Ariana Grande - AG4 (2018 album)

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.

(On an unrelated note, I find it amusing how the Endgame video seems to use various strategies -- up to and including body doubles -- to "fake" the appearance of Taylor and Future being in the same spaces / shots during his verse.)

i think her verse is the best one actually

!

i do sometimes share the suspicion that labels are strategic about where the guest artist's feature is placed on the recording. like when a female singer who's had a spotty record at urban radio has the featured male rapper(s) placed at the very beginning of her single, i tend to wonder if it's because her label thought people would change the station if the track led off with her voice. (i recall having this thought with jhene aiko and teyana taylor singles -- both of which i thought would have been perfectly good without the guests.)

i love "end game" but even w/ a generous reading future's verse isn't great. sheeran has the best verse to me but the hook refrain is still the best part imo. katy perry i bet was just trying to recapture "dark horse" magic.

not sure if it's working anyone tho. "havana" went no. 1 on rhythmic and streaming... maybe young thug had a hand in that idk.

my conspiracy about "end game" tanking is that radio bashed people over the head with "look what you made me do" which is bad and annoying

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

― james brooks, Monday, June 4, 2018 3:38 PM (yesterday) Bookmark

i think part of it is that her music is still in its organic growth period whereas katy and taylor are at the point where they're reacting against themselves. "no tears left to cry" is simply a better song than anything on witness and several of the pre-release reputation tracks but it also just seems like the right moment to be into in her music. she's not carrying much baggage right now.

Very well put — she seems to have almost universal goodwill at the moment, and she’s a highly mainstream artist who also enjoys real cred in various/diverse scenes. Of course she’s not the first with these attributes; and I’m aware there are ppl who are lukewarm on her, even on “No Tears” as a track (I know some personally!) But when you factor in her voice/technique and the songs themselves... no one else comes close for me.

When Ariana performed on the Billboard Awards, the camera cut once or twice to Taylor Swift, watching her from the crowd — and it struck me how they don’t really occupy the same space (even though their songs may literally play back-to-back).

I think it may be partly because Ariana’s not a “personal” artist in the vein of Taylor, Katy, Gaga, etc. She’s more in the tradition of a disco/club diva, delivering the material while keeping her persona (and personality