MARINA - Please Don't Call Me [Unreleased Song] [Review]

[cover art by Marina Downloads, from whom you can also download the song]

I am doing something really unusual here in reviewing an unreleased song, unusual not only for me personally because I don't believe that I have ever done it before but also unusual in general because music reviewers don't usually review unreleased music. I could not resist discussing this song, however, not only because I am such a big fan of MARINA but also because the song is fantastic. Titled "Please Don't Call Me," the song was recorded two years ago for her fourth studio album LOVE + FEAR but unfortunately ended up on the cutting room floor. I admit that when I first heard the song, I wasn't all that impressed because like some of the other LOVE + FEAR songs such as "True" and "You," the song is pretty mainstream Top 40 sounding compared to the indie sound to which most MARINA fans are accustomed. (Even MARINA's second studio album Electra Heart is a pop album while also breaking several rules of pop music, calling back to what MARINA said years ago about her mission as a musician - to be an indie artist with pop ambitions.) After listening to "Please Don't Call Me" several times, however, it quickly grew on me and became one of my favorite songs from the LOVE + FEAR era. The clubby and summery vibes on its production make its intention for LOVE + FEAR obvious, and it would have sounded great next to "No More Suckers," especially since both songs deal somewhat with the same subject manner - choosing being alone over being with people who try to take advantage of you. The chorus is one of the catchiest choruses from the LOVE + FEAR era songs. MARINA, in a fast tempo, sings, "Please don't call me. It's getting me down, down. You straight up ignore me 'til I'm around-round; then you're all about me. This ain't what I want to feel from you."  I find the song to be very relatable as I have dealt with guys like this in the past. One ex in particular always seemed happy to be around me in person (for the most part), but when we were apart, he barely gave me the time of day - rarely responding to text messages and promising to text when he got back home from work and then never following up and doing so. Whenever I would point this out to him, he would apologize, but things never changed, so I eventually called it off. In the second verse of the song, MARINA sums up why I called it off so perfectly well: "You make me feel like I'm not a priority, spinning your wheels for another apology." It's funny that it reminds me a bit of Madonna's song "Miles Away" (from her 2008 album Hard Candy), except that the speaker of that song seems to be dealing with the opposite problem (someone who is loving over the phone but not in person): "You always have the biggest heart when we're 6,000 miles apart... You always love me more miles away." Even though "Please Don't Call Me" is a pop song about a relatively shallow subject (at least in comparison to songs like "I Am Not a Robot," "Sex Yeah," "Savages," and "To Be Human"), it definitely hits home for me, and it's a shame that it wasn't included, especially since one of the songs included ("Baby") had already been released on Clean Bandit's album What Is Love?. "Please Don't Call Me" should have been placed on the FEAR side of the album (as I said, alongside "No More Suckers"), while "Soft to Be Strong" should have been placed somewhere on the LOVE side of the album (instead of "Baby," a song that does not represent love at all anyway, instead representing wistfulness and regret).