I feel like
Froot isn't as fantastic as the previous efforts, but that doesn't mean it's a bad album. It's still a really great release. I also feel like it's too new to compare it at the moment, and I might feel differently at the end of the year.
I'm always going to be biased towards TFJ, since it's probably the most important album I've ever listened to, in terms of my own personal growth and life journey. EH undoubtedly has the tightest concept of the three and even as a "sell out" album, it has a lot more artistic merit than the music Marina was trying to compete against at the time. Both albums are brilliant.
I think another thing about
Froot is that a lot of it feels like it's exploring territory super close to what Marina has done before. She's done it with a twist, where she's correcting and updating past ideals or themes in her previous lyrics that don't match her current mindset anymore. There's a lot of self-referencing to previous work either lyrically or musically, which I find to be pretty cool, but that can take a lot of the surprise out of this new material. On a subtle level it feels like Marina has done this before, whereas EH was completely new and separate from TFJ.
That being said,
Froot definitely brings its fair share to the table. "Froot" still sounds so fresh and unique, feeling like it breezes by in two minutes. "Blue" is arguably the fluffiest track in her catalogue, while "Better Than That" is probably the most aggressive, and "Solitaire" could contend for most experimental. Marina's using these familiar routes to push the limits of her discography to areas she hasn't quite reached before.
This record really makes Marina's entire catalogue feel like a cohesive piece, which is an impressive effort given how different TFJ and EH actually were, both lyrically and musically. I think that may have been the objective from the start, a return to form after an era that burned her and I think Marina has achieved that. Maybe it's meant to be the mature bow that ties her discography together and the next album will be another step in a completely new direction. Didn't mean to write this much, but oh well.
While writing this I wondered what Marina would say about "Girls" today.
FROOT might be her best song as well
Marina omg yaawss
