ariana grande - yours truly

i mean

gr8 album but the last three songs kind of derail the train grand vitesse

what's her connection w/ babyface?

it seems like he's been pretty quiet for a while save for a handful of placements here and there, then this album comes out and all of a sudden he's got a handful of the best pop songs of the year

i think the album ends fine... the mika track really cuts against the rest of the album but as a one-off i think it's fine

it sounds like a one direction song

i was gonna start a thread for this today. so great, right? delete the last three tracks on sight obv. this year's carly rae j

"piano" though

i think they probably just hired Babyface after it became clear that '90s R&B was the the vibe they were going for.

Babyface has had a cool low key post-stardom career -- Fall Out Boy, Tha Carter III, a great Anthony Hamilton single last year. the single from the duet album he's doing w/ Toni Braxton is pretty good.

mika song reminds me a lot of pink's latest single "true love"

idk i just really wanted the classic mariah / ashanti vibez to continue the whole way through, why must CRJ and taylor and now ariana insist on putting two duets with terrible milklivered blokes on their records UGH! please can this trend stop.

"lovin' it" and "piano" A+, "baby i" is also soooooo good obviously

yeah that track on carter III is one of the most underrated wayne songs imo

"you'll never know" is probably my favorite on this

minor thing i've noticed: trap snares

i think they probably just hired Babyface after it became clear that '90s R&B was the the vibe they were going for.

i guess i'm saying if dude's got songs this good in him people should ring him up more often

Harmony Samuels is the 2013 MVP, partly because he can throw trendy trap snares into a context you wouldn't ordinarily hear them in w/o it being a trainwreck.

yeah harmony samuels + babyface basically doing a co-LP together seems like one of those fantasy scenarios that somehow came together

So great! I only got a quick tour of this record the other night but this record! Wow!

The Babyface tracks eclipsed all else on first listen

"honeymoon avenue" opens with disney strings then brings in a doo-wop chorus then 90ish pitter patter production then the-dream "ayyyys" ... such a weird but dope track

cute album i guess, admirable

idk i associate 90s r&b with a certain grain however whereas this project continues to me to be a kinda plasticky precision-tooled uncanny valley simulation of such. flawlessly blank glide thru various melismas like she's on a tron bike

nice though

have you shagged ariane yet?

nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

yeah agreed that the songwriting is very rooted in 90s r&b but the production has a total post-radio disney sheen

on the one hand you kind of lose the soul (soundwise, not metaphysically) of the style they're referencing but flipping the hyper-pop switch does give this a bit of an identity

like, the album sort of drags when it starts to sound like jazmine sullivan

"you give me chills / every time we chill" is a great line

yeah i'm def kinda coming round to that vibe as more of a feature than a bug, as her instruction manual would doubtless advise

still always kinda funny tho that r&b would have the friki-frikiest hyper futuristic production and vocal manipulation and then dudes singing actually like autotune robots and whatever other manner of distancing strategies, yet none are as truly bracingly posthuman as disneyfication

if ariana's reading she has my permish to put 'bracingly posthuman' on the cd sticker btw

ariana grande : 90s mariah :: carly rae jepsen : 80s madonna

crj is full of character, i reject that proposition

she is?

she's also 26 so she's had years to grow into her voice, which is still what keeps me from cosigning this ariana album 100%

love it mane

gonna have to give this a listen

tentative enthusiasm for this; rtc otm about how applying a bubblegum sheen to this style can make the final effect kind of blank if efficient

last three tracks are a total dead zone

i'm looking p rockist itt tbh, can forsee a volte-face soon come

eh it just feels like it employs a lot of aesthetics i love and sometimes all at once ("piano") but it feels like there's something missing

I agree with Brad. On paper I should love this and was fully expecting to, but it's lacking something I can't quite put my finger on that keeps me firmly in the "it's good I guess" category. Everything after track 9 is kind of inessential too.

might pin it down to the performance. sounds like mariah with a cold

for someone who nobody really rightfully expected to be a pop star worth watching before she did a song with mac miller six months ago i think it's fair to just enjoy the album for what it is and not worry about falling short of some specific ideal.

Agreed that the Mika track is a chore but would you guys like "Almost Is Never Enough" if the guy from The Wanted wasn't on it? I mean, it sounds more '90s R&B (in the vein you guys are referencing) than a lot of other songs on the album.

i feel that but its shortcomings (whatever these may truly be bc i sure as hell can't totally identify them) cause me to zone out

Agreed that the Mika track is a chore but would you guys like "Almost Is Never Enough" if the guy from The Wanted wasn't on it?

i don't particularly care about the wanted dude. song is very labored-sounding

I enjoyed this quite a lot when skimming on iTunes stream but I'm not sure that there's anything quite as astonishing as The Wanted's "I Found You" anyway.

ha i thought me and jordan were the only people here that liked that song

i had no expectations of the ariana grande (hadn't even heard "baby i" much beforehand) so it surpassed whatever they were

i thought one direction were meant to have completely killed the wanted's career? such a terrible, pointless boy band

for someone who nobody really rightfully expected to be a pop star worth watching before she did a song with mac miller six months ago i think it's fair to just enjoy the album for what it is and not worry about falling short of some specific ideal.

