![]() “God is a woman”, released a month before the album, is filled with powerful lyrics about sexuality and spirituality, tasteful mixes of pop and hip hop, and the best of Grande’s remarkable vocal range. While Sweetener is certainly a much more album-oriented than single-oriented, there are two songs that seem to break free from the mold and are able to succeed with or without the context of the album as a whole. With a poignant, 40-second silence, Sweetener concludes its narrative of hurt and, most importantly, healing. ![]() “Get well soon”, the album’s closing track and a tribute to the Manchester victims, speaks of not only of pain and loss, but also of comfort (“I don’t care who is gone, you shouldn’t be alone / I’ll be there”). Although the album sometimes delves into more somber narratives, Grande still attempts to find the brighter side of things: while the song “everytime” has her falling back over and over to a toxic relationship, “better off” has her accepting that it should end and that she’s better off without it.Įven in the midst of all the light, Grande never fails to ground herself on the central message of the album: healing. “Pete davidson”, a ballad dedicated to her fiancé, and “successful”, a gleeful track about succeeding in the music industry, serve as two of the many joyful moments of the album, as she chants the lyrics with a carefree attitude. There is a lot of optimism in Sweetener, and Grande almost always seems to be having a good time. ![]() “The light is coming,” featuring Nicki Minaj, struggles to become a favorite with a constant repetition of the same lyrics and blasé audio, but it still manages to find its place in providing the album with its core mantra (“The light is coming to give back everything the darkness stole”). Instead, she creates a cohesive, non-linear journey of love, loss, and light. With Sweetener, Grande doesn’t seem to be interested in releasing a handful of pop songs that will be stuck on everyone’s head till the end of the year. You won’t find many pop, radio-and-dance-floor hits like “Into You” and “Problem” on Sweetener, and that’s not a bad thing. Gone are the days when Grande delivered albums packed with four to five singles. It highlights one of the biggest departures from Grande’s previous style: many of the songs seem stronger in the context of the album than on their own. It’s a strange little song-devoid of any electronic background music that is usually expected from a pop album opener-but it serves its purpose by foreshadowing what is to come and putting Grande’s impressive vocals on the spotlight. The album opens up with “raindrops (an angel cried),” a 30-second acappella track which serves as a prologue. Sweetener is honest, light, and sweet (pardon the pun!), and it reflects Grande’s maturity as an artist, having reinvented herself to deliver a work unlike any of her others. ![]() However, it is not the predictable, dark and serious, pop-single-infested album it could have been. Sweetener (2018), Grande’s latest album, deals, as expected, with these moments of the 25-year-old pop singer’s life. And, if you have been on the Internet at all lately, you know that now she is suddenly engaged to SNL actor Pete Davidson. ![]() There was her breakup with rapper Mac Miller. There was the bombing at one of her concerts in Manchester, England, in May 2017. To say that a lot has happened in Ariana Grande’s life since the release of her last album, Dangerous Woman (2016), is a bit of an understatement. ![]()
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