"She is a Polish girl in America!" Marina Diamandis sang in 2010 on "Hollywood", a song from her debut album The Family Jewels. She went on, "Oh my god, you look just like Shakira, no, no, you’re Catherine Zeta— actually, my name’s Marina!" In one verse, she mimicks the voices of those grouping her with other crossover celebrity women who scan simultaneously as "White" and "Other" to American audiences and answering them, at once. It was a smooth performance, demonstrating her place within American’s white spatial imaginary (Diamandis is Greek and Welsh)— a dream-like double consciousness acknowledged with nary a nod or a wink.
It is within the space of disacknowledgement that Diamandis created the character Electra for her 2012 followup Electra Heart, an album produced and co-written with American hit makers like Diplo, Dr. Luke, and StarGate. Electra was a "cold, ruthless character who wasn’t vulnerable" she told The Daily Mail—a personification of the American Dream. On her third album, Froot, she ditches the mega-star collaborators and writes not only by herself, but about herself.
The strength of Diamandis’ work, historically, has been her lack of subtlety, her playful Technicolor self-presentation. And yet on Froot, her focus is inward and free of peacocking. The hushed, bare-bones opener "Happy", built on a piano-ballad core, is a meditation on inner contentedness that seeks self-realization over companionship. "From the concrete to the coast, I was looking for a holy ghost," she sings. On Froot, she's found God, and pop music, within herself. She is an artist who knows who she is, and Froot luxuriates in the confidence that we do, too, relaxing in the space and power that Diamandis has claimed.
Part of her art has always been to pack the emotional punch of confession while denying over-the-head admission, an approach with a political tinge—"the impersonal is political," in her case. Her flamboyance and theatrics have served to both deflect and detach—some songs on Electra Heart and The Family Jewels alluded to an eating disorder without explicitly saying so, while other songs feature second-person lyrics—an implied "I." Sharing—thoughts, emotions, information (where you live, what your plans are, take your pick)—is always a risky act for women, opening them up to potential violence, and this is the violence Marina explores. In "Savages", Marina sings, "I’m not afraid of God, I’m afraid of Man." "Underneath it all, we’re just savages hidden behind shirts, ties and marriages," she posits. "Solitaire", which opens with the lyric, "Don’t wanna talk anymore, I’m obsessed with silence," doesn’t land quite as well as its antithesis, the final track "Immortal", does. "Immortal" is about a deep longing to "reserve a space" in history, to be remembered by others.
Almost every song on Froot plays with memory and sensory imagery—"Gold"; "Blue"; "Forget"; "Froot"—thematically, lyrically or otherwise. But it’s the tucked-in songs—in the "Weeds", so to speak—where Marina shines colorfully: "Happy", "I’m a Ruin" and "Can’t Pin Me Down" are stand-out tracks, speaking most directly to the album’s core. They’re also the most sonically interesting songs. The bare piano accompaniment of "Happy" makes it a somber and sweet track. Her production is more understated than the lush, orgasmic pulse of Electra Heart, making Froot a more elastic and dynamic work, with Everestian highs and darker depths. In "I'm a Ruin" the drums carry the song, thumping into climax and ecstasy. The other percussion-heavy tracks, like "Can’t Pin Me Down", give the album power and drive. Others, like "Gold", go at the tempo of a slow soul clap, taking you to a quiet church.
There’s cognitive dissonance between Diamandis' flamboyant posturing and her subtlety. She performs feeling. She no longer hides behind shaky, furtive archetypes and characters as she did on Electra Heart, an album created explicitly for American consumers—she’s untangled herself and trusts us to understand a record that is internal, and rich in nuance. Froot traces her career arc: with The Family Jewels she is mistaken (by record companies) for a "foreign cross-over success" like Shakira, and with Electra Heart she tries on this identity and finds that it doesn’t actually fit her. With Froot she’s refuting the myth that female artists are forever the first, the only, that they can only exist if they fit within the shape of whatever cultural precedent exists for them. Mind the bold corrective: "Actually, my name's Marina!" As if we could forget, now.
