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Finally, we’ve reached the end of the ranking—Here I Am! Truthfully, I actually like Nevermore a little bit more, but I wanted to end it with Here I Am as I think it would be a great note to end on. Also, in case someone might mention Set Me Free, I do think it is an entirely different era, but I consider the album itself to almost be the same as Here I Am. So I’m going to mostly talk about Here I Am and mention a little about Set Me Free. I also want to focus on the era rather than the songs, since I’m sure most of you guys are aware about this album.
To start things off, I’ll first go over the end of M2M and how it influenced the production of Here I Am. When M2M was abruptly sent back home during the summer of 2002, Marion was overwhelmed with the media. She recalled on her experiences with the paparazzi coming to her house uninvited. Her parents were on vacation, and there was no one else in the house. She was scared, so she called her brother to shoo them away. On top of that, there was a lot of misinformation that got spread by people who didn’t have Marion’s best interest, and she didn’t have any reliable people to tell her what to say or do. So she was basically left to try to navigate by herself, and she regretted going out doing these interviews. I want to mentioned that I’ve spent a lot of time searching for media content that covers 2002-2004, but it is hard to find them. But on the very little that I had found, there is ONE interview that I thought was very interesting, and this interviewer asked Marion, “It may be that you are launched now. It goes wrong, and then you come home to Norway and become the host of a TV show that will be closed after a fairly short time. And then it's all over. How will you take it?” And it was very eye-opening to me because she hadn’t even released an album yet, and the interviewer was already trying to bring misfortune on her. And interviewers tend to ask the same questions, so it wouldn’t surprise me if Marion got so many similar questions about her career failing. And it wouldn’t surprise me if she got fed up with these questions, which unfornately, it ended up backfiring on her. Older Norwegians who were there when it happen would know this better than I would, but Marion went on a show called Torsdagsklubben as a guest. And the hosts were very pushy about her having a twenty million contract, but Marion confirmed in 2014 that number was not right and wasn’t sure where that came from. Essentially, one of the hosts asked if Marion would work in the counter of a store once her career failed, and you can probably imagine she didn’t like this. And she joked, “No, with the twenty million I would never do that.” Unfortunately, people took that as face value and actually believed she had a twenty million contract. People were very hard on Marion, and she got booed. A few years ago, I managed to find a Norwegian forum where they talked about the incident, and all they basically didn’t had a positive impression on Marion (unfornately, I regret to inform that I can’t find it anymore, so take it as you will). But to emphasize this, I need people to understand that Marion was 18 during this time, and so many people were harping on her—saying that she didn’t contribute to the success of M2M and that she was not talented. People focus so much on the joke (whether or not you consider it a good one or not) that they don’t realized Marion was getting belittled and treated as though she had no talent. Marion has said that she felt like she had to prove herself and put on a brave face because that’s how the US music industry was like. I think because of these cultural differences too people in Norway were so quick to label her as the bitch.
So tying this back to how Here I Am was made, Marion fought with her label to make the music that she wanted to make, and it took her a really long time. I think the music video for her debut single, End of Me, was her trying so hard to prove her worth. The piano riff from 13 Days plays before the single starts, and I’m sure this is Marion trying to show that she is skilled artist and not just some pretty face. It is a shame that people dismiss this album. Someone has said that there were too many cooks in the kitchen, and I do agree with that. Some songs really shouldn’t have been on the album (*cough*AttheEndoftheDay*cough*), and I can see how a grown man who might like Heads Will Roll but not like the rest of the album. There are shortcomings, for sure, but it’s also sad how quickly people tend to brush off this album. If I had to describe Here I Am, it’s a mixture of 2000’s girl pop rock (e.g. Get Me Out of Here, Break You, Here I Am) and 90’s rock influences. I don’t think people brings this up enough, but there is definitely something 90’s about some of the songs—Here I Am’s Heads Will Roll is grungier than Set Me Free’s version. And there are also Gotta Be Kidding; Let Me Introduce Myself; and (my second favorite Marion song ever and I strongly recommend listening to it if you haven’t yet) Six Feet Under…there is a quality to these songs that remind me of the 90’s, and there are signs she took some inspiration from artists like Alanis Morissette and Fiona Apple.
To wrap things up, I hope the past couple of days show that Marion has always been a great artist. For sure there are things I don’t agree with and pointed them out, but she has shown her range and depth. And I appreciate her for trying different things and wanting to grow even back in 2002. Because being an artist has been something she has always wanted, she spent so much of her youth in a very difficult industry and sacrificed a lot. From moving to NY alone as a young adult and then moving to LA. And even putting her solo activities on pause to be on the Meatloaf duet and tour. In Nevermore, there’s two songs, Blackbird and After You, that talk about her feeling old and used, and it reminds me when Marit said she felt old too (and only felt like her age until recently). I’m glad more people are talking about it, but I still don’t think it gets emphasized enough how young artists go through such difficult schedules and how much that ages them. And that can be very traumatizing as well. She has said that she blocked out her memories from the M2M days, and she only has her diary from that time that she wished she wrote more.
