Ariana Grande - AG4 (2018 album)

i dig it. reminds me a little of 1 thing by amerie but in a lower register

this one's going to be about the remixes imo

it's going to be a huge club anthem

^^^^

one of her best songs so far. agreed re: its remix potential

this is really cool. her last few lead singles have been very broad/obvious, and this one goes to some unexpected places

I specifically said above that it doesn't sound like "Toxic" at all, but that it calls "Toxic" to mind in that it's a really ambitious and left field approach to what will ostensibly be a hit to some degree. iow we are now officially in the Ariana empirical phase.

Stupid phone. *imperial

Actually I think it sounds like a (very good) demo !
There’s something unfinished about it.

Empirical was fun though : I like the idea !

yeah, JF's phone owns
great song

This is great and deserves to be huge.

glad 2 be back home so i can loop this again

it's kind of more of a slowed-down 2 Step than a D'n'B rhythm

ctrl+F "Rudimental"

I thought two-step, too. And it sounds surprisingly refreshing.

She apparently made a surprise appearance at Coachella last night – performed this song and Marvin Gaye’s “Sexual Healing.”

still wonder if the chorus could be "developed" just a lil more (don't ask me how) but it's grown on me, and it's really all worth it for the synths kicking in the post-chorus/second verse

The more I hear it, the more I love it (probably b/c I’m experiencing it as a whole now and not breaking it down in my head). I’m in that mode where I don’t really want to listen to anything else, but also don’t want to “wear it out” too fast...

In some ways this feels to me a bit like a song that might have turned up on one of the first three Christina Milian albums. Also it's great.

As the only comeback record that's ever been made under these circumstances it would have come across as rote, lazy and just wrong if it had sounded like anything else currently on the radio. And that's even allowing for the gigantic levels of goodwill towards Ariana herself - in the UK at least.

Tonally, the song itself needed to get the balance exactly right, it needed to be absolutely perfectly pitched, and it is.

I haven't followed her career much until now, but the advance tracks from this LP have me intrigued.

Oh hey, this song doesn't sound as oddly structured now that I'm just listening to the audio. I think the video was distorting how A→B it actually is. I still like it tho.

I love the vocal harmonies in the intro (first 20 seconds) of the video, and I'm a little disappointed that the single version doesn't include that part. I guess there's a chance that it will resurface as a segue on the album

Immaculate song

straight fire beautiful song

I paused the video on the shot with the disembodied Ariana faces/masks resting on a few sheets of paper w/handwritten notes... all I could make out for sure was "R.E.M." (several places) and "God Is a Woman." I ran a search on these phrases, and found others are on top of it - http://www.breatheheavy.com/god-is-a-woman-ariana-grande-teases-new-album-tracklist/

The idea of an Ariana track titled "R.E.M." (of all things) seems perfectly conceived to give teenage-me and adult-me something to talk about!

rem could mean REM sleep no?

well, sure... I'm guessing it's not actually a tribute to Athens' crustiest of the crusties ;)

;)

Sometimes I end up on these YT pages where hardcore vocal technique headz are analyzing/critiquing her performances, notes she’s hitting (or not hitting), etc. The comments on this one are somewhat interesting / funny (all based on a :25 clip!): https://youtu.be/7nCbuuj3rXA

those vocal analysis/comparison/etc. videos are among the first types of videos i can remember seeing on youtube. some are a little terrible and cruel. all these years later i think i've seen maybe one or two focused on a male vocalist.

She’s tweeting new lyrics about being asleep / dreaming – presumably from that “R.E.M.” song.

I figure there’s a (tiny) chance it is actually built on a jangly Rickenbacker sample; seems like something Pharrell could conceivably do...

re: "No Tears Left To Cry"

During the chorus, how about that sharp cut on the reverb tail on the "aw yeah" ad-lib? It's been one of those things that calls my attention every time. It seems to drop out in time with the song, and I'm sure it was intentional, but in a lesser song that would be a mark of a sloppy producer.

Yet, this is Max Martin...

Seems a strange choice to my ears. What do y'all think?

Clipping that vocal does seem like a deliberate aesthetic choice to me...

To anyone who cares - AG will be the (sole/hourlong) guest on “The Tonight Show” tmrrw (Tues. 5/1).

She sounded really good in the Fallon performance. (It strikes me as potentially a tough song to jump into, cold; something about the key it’s in...)

The album is called “Sweetener,” btw, and comes out July 20

they played "No More Tears" in the club last night and i completely lost my shit

anyway you know what i meant without the extraneous "more"

Snippet teased of new Nicki collab – it sounds hawt!

Good article w/lots of detail about the album, etc.:
http://www.thefader.com/2018/05/30/ariana-grande-cover-story

Wango Tango performance from Saturday night: https://youtu.be/ES_AnAwEd0s

She does a verse of the new song (“The Light Is Coming”), starting around 25:10. Its vocal hook reminds me of Missy Elliott’s “Work It”... (which may not be coincidental, as I know Missy was involved in at least one track on the album).

the whole set is great

Yeah she’s on top of her game

as for the new single, we'll see... it has some cool parts and some weird parts. i'm sort of intuitively excited by the idea of pharrell doing half an ariana grande album but then i think about how much pharrell music i've actually enjoyed i the last few years. i assume this is one of his.

