Album: Marina and the Diamonds, Electra Heart (679/Atlantic)

Having made her name as, essentially, a dumbed-down Amanda Palmer, it's put-up-or-shut-up time for Marina Diamandis.

She's pushed the boat out for her second album and remodelled herself as a British Katy Perry, bringing in the renta-songwriters du jour (Greg Kurstin, Rick Nowels) just to make sure. Electra Heart is too professional to be truly terrible, but it's never clever enough to be more than merely toytown.