― to smang a topanga (some dude), Monday, September 2, 2013 5:13 PM (30 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Are you saying this because of her teen tv star origins? I had no knowledge of her (Disney? Nick?) origins, so my expectations were formed by me thinking her first three singles were good to great. And even with that knowledge, I'd have still maybe been slightly underwhelmed. It's not like her beginnings condemn her to releasing weak material. Demi Lovato's Disney origins didn't stop Here We Go Again from being a good album.

ha i thought me and jordan were the only people here that liked that song

― to smang a topanga (some dude), Monday, 2 September 2013 21:40 (24 minutes ago) Permalink

dude it's my favourite song of all time.

i'm not really dissing the Disney pedigree, Demi's first 2 albums are both classics to me. more saying that she was an unknown quantity before "The Way," but it's not like the 4 Non Blondes swag she was working with before that was especially promising.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pc1jscuFnas

I didn't know the name or the voice of The Wanted dude when I first heard the album and just thought the song was a nice slice of the 90s. Mika is the only inexcusable inclusion.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0OGyHRKMPOE

(I liked "I Found You"! And then they went and became shit again, see above)

that song is really bad

this is great, best ilx pop rec in a while thx yall

lol wtf is this shit

this is pretty bonkers but i'm digging it

i like it

no way it's better than "talk dirty" tho

i like "talk dirty" a lot but ariana's vocals on the verses sound so good on this that i'd be willing to put it over that

it would be nice if iggy azalea was swapped out for 2 chainz tho

"talk dirty" is the illmatic of our time

this is a banger

what's with arianna grande only having white collaborators though

that statement makes sense if you accept this as truth https://twitter.com/cbattan/status/376866688714932224

what's with arianna grande only having white collaborators though

― rap steve gadd (D-40), Monday, April 28, 2014 10:48 AM (17 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

big sean was on one of her singles, and babyface wrote most of her songs, but yeah, the mostly all-white features is pretty weird. she's a disney star (at least one who hasn't gone full miley yet); it's probably an "image" thing (ugh)

no sterlingo

Omg that tweet about big sean

Song's a banger, ariana remains teenpop mvp. I had been thinking of her as latina all this time for some reason? She's only had three collaborators on her own material ever and one is black

mac miller is def kind of a weird look for her but pop music is littered w/ weirdo collaborations by stars before they blew up

iggy makes total sense tho

Really could do with the unintentionally sinister whispering in this song tho

It astounds me that they finally made iggy happen, for so long she seemed a hopeless cause

we'll see about this one...

While "Yours Truly" primarily showcased Grande's powerful voice through new-school R&B songs, the singer says that her follow-up will be more expansive, with a wider list of collaborators. Electronic superstar Zedd worked on a track, which Grande says is "fantastic and super-experimental for me. I never thought I'd do an EDM song, but that was an eye-opening experience, and now all I want to do is dance."

Martin and Kotecha oversaw "a lot" of the album, while Benny Blanco, Ryan Tedder, Key Wayne and Thomas Brown all contributed to the full-length. Grande says of the legendary producer Rodney Jerkins, "We've done a song together that I think is my favorite song that I've ever done."

That description actually makes me excited.

i would be more apprehensive if we didn't already know that the song written by max martin and featuring iggy azalea that rips off macklemore and jason derulo is a banger

the verses are fine but the rest is kind of a mess... maybe i'll warm up to it eventually

still kind of love that mac miller feature

this new song is awesome

mac miller is def kind of a weird look for her but pop music is littered w/ weirdo collaborations by stars before they blew up

lol lady gaga f/ colby o'donis

I can be totally happy (no #gandalfhat) if skronky sax hooks are the big pop radio trend for 2014.

lol lady gaga f/ colby o'donis

Or Wale f/ Lady Gaga

i would be more apprehensive if we didn't already know that the song written by max martin and featuring iggy azalea that rips off macklemore and jason derulo is a banger

― le goon (J0rdan S.), Monday, April 28, 2014 11:02 AM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lollll otm

this song would have one less problem w/o big sean whispering though

Disappointed not to see Babyface in that list of collaborators. I read that he's been working with Ella Henderson which could be interesting.

she's the best but i dunno about

Electronic superstar Zedd worked on a track, which Grande says is "fantastic and super-experimental for me. I never thought I'd do an EDM song, but that was an eye-opening experience, and now all I want to do is dance."

