After Marina Satti placed 11th at Eurovision 2024, she got to work. “ZARI,” the bombastic and hypnotic entry for Greece, was included on P.O.P, her clubby, off the wall EP later that year. The record mixed Greek folk music with neoperreo’s hard rhythms, making her Greece’s answer to ROSALíA, a sweet-voiced singer who knows how to make a banger. The seven-track EP was sunny, vibrant, revealing both her operatic singing and experimental approach to pop music; “MIXTAPE,” with its handful of guest features, shapeshifts and stretches past ten minutes.
Now with the follow-up, her sophomore album POP TOO, Satti refines her — still haphazard — vision into a set of beguiling anthems. She hops around from indie rock (“ANATOLI,” “BLOUZAKI”), Nelly Furtado-minted indie pop (“AUTOKINHTO”), synthy, cheeky numbers that place emphasis over ass than cash (“IGAGA!”), and, of course, her signature bouncy club jams (“ELA ELA,” “LOLA,” and its climax, “EPANO STO TRAPEZI”). It’s a disorienting and mesmerizing mix.
That Satti can keep up with all of these different sounds is somewhat of a miracle — with a less charismatic performer, the record might overstay its welcome (even if it’s still a half-hour). But the relative simpleness of electro-house “EPANO STO TRAPEZI” or the shiny, calypso-laden “KAVOURAKIA” allow her to some brave, new places. The closer, “POP,” which is aptly subtitled “all the voices in my head,” mixes industrial beats with techno, reggaetón, where she dons the titles “fashion killer,” “Eurotrash,” and “mother.” “All the voices in my head / Got me tripping in my bed,” she closes the voyage. She handles it pretty well.
While the translation of “IGAGA!” or “ELA ELA” aren’t surprising with their typical riffs on beauty and money, others are more interesting than they let on. “EPANO STO TRAPEZI” reckons a panic attack alongside global issues with a surprising touch: “Comedy show, nine o’clock news / Shut your mouth and open your eyes… Searching [for] something to eat, they’re watching the war.” And following her Eurovision stint, “LOLA” worries about the European public’s view of her, with the lines, “A Spanish popstar wannabe / How does she represent our country?” She wonders if her skirt is too short, if she’s making a good example for children, before realizing she’s firm in her identity as a Greek woman. “I’m stuck in their throat like a bone,” she repeats.
The same goes for “BYE BYE,” where Negros Tou Moria is the only guest feature that bolsters the song. “He’s humble, don’t mean he’s invisible,” Tou Moria raps about his place as a Black Grecian, “Soul and drama bring Black Greece together.” Its pounding rhythm thumps with anger and drive, the beat shaky and explosive; more of the simpler, quieter cuts could benefit from this ferocity.
While her most bombastic songs are certainly more striking, POP TOO expands on Marina Satti’s zaniness and unique vision in left-field pop, serious and silly all at once. She’s remaking pop music on her own terms, within her own cultural identity, and it sounds pretty damn fun.
Order POP TOO by Marina Satti HERE
