Marina (formerly under the artistic name of Marina and the Diamonds) has been the mother of all troubled teens for the last 15 years – and last Friday, she released her newest single, ‘Butterfly’, which marks the start of a new era in her music. One thing about Marina is that, as she well said in her 2015 song ‘Can’t Pin Me Down’, she is never going to give us anything we expect. Knowing this, what can we [try] to
predict for her new era? Is it bugs themed? Is it fully conceptual? Is it related to her new poetry book?
Marina is known for her strong lyricism, pop melodies, and albums that are radically different from one another. Starting with The Family Jewels, her vibrant debut studio album (which served as a manifesto about herself and her artistic career), to her second album Electra Heart, where she created a persona with a story and a plotline that was carried throughout the album, it was difficult to predict where was she going with all of this. During the Electra Heart era in 2012 (you had to be there), many speculated that this was her new stage persona… until the era came to an end, and it was clear that it was a satirical, exaggerated character she created for the album itself.
Then, in 2015, came Froot, with a much more mature sound and lyrics about finding peace (and finding
happiness within herself), while experimenting with 70-ish disco sounds and tropical visual aesthetics.
After all of this fruit-salad of a discography, came Love + Fear, a very grey album – her first as ‘Marina’,
dropping ‘the Diamonds’ to give herself more of an individual identity – that came out as a product of
dealing with mental issues, and moving forward in life after a break-up. Lastly, in 2021, she released her
fifth album Ancient Dreams in a Modern Land, a result of pandemic overthinking and the chaotic state
of the world, where she cleverly manages to simultaneously sing about every single problem on Earth,
and the fact that she has managed to overcome anyone who ever doubted her.
Before she started advertising her latest album, Marina had been on a book tour in the US and UK,
promoting Eat the World, her debut book of poetry with the themes of life, love, growth, and how her life in Los Angeles has treated her for the last years. During the book tour, she embraced Cocoon, one of her
poems, as a new beginning for her next album, for which she did not provide specific details, but called it
‘very different’ and ‘Family Jewels vibes’. Once the book tour finished, she announced her upcoming
single, Butterfly. Her marketing strategy? To give away real butterfly cocoons to fans in the LA area, to
be hatched on the exact day of the release of her new song.
Personally, my guess is that this album is not going to be as emotionally deep as her previous one,
Ancient Dreams in a Modern Land, nor is it going to be a full study on personality through the eyes of an
alter ego (as Electra Heart brilliantly did). I believe the new piece of the Marina puzzle will be a light-
headed, easy-to-listen album with a narrative similar to the one conveyed by her new poems. It will be an album about growing up and realising that life is not as dramatic as our teenage years and 20s made it look. Marina has acquired a sense of maturity, and has adopted the role of “the cool rich auntie who
doesn’t have nor want kids, and lives her best life sipping cocktails by the beach”. I believe this will be the
core of the new album.
Butterfly has an easy going vibe, with a quirky made-for-TikTok chorus (that, by the way, reminded me of
Grimes because of the voice distortion) that is unlike anything that Marina has written before. It is an ode
to a new her: the version of herself that is the most free she’s ever been, as she’s able to explore new
paths in her career, knowing that she has the support of a loving fanbase that will continue to adore her, in whichever shape or form her art may take <3