But Marion has always been open minded to trying different activities and taking chances. Like people could very easily dunk on her for taking part as a judge on the X Factor or Idol Norge—that’s usually something people don’t think highly of when singers part take in, especially back at that time. However, she found it enjoyable and liked giving advice to young aspiring artists, which one of her advises was that you can’t expect to go on a show and think you’ll be famous. You have to keep pushing and work hard or else people will forget about you. And that’s exactly what Marion has done for herself, and now she’s very happy where she’s at. Thinking back to all those people who were telling Marion that her music career was going to fail versus her career today, what people can learn from this is this: Sometimes you don’t get the life you thought you wanted, but you can carve out a path to the life that you actually want. And that’s exactly what Marion did.
Thank you to everyone who has read up to that point! I really appreciate it, and I hope maybe when I’m not burnout I can create my own documentary to M2M as a love letter. I’ve said this so many times, but there is a lot that I really wanted to talk about but had to leave out.
See you guys in the top ten songs!
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It was the album that was supposed to be released after Set Me Free (2007), and there haven’t been any solid reasons as to why it got shelved. Allegedly, Eleven Seven, the record label that Marion was on at the time, went bankrupt, but I can’t verify if this is true. The only source that implies this is most likely true is where an article talks about the label going through a new name in 2019. Marion, herself, has actually also talked about Nevermore in a Norwegian podcast, but a reliable translator who used to be part of the fanbase mentioned that she was extremely vague. So unfortunately, there’s not much to go off from that actually explains why Nevermore got shelved. But regardless of the reason, it is such a shame that it never got to be officially released. After Nevermore, Marion released Songs from a Blackbird, which meant we never got a sendoff for her rock career. And Nevermore could have been that. Allegedly, again, Marion wasn’t happy with how Nevermore came out, but for me, I think it’s still a great album. It showed Marion’s range in not only as a singer but a songwriter too. If she was given more time to do some revisions and replace some of the weaker songs, this could’ve been her best body of work. Some of the weaker songs were actually the ones that managed to be released, Flesh and Bone and Found Someone, but they’re such a misrepresentation of the rest of the album. Flesh and Bone has a more electronic, pop sound, meanwhile Found Someone can be described as a Christian song. They just don’t fit with the hard rock/post grunge songs or darker themes. Some of these songs are the hardest she has ever gone in any of her discography. The most obvious one, Backstabbing Bitch, has a guitar riff that’s very reminiscent of early 2000’s post-grunge (think of Meant to Live by Switchfoot but harder.) It’s a song that probably wouldn’t do well with today because of the lyrics, but I really enjoy how Marion belts out here. Very melodic chorus too. We Are Dead is also a great hard hitting ending to the album. It does seem like it’s a commentary on society—it actually is VERY relevant today still—lyrics like “We have silenced ourselves” and “Just change the channel til you’re comfortable and numb” remind me that Marion has a lot more range than people think. Another great song—and my FAVORITE song Marion has ever made—is Rosemarie. This song was inspired by the Rosemarie Fritz case, which to summarize the song, it’s about how Rosemarie turned a blind eye to her husband’s horrible doings to their daughter. It’s such a dark topic, and it’s the second time she had written a song about a famous case—the first time was For You I’ll Die, which was inspired by the girlfriend of The Door’s frontman Jim Morrison. It shows that Marion can actually be a very interesting songwriter when she wants to be, and it’s a shame she hasn’t wrote such a unique song like Rosemarie since then.
This post is already so long, but one more thing that I do want to bring up, which is the song Heartless. It was leaked years ago at the time, and it was /allegedly/ supposed to be on the Twilight soundtrack (I have some random facts about Marion and Twilight, but I’ll share them in a different post eventually.) But since the Twilight soundtrack was under Atlantic, Marion’s chances were pretty much zero. Which again, another unfortunate blocking of Marion’s career launching. Sometimes I wonder how Marion’s career would have gone if she was on the soundtrack. Give her an actual high quality music video and then follow up with a single that might appeal to Twilight fans (in this case, I think Vital Signs would have been a good option), and promoted herself and show off her personality, and she might have a chance. But as a stands, the album remains extremely underrated and known mostly to fans. 😔
There’s two more songs from this album that I want to talk about, but I’ll save it for last ranking. I have so, so much to talk about for the last one. I hope everyone has enjoyed it at least learned something new.
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Coming next to the ranking is Scandal Vol 1&2. I’m not sure if there would be anyone who would object with me putting these two albums (ep?) together, but I count them as one era as they’re basically created around and released not that far from each other. And sonically, they’re not that different from each other to warrant separate a review, and I basically hear very similar thoughts about these two. (But if anyone is wondering, I do think the second half of the album is better.)
