coat and sunglasses, leisurely picking through the avocado. Her cart is filled with champagne and strawberries and she doesn’t even care that you’ve been staring at her from the bakery aisle. She’s angsty, and you can tell that her phone conversation didn’t end well by the way she dramatically dropped her phone and wiped a solitary tear from her cheek. The same cheek that has a eyeliner-drawn heart on it.”

"I wanted to create this fictional character who was everything I was not, I wanted to be a strong, cold-hearted person. I feel like girls who are bitches always get the guy and never get hurt, ’cause that’s what we think! I wanted to create a character that allowed me to be like that.", said Marina in an interview for a Swedish tabloid in 2012.

the basic thing about electra heart is that she is the embodiment of a few stereotypes/archetypes as theyre called by marina

shes always either a housewife , homewrecker/heartbreaker , beauty queen , or ‘idle teen’ depending on the song

Shes selfish and egotistical , but underneath it all she has the lowest self esteem , and , in the words of the song teen idle , ‘super super super suicidal’

Although the entire album is the story of electra heart , there are 11 music videos in an entirely different order , 2 of which being interlude tracks which qre less then a minute long , with black and white visuals of electra heart and tranquil music , while slightly offputting voices talk in the background ( The Archetypes , SU-BARBIE-A )

and 2 of them were unreleased songs that werent put on streaming services until the 10th anniversary edition of electra heart [ the platinum blonde edition ] ( EVOL , Electra Heart )

although my theory abt the music videos is generally well accepted and popular in the fandom ,,, shut up jst let me ramble

the story around the music videos r VERY vague soo like ,, this is just how I interpreted them

NOTE - i HIGHLY recommend u check out teh music videos themselves ,, theyre all a playlist on MARINAs youtube , here https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLFE36A3E9ACC0F14C&si=0mWabbIKunSfSFJ3

• Part 1 - Fear And Loathing

  Electra Heart had just went through a breakup , which lead to her questioning her current life decisions and attempting to change herself for the better. She has done this many times , hence “been different people many times” She is missing her eyeliner-drawn heart on her cheek here , which i like to think as a measure of how big her ego is and how stable her mental state is. so currently , shes depressed and going through ‘fear and loathing’

• Part 2 - Radioactive

  Electra Heart finds someone new , theyre both toxic and destructive with eachother to the rest of the world and sometimes themselves , all while trying out a blonde wig. however , her eyeliner-drawn heart isnt present , implying that she rlly isnt enjoying herself in this relationship, and eventually electra heart dumps him ( baby im the one that left you , youre not the one that left me)

• Part 3 - The Archetypes

  Electra heart actually dyes her hair blonde , showing the world who she truly is ( or who she thinks she is ) . her eyeliner heart still isnt here , implying shes still loathing , but hiding it behind a false ego

• Part 4 - Primadonna

  ‘ fake it till u make it ‘ is REAALL !!! She starts dating a rich guy , and feels like shes on top of the world and is generally full of herself . this is the first appearance of her eyeliner heart , showing how inflated her ego has become

• Part 5 - SU-BARBIE-A

  Electra Heart has become a housewife , married to the man mentioned in the previous part. however , her face is shrouded in darkness , which symbolizes the sad part of becoming an american housewife : losing her identity entirely to being a suburban housewife . this is further shown with the audios of clips from barbie ads playing in the background while the opening to Valley Of The Dolls plays .. “but what will i do with my old barbies ?” this line specifically symbolizes her identity loss , how shes lost all of her old personality to being the average american housewife

• Part 6 - Power And Control

  Electra Heart’s marriage is quickly falling apart , they cheat on eachother , fight , and play tug-of-war for ‘power and control’ in the relationship

• Part 7 - How To Be A Heartbreaker

  They’ve divorced , and electra heart fucks around with new men ,, she has also dyed her hair back to her natural black color

• Part 8 - EVOL

  Electra hearts fun runs dry quickly , as she realizes she regrets the divorce and realizes how shitty shes felt after it . shes depressed and becoming a ‘dying beauty queen’ , foreshadowing the ending to her story

• Part 9 - the state of dreaming

  Shes realized how much shes fucked up her life by being narcissistic and taking everything for granted , knowing shes been ‘living in a make believe land’ where shes perfectly fine being alone and single

• Part 10 - Lies

  She begs for her husband back , but to no avail. the only ‘relationship’ shit she gets to do with him is when hes drunk and horny ..

• Part 11 - Electra Heart

  Her life has been ruined , her marriage has been ruined , her happiness has been lost , and she constantly begs to go back to the start , to go back to a time when she was happy , but in the end she kills herself , implied by the wiping off of her eyeliner heart at the end . this is consistantly implied as her life flashes by (snippets of the past parts) and the repeat of the line “lights they blind me” , basically being a rephrase of “the light at the end of the tunnel” , which symbolizes death . This is later confirmed by MARINA herself by stating “Electra Heart has been put to sleep with sleeping pills”