"problem" is great tho

Haha, Ariana's doofy-sounding brother is on this season's Big Brother: http://www.cbs.com/shows/big_brother/cast/214878/

the zedd song is the new single and is coming next week

All of her albums are good but imo you could make an argument that this one is her best. The run from Honeymoon Avenue to You'll Never Know is amazing - heck, even the ballad with that guy from the Wanted isn't bad

yours truly = slanted & enchanted
my everything = crooked rain, crooked rain
dangerous woman = wowee zowee

It's still my favorite - the doo-wop element (which she's occasionally trotted back out on "Moonlight" etc) is in full effect here. So many of her best jams (honeymoon/baby i/tattooed heart/PIANO!/daydreamin') but after the first eight or nine songs it drops off a fukkin' CLIFF. Still, what a run

as mentioned by josh az above

my everything = crooked rain, crooked rain

Does this mean that Hands on Me is her Hit the Plane Down

Looks like she is recording and/or filming a live performance cabaret-type thing (with strings), to celebrate the album's 10th anniversary. Good news!!

anything to distract from the other stuff going on her life I guess!

It’s a reissue with the new recordings and a week of other stuff: https://pitchfork.com/news/ariana-grande-releasing-yours-truly-10th-anniversary-reissue-friday/

Oh snap, we got OG Honeymoon Ave <3

I’m pleased to report that she still sounds great (no surprise). Wish this wasn’t digital-only; maybe they’ll drop a CD at some point

Does it seem impossible to anyone else that her entire discography is only 10 years old?

Yeah totally… it’s hard to wrap my head around

Well 6 albums in 10 years is quite impressive indeed but not that crazy thinking about it. Lana has released all her 9 albums between 11 and 23 and Taylor has released 7 (new) albums between 12 and 22 for instance. But then if one compares to Rihanna…

Yes but it’s 6 ~iconic~ albums ;)

;)

Those are good comps, AIXTC; Dawn Richard and Charli XCX also released Goldenheart and True Romance, respectively, in 2013, and Jessie Ware's Devotion was 2012. So there are more than a few great artists with impressive discographies that emerged about that time.

Maybe it's connected to aging. As I get older, 10 years really doesn't feel like that long to me, but Grande's only 30 so that's more or less her entire adult life.

This Variety article brings up the six-albums-in-10-years thing (it's not entirely clear what they're getting at with this line of inquiry, but nice to see them raise the point "to be fair"):

What is perhaps most unusual about Grande and Bieber is that neither artist has released a major project under their own name in several years: Grande has released singles with the Weeknd and others but has not released any music under her own name since her “Positions” album in the fall of 2020; Bieber has dropped a few singles but his last full album was “Justice” in early 2021. The artists are 30 and 29 respectively, peak years for artists on their scale: For just two examples, at 30, Madonna released “Like a Prayer” and Justin Timberlake was at the commercial peak of his music and acting careers.

However, to be fair, Grande released six albums in seven years and has been deep in making “Wicked” for the past year; Bieber was on tour and in ill health; they’d both earned breaks, although it is a long time for such major artists to go without releasing new music.

(sorry, 6 albs in 7 years... and then a ~mysterious hiatus~ in which she's been, in part, filming two movies back-to-back... which Variety doesn't seem to accept as an excuse, lol)

I do like the idea of looking back on Wikipedia to see what other artists were doing at age 30, tho

So many of her best jams (honeymoon/baby i/tattooed heart/PIANO!/daydreamin') but after the first eight or nine songs it drops off a fukkin' CLIFF. Still, what a run

This is an old post but I wanted to build off it. I totally agree w/these sentiments – except I <3 the duet (track 10), so that really just leaves the two relatively weaker songs at the end which keep it from being an absolute classic.

“Popular” is weird b/c AG isn’t even the credited artist – it’s a reworked version of the other guy’s song, with Ariana added for the single version (and it was then stuck onto her album). “Better Left Unsaid” is an OK closer, and it’s of a piece with the album generally, but slightly below par.

Thing is, there just weren’t two more great songs on deck (I think they’re all out there). Would it have been a slam dunk to stick “Pink Champagne” and “Boyfriend Material” in those spots? Fun songs, but nah. It may have cool to end with “OG Honeymoon Avenue”… but maybe a little too “cute” a move? Anyway, with the 10th Anniversary Ed., it’s now there…

The artists are 30 and 29 respectively, peak years for artists on their scale: For just two examples, at 30, Madonna released “Like a Prayer” and Justin Timberlake was at the commercial peak of his music and acting careers.

This is such a weird argument:

1. Like A Prayer arrived nearly 3 years after True Blue, with only a remix album and some movie soundtrack tie-ins in between.

2. When Justin turned 30 in early 2011 it had been over 4 years since his last album, and it would be more than 2 years until his next one.