Froot (stylised as FROOT) is the third studio album by Welsh singer Marina Diamandis, professionally known as Marina and the Diamonds. It was originally scheduled to be released on 3 April 2015 by Neon Gold Records and Atlantic Records, although it was ultimately released on 13 March 2015 in reaction to unauthorised Internet leaks. Diamandis wrote all twelve tracks featured on the record by herself, and collaborated with producer David Kosten for their production.
Music critics commended the album’s cohesive production; they further applauded Diamandis for her vocal delivery. The record debuted at number ten on the UK Albums Chart with first-week sales of 10,411 copies, and became her first top-ten album on the USBillboard 200 after charting at number eight with 46,000 album-equivalent units. The “Froot of the Month” campaign saw six songs (“Froot”, “Happy”, “Immortal”, “I’m a Ruin”, “Forget” and “Gold”) released on a monthly basis in anticipation of the record. Froot will be further promoted by the international Neon Nature Tour, which began in March 2015.
In an interview for Billboard in April 2015, Diamandis expressed a wish to repackage the album with new tracks.
Froot is a pop album with elements of dream pop, synthpop, electronic, indie pop and rock music. The songs were recorded with a live band. The album opener, “Happy” was described by Idolator as being a “dreary, heartfelt ballad”. In it, the singer is “laying her emotions bare above the simplest, sweetest of piano melodies”, her voice remaining the focus. The title track was described by critics as being quirky, and a collage of forgotten 1970s and 1980s club gems.
“I’m a Ruin” is a mid-tempo composition in which Diamandis reflects on life and loving herself selfishly. The tense vocals are backed by lush, throwback synths and hard-hitting drums. A critic complimented the lyrics as similar to the ones she wrote for Electra Heart (2012), while also “starkly confessional”. “Better Than That” was described as “sassy” and “a future heavy-hitter, doused in wah-wah axes and classic funk and rock delvings” by The Line of Best Fit, while Diamandis herself said it was “like classic rock”. The closing track, “Immortal”, is a “delicate, stripped-back ballad that finds her contemplating the transitory nature of life”, which Idolator viewed as a recurring theme in Diamandis’s “occasionally morbid oeuvre”, but added that she “always manages to examine the topic from an original perspective.”
Froot was moderately successful across Europe, reaching number four in Ireland, number ten in Switzerland, number nineteen in Finland and number twenty-four in Germany. In Oceania, it peaked at number twelve in Australia and New Zealand, becoming Diamandis’s highest-charting album in both countries.
Idolator readers named Froot the “Best Album of Winter 2015”.
Tracklist:
01. Happy
02. Froot
03. I’m A Ruin
04. Blue
05. Forget
06. Gold
07. Can’t Pin Me Down
08. Solitaire
09. Better Than That
10. Weeds
11. Savages
12. Immortal
OVERALL RATING
5 stars
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