Primadonna (Marina and the Diamonds song)

Background and concept

Diamandis first came up with the title for the track in July 2011. Recorded in October 2011, "Primadonna" was the last song to be recorded for Electra Heart and in her words, 'picked itself as the first single off the album.'

Diamandis has said of the song:

It's about not needing anybody when it comes to love—your raison d'être is to live for adoration. Girls usually feel like this when they are not appreciated in a relationship. The inspiration for the song came from an ex-boyfriend. He thought it was funny that I was a mega drama queen always talking "global love" this, "global love" that! He called me a prima donna. I love it but I also kind of hate it. Like they say, "You only hate in others what you hate in yourself", so I thought I'd channel this well-known but kind of undesirable character type into a pop song. As the saying goes (that I just made up): You've either been one or dated one at least once in your life.

Composition

"Primadonna" has a length of three minutes and thirty-eight seconds. It is a dance-pop song that blends grinding disco and electropop beats with elements of Europop. Diamandis' vocals in the song have been described as operatic. Revolving around an anti-chorus song structure, the chorus is sung in a high tone over sparkly instrumentation before the beat drops to grinding four on the floor verses, where she sings in the gravelly tones of her lower register. The song is composed in the key of A minor, with a tempo of 128 beats per minute, and it follows the chord progression Am-D-G-Em through the whole song.

Critical reception

Robert Copesy of Digital Spy rated the track four out of five stars, writing that in the line "Got you wrapped around my finger babe/You can count on me to misbehave", Diamandis "play[s] out one of many female archetypes that feature on her forthcoming LP—though we suspect it's one she identifies with best." Sam Lansky of MTV Buzzworthy described it as "a monster song" and "a muscular uptempo joint", concluding, "Evoking Kate Bush on the high notes and then cascading down to the gravelly tones of her lower register, Marina's voice packs the track with verve and personality." Katherine St Asaph of Popdust gave the song three-and-a-half stars "edging toward 4", referring to it as "a big ball of irony sprinkled with mockery and shoved beneath a blonde wig, roots be damned". On the other hand, Luke Turner of the NME wrote that in the wake of Madonna's contributions, "plonkers like Marina have got empowerment wrong, coming up with this: Europop fart beats and cloying vocals. Marina would do well to learn that ego needs something to back it up, which you won't find in this giant guff of saccharine nothing." Also, Elizabeth McGeown, writing for Irish webzine State, dismissed "Primadonna" as a "wannabe feminist [anthem] disguised in a Mean Girls-esque dialogue. Admittedly, it doesn't take itself seriously. Heavily pop culture laden, it contains a tongue-in-cheek superficiality."

"Primadonna" was well received within the first hours of its release to radio by fans and new listeners alike, especially on the social networking site Twitter where it was a worldwide trending topic.

Chart performance

"Primadonna" debuted at number eleven on the UK Singles Chart with 25,337 copies sold in its first week, giving Diamandis her highest-charting single in the United Kingdom to date. As of March 2014, the song had sold 205,000 copies in the UK. In its third week on the Irish Singles Chart, "Primadonna" rose to a new peak of number three, becoming Diamandis's highest-charting single in Ireland as well. The song peaked at number four in New Zealand, her first single to chart in that country.

"Primadonna" also saw success on pop radio formats in the United States, bubbling under the respective Billboard Pop Songs chart. The song also saw a certain amount of club play, almost charting on the Hot Dance Club Songs chart.

Music video

The music video was directed by Casper Balslev and shot in Copenhagen. It serves as the fourth part of the Electra Heart series, for which Balslev also directed the videos for part 1 ("Fear and Loathing") and part 2 ("Radioactive"). The video premiered on 12 March 2012, the same day as the song's release to UK radio. Two days prior to the video's release, Diamandis released a fifteen-second preview of the video.