Melbourne is often said to have the largest Greek population of any city outside Greece. The Greek-Australian experience is in its third generation for some families and the two cultures are deeply intertwined.

However, for Marina Lambrini Diamandis, who performs as the successful British pop act Marina and the Diamonds, having a Greek heritage while growing up in the Welsh town of Abergavenny was a defining experience.

“I stood out in a good way,” says the 25-year-old, who has a Greek father and Welsh mother. “I do look and feel like a normal person but I do feel like I’ve been an outsider all of my life. I didn’t feel like I ever fit in anywhere because I didn’t; I lived in a Welsh village and I’d come from Greece when I was four. I’m very connected to my Greek side as I went there every summer, although I didn’t fit in there, either.”

That sense of separation, of looking at a world that doesn’t quite fit what you want yours to be, is also a fine preparation for someone pursuing the strange brew that is pop stardom. On her debut album, The Family Jewels, Marina offers autobiographical struggle and cultural criticism on a record that skips between electro-pop (Shampain), Alice in Wonderland esoterica (Girls) and new-wave clatter (Oh No!).

It’s catchy but never triumphant; Diamandis is less of a role model than a subversive presence, dissecting the consumer culture that has elevated her.

“TV taught me how to feel,” she sings on Oh No!, “now real life has no appeal.” If her music leaves people merely pleased, then she knows she’s done something wrong.

“I hate pop culture but I need it,” Diamandis says. “I need to be subversive about it and pop music is great because it allows that. It lets you get ideas out quickly and have an impact. We’ve been through a stage where people stopped thinking artistically and pop music was made by artists who were driven by people who conceived the ideas for them — they weren’t visionaries or superstars any more.”

The singer took the performing name of Marina and the Diamonds in 2005 after she’d spent a year fruitlessly chasing commercial success in London and thinking she was just an audition away from being in the next Spice Girls group.

The Diamonds were her future fans and, after a handful of EPs and a record deal, they actually exist in large numbers in her homeland, allowing Diamandis to sell out 1500 to 2000-capacity theatres on her most recent British tour with a theatrically designed show.

“Now I’m into it, I could never do a tour again without production, although I haven’t spent too much money,” she says. “It’s very much been an art show but a very organised art show.”

Diamandis believes 2010 has been a strong year for individualistic pop music in Britain and, as with fellow travellers Florence and the Machine, she’s now touring internationally and seeing just how far she can take a group of songs written primarily in her bedroom. Early next year, she will open for Katy Perry across Europe and start working on her second album. She doesn’t want to take anything for granted, however.

“If you’re someone who has ideas, you can’t be a raving, drunken creative because no one would trust [you],” Diamandis says. “Inherently, my destiny as a songwriter and artist is to speak about things. I wanted to be a singer because it’s the only art form where I could express a view in a very clear way.”

Marina and the Diamonds play the Hi-Fi Bar next Tuesday and the Falls Festival next Wednesday.

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