Anyways, in some ways, it does feel off to me to put these albums so high. They both quite messy albums, and I don’t agree with some of the musical choices being made. For example, there’s this piano note being played repeatedly at the introduction of The Beginning of the End; I understand what Marion was going for there, but it is overbearing and distracting. Or sometimes the mixing is off like the bridge in Running. There’s songs that definitely could have been removed and just have one album with the best songs that told a certain narrative. I did attempted to do my own revision of which songs made it to the tracklist and what order I would want it to go. I’m really happy with the first three order; I’d have to think about if I’m happy with the rest. But yeah…it’s a lot of songs, so that’s why Marion broke it up to two parts. To give some context, when Marion released Songs from a Blackbird, it had been about six years since she was able to release anything body of work. And she had a shelved another album because of record label issues. So with Scandal Vol. 1&2, it’s very easy to see that she was really excited to be able to release music. It does feel like she was making time that she lost. But like I mentioned before, this was a messy output with different genres kind of all over the place, and it could have been fine tuned a little more. If I had to put my “objective lens” on, I would rank these two last. But it’s high as it is because I really love some of these songs here. Scoundrels Like You is one of her best written songs she has ever written, if not THE best—it’s well structured and actually has a bit of a personality. The bass line is so good too. I did mentioned the production is messy through these albums, but this song has to be one of the tightest production. Just *chef’s kiss*. This song does not get enough recognition. Like a Moth and Goodbye My Love are the stand outs as they’re her few theatrical songs in her discography. Marion has said that she took inspiration from other people for this album, but something tells me that she was also inspired by her own personal life. This album was made before her divorce, and her ex-husband was still in the credits. But when you piece these two songs together in hindsight, along with a couple of others, you realize the album was basically signaling the end of the relationship. I think knowing this, it doesn’t made Goodbye My Love even sadder. But while it does cover the rocky relationships, it’s not all about relationships. Like for example, You Get Up Again is about being there for someone. While Never Gonna Get It is about how Marion is not the teenager girl that most people remember her as, meanwhile Better than This is about the fleeting moment of being on stage and enjoying a certain time of your life while also moving forward. These are songs are interesting in particular because you can tell if someone is an actual fan of Marion or not depending on how they talk about Better than This. More fans should listen to Never Gonna Get It for the message she wants to say.
Before I end this, I do want to talk a little bit about this time. I mentioned before that Marion has stopped updating specifically to the international fans about ten years ago. Well, this is the time where she ultimately stopped giving updates altogether. I believe it was during her time being an opening act for Lionel Richie. She had released a new version of Songs from a Blackbird with some of the songs being replaced with Scandal Vol 1&2 songs. And if I’m correct, she was trying to get an international deal, so she can release her music in other countries. But like you already know, it didn’t work out, so she mostly focuses releasing music in Norway. A sad story for us, but like you also know, she’s doing more than well for herself.
See you guys in the next post.
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Starting with the first album for the event, it pains me to put Songs from a Blackbird last because I don’t think it’s her weakest album at all. Actually, if I was ranking this based on what I think is her best rather than my favorite, this album would actually be a lot higher. Maybe top three? Anyways, it’s last mostly because I realized much like Spark, I don’t really come back to this album a lot. I think it’s very cohesive, and several songs sound like it could’ve been from the 70’s. The highlights of that album are Driving and the extremely underrated You and I. I will say, my least favorite respect about this album are the lyrics. Driving is one of her best written songs as well as Never Leave Me, but I’m not a fan of the extremely vague lyrics that a lot of these songs have. In particular, On Fire is the most guilty of being nondescript, and that song had three songwriters in total. Honestly, the weakest lyrics she has ever put out on an album, and it’s my least favorite Marion song ever. (Sorry On Fire fans. 😔) But there IS a very reasonable explanation for this, and IIRC it’s because Marion wanted keep it more on the vague side because, in the past, she usually wrote her lyrics more openly and this time she wanted to keep some things to herself. So that’s why the lyrics were more nondescript. But imo, you can still be an interesting songwriter without needing it to be personal. And before I talk about this era, I wanted to give a little context before this album came out. Marion had came back to Norway around 2010 to be a judge on X Factor, and she was around 26-years-old. She had been grinding and working so hard throughout her 20’s, trying to make an intentional career, but it didn’t work out for her. So when she had gotten a call in LA to join the TV show, you can probably imagine how exhausted she was and just wanted to go home. And this call essentially changed her life for the better. People still had very nasty opinions about her, and she essentially work hard to rebuild her reputation, which she ultimately did on a show called Hver gang vi møtes. She got to talked about her side of the story, and people got to see the real her. Part 2: Marion has stated how much this show means to her, and I do believe this show influenced this album (aside from the fact that she grew listening to 70’s music because of her parents.) So this album is a start of a lot of things her. And I also wanted to make note that Marion had also made a huge transition in her sound. Before, she was known to making rock music, so when she switched, some of her fans didn’t like it, and some of her haters also took jabs at her. This was especially the case when she had released Found Someone and Colors Turned to Grey as singles before this album became a thing. But again, I think this change of sound was necessary for her career. I don’t know if she would still be in the industry if she didn’t adapt. Anyways, more that I could say, but I’ll end it here. Will released the next album in the ranking tomorrow.
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