I'm also kind of "bearish" on Pharrell (...no "park ranger hat" joke intended); but I agree it's an exciting idea, and I assume they'll bring out the best in each other. I trust the judgment of Ari (and her crew) in material... like her story of trying out 8 different rappers on that track, before finally calling Nicki (why didn't she just start with the best in the first place, lol?).

have wondered a lot if the rap features on the other recent max martin-heavy female pop star albums (future on "endgame", migos on "bon appetit") were earnest attempts to try and penetrate rap playlists on spotify and apple music

you look at sales figures these days for albums that do 100k first weeks and for pop stuff it's 80% sales 20% streaming and for rap stuff it's 20% sales 80% streaming

twitter stans were up in arms at one point recently because they thought "the light is coming" was going to ship with a xxxtentacion feature based on some oblique similarities between instagram posts x and ari made around the same time

x's streaming numbers are outrageously good though so maybe it was something they were seriously considering? no matter who they got, it would never actually have worked, so ari balking at a pro forma x or carti feature and sticking with an artist she already knows she has real chemistry with is a great example of why she is our best pop star rn

That's all really interesting (I hadn't heard that xxxtentacion rumor).

Just to take up your Future example -- I thought his verse on "Everyday" (from Dangerous Woman) was fantastic, while his rap on "Endgame" did feel less inspired / more obligatory (though it's a super track as a whole, and his vocal contributions are part of that, beyond the rap itself). All the raps on Dangerous Woman are really strong IMO, and I think it does show that increased quality control (the raps on My Everything were 50/50 for me; and on Yours Truly, well... :P).

i would say that most rap features on pop artists' singles for the greater part of the past decade if not longer have been brazen attemps to score some airplay at 'rhythmic' stations (i.e. the ones that serve as gatekeepers for black crossover) while still enabling white adult stations* to play them in rap-free edits.

now that digital download sales for singles are in their death throes and rap music has proven popular in the ascendant streaming ecosystem, this tactic has become doubly appealing to pop artists and their a&r. the 'problem' for them is that most migos fans have no interest in listening to a max martin-produced katy perry record just because the migos have been squeezed into a 35-second slot on the recording.

four of maroon 5's past five singles have featured an ''''urban'''' artist that performs strongly on the streaming services. only one of them, "what lovers do" (which has sza, who sings rather than raps) actually has the guest interspersed throughout the recording rather than squeezed into a narrow slot that can be easily excised or replaced. (i recall having heard all of the others in rap-free edits on many stations, sometimes with extra maroon 5 vocals replacing what would've been the rap verse on the supposedly 'standard' version.)

(* and, actually, top 40 stations -- the one in my city elected to play the young thug-free version of "havana"!)

i think "end game" is a wonderful taylor swift single that's really handicapped by the bizarre decision to put future and sheeran's verses before hers

it feels like it's structured almost as if it's apologizing for the fact that it's a taylor swift single by putting the other dudes first, undercutting the song's ability to maximize it's appeal to her very large core fanbase

whether the target was radio formats or spotify playlists, almost feels as though the men responsible for "bon appetit" looked at that record's failure and determined that the problem was not the inessential and tacked-on nature of the feature but the fact that it happened too late in the song

when "no tears" dropped i wondered if part of the reason it's so good is that ari had the benefit of being able to watch witness and reputation flounder at radio before making her move

I think I assumed that Taylor's verse comes last on "Endgame" because (a) it's the weakest of the three performances (and she recognizes that); and/or (b) in a long track that essentially has three "features" (one of them by the credited artist), it actually increases the drama -- and potential impact for fans -- to place hers at the end. (These may sound contradictory, but maybe they're not?)

OTOH, it's also clear from this convo that I tend to think of these songs mainly in "aesthetic" terms, and with little regard to these (very interesting) questions around chart strategy, reception, etc.

finally, ariana grande has been recognized by the recording industry.

It’s her first Grammy.

which is surprising! I guess the only people who i'm happy to see a grammy are people who it might help book tours/sell merch and Ariana needs a grammy like she needs a new boyfriend.

Which plucky upstart in the Best Pop Vocal Album category were you rooting for?

Weaves

naw, i meant in the other, untelevised categories. this is cecile mclorin salvant's second grammy!

Just realised that part of why I love Ghostin' so much is because some of the vocal melody reminds me a bit of Open Your Eyes by School Of Seven Bells.

listening to this for the first time, pretty good so far but the chorus of "Bloodline" is an instant yikes

Wrong thread, fam: Ariana Grande - "Thank U, Next" (the album)

This 1-hr. BBC concert/interview from 2018 was recently posted in its entirety* for the first time (at least here in U.S.); the performances are excellent:

*apparently, they held back "Better Off" at her request (you can find that separately)

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