How Marina & The Diamonds Changed Pop Music Forever

The success of artists like Billie Eilish and Melanie Martinez can be traced back to Marina & The Diamonds early work

Marina Diamandis (known as ‘Marina’ and previously known as ‘Marina and The Diamonds’) released her debut studio album, ‘The Family Jewels’ in February 2010 — over ten years ago. By no reasonable measure was the album a ‘flop’ — it went to number 5 in the UK (and stayed in the top 100 for over 30 weeks) and, it produced 3 top 40 singles (the most of any Marina album to date). However, the album doesn’t get the recognition it deserves (it is not widely regarded as being a definitive album of the 2010's). Yet, it is one of the most important albums of the last decade — single-handedly changing pop music in the years after it’s release.

Marina’s path to fame sounds almost predictable nowadays (writing your own music, producing it on GarageBand, and releasing it independently on the internet). However, at the time Marina was discovered (late 2000s), this was a markedly less common way to come to prominence. Yet, it allowed Marina to craft her own unique image in a way few other artists could. The result of Marina’s journey from a Myspace musician to a commercially successful artist who was billed as the ‘next big thing’ was ‘The Family…