MARINA - Man's World - Single [Review]

Welsh indie pop musician Marina Diamandis (who formally went by Marina and the Diamonds and now goes simply by MARINA) released her fourth studio album LOVE + FEAR  in 2019, and less than two years later, she is now preparing to release her fifth album, with "Man's World" serving as the album's lead single. "Man's World" reminds me a lot of material from MARINA's third studio album FROOT, released in 2015. The electronic production, especially at the very beginning of the song, is strikingly reminiscent of the FROOT track "I'm a Ruin," and MARINA's vocals are similar to many of her vocals on FROOT in that they're somewhat echoed and distant. Not only does the song give me instantaneous FROOT vibes, but MARINA also said in an interview with Vogue that this album will be very different from LOVE + FEAR in that, like FROOT, it will feature minimal collaboration with others, and the fact that MARINA wrote and produced all of the tracks on FROOT is one of several reasons why I love it so much. I am consequently expecting a sort of FROOT Part II from this upcoming album and couldn't be any more excited by that prospect! That aforementioned interview with Vogue describes "Man's World" as ethereal, and I think that that word definitely describes the song well. Over the years and past four (soon to be five) albums, MARINA has captivated me with her soft porcelain vocals, her catchy hooks, her cynical and sassy anthems (see "Oh No!," "Sex Yeah," "Savages," etc.), and her dreamy and atmospheric melodies, and "Man's World" ultimately blends together everything that I love about her. I absolutely adore her (as previously mentioned) somewhat distant and dreamy vocals in the post-chorus of the song when MARINA suggests, "If you have a mother, daughter or a friend, maybe it's time, time you comprehend the world you live in ain't the same one as them..." That is definitely my favorite part of the song melodically, although my favorite lyrical part is in the first verse: "Burnt me at the stake; you thought I was a witch centuries ago. Now, you just call me a bitch." I also love how Diamandis makes it clear that she is addressing white, straight, able-bodied men who reap the benefits of and participate in institutionalized racism, homophobia, ableism, sexism, and so forth; she is not addressing all men. She makes this clear when she compares the struggles of gay men to that of women in the second verse: "...owned by a sheik who killed thousands of gay men." She also addresses issues such as climate change when she declares in the chorus that "mother nature's dying; nobody's keeping score." It's such a melodically and lyrically powerful song that I instantly loved upon first listen, and, as I said, I cannot wait to hear the album (which, according to Genius, is also going to be titled Man's World). (Update: We now have confirmation that the album will actually be titled Ancient Dreams in a Modern Land.)