★★★★★
The pitch-perfect Ariana Grande has dropped her highly-anticipated eighth studio album, ‘petal’. However, if you are expecting this to be a rehashed version of ‘thank u, next’ or ‘My Everything', then you should prepare yourself because you are about to enter a new, untouched territory of the Grande-verse.
Grande is back, full of rage and what seems to be a new degree in genre-blending and experimentation – making ‘petal’ stand out from everything that has come before.
Even the album’s well-publicised cover breaks from what one comes to expect from the Grammy-winning, Oscar-nominated star. There is no scraped-back ponytail, no solemn pose, no bright colours. Grande is simply smiling, with her hair blowing in her face in a black and white shot.
Perhaps other covers were trying to capture THE international superstar that is Ariana Grande. Whereas the cover of ‘petal’ is trying to capture, simply, Ariana. This would certainly align with the intimate nature of the lyrics and vocals that sit at the centre of the album.
Opening ‘petal’, is ‘kiss me’. The first twenty seconds are shimmery, full of dark-wave-inspired beats, until there is a sudden change in direction. A silence. Followed by a jittering sound that makes one question if their wired or wireless connections finally need replacing. Then, we are introduced to Grande’s beautiful vocals for the first time on the album. The track shares similarities with Charli XCX’s ‘Altars’, with richly defined orchestrations merged with the most scintillating harmonies.
Next up comes the album’s lead single, ‘hate that i made you love me’. It is hauntingly beautiful, upbeat to begin with and subdued to finish. Lyrics like, “yeah i i hate that i made you love me / cause i barely tried” are painfully honest, reflecting upon the burden of being in the public eye with fans that don’t respect boundaries. You can feel the frustration in every line that Grande sings. It is disguised as a breakup anthem, and this is what gives the track depth, as it reflects Grande’s experimentation with form as well as sound.
The next three tracks on the album, ‘petal’, ‘stay’ and ‘oh well’ share the most similarities with Grande’s pre-existing catalogue of more conventional pop. They all have echoes of ‘7 rings’ and sprinklings of ‘Side to Side’.
Grande slows things down with ‘big feelings’ and ‘freak’. The former opens with a cosmic type of glitching, before entering into a catchy upbeat chorus. It remains a very up close and personal track about a woman who is more than aware of the power that she wields. Lines like “cause boy you must have earned me historically / don’t have to hold it in no more” prove Grande is not taking any prisoners, nor is she holding back any punches. She knows her worth, her value, and wants everyone else to know it too.
Grande gets progressively and beautifully more p*ssed off between ‘warning signs (interlude)’ and ‘never get over me’. The latter features some of the most superb vocals on the album. The piercing high notes that round off the track are not subtle; they come raging through the chorus like a Trojan horse.
‘never get over me’ is a song that you undoubtedly want to scream at and scream along with. It is not a bop, it is not a floor filler, it is just three minutes and forty-eight seconds of raw emotion.
The penultimate track on ‘petal’ is ‘bad thing (bunny hop)’. This is a hidden jumpy jewel in the album’s ravishingly macabre crown. It has a fluid, dance-pop vibe to begin with and a post-chorus that is slow and steady. However, Grande keeps singing as if the beat never changed. Her vocal delivery and instrumentation don’t always match up; this is consistent throughout the album. This is not a bad thing, though; it merely adds to the messiness and chaos that gives ‘petal’ its alternative spin. Nothing is polished, nothing quite matches, and that creates a new kind of pop perfection.
The album does not wrap anything up nicely; there are no bows and ribbons on the final track – ‘nowhere, nobody’. The sound switches halfway through the song to a baroque-inspired synthetic beat with numerous electronic effects over it. The lyrics leave no space for closure; lines like “i don’t care about tomorrow / i love you right now” forget the future. This suggests Grande is embracing the realities of the present, feeling every emotion as it comes.
‘petal’ is not thirty-six minutes of eternal sunshine. Instead, this dose of moody sunset will provide you access into the psyche of one of the world’s biggest artists, who is fearsome, feral and angrier than ever – but greatly benefits from being so.
Thank you, Ariana, we can’t wait for what is next…
Cory Gourley
Image: ‘petal’ Official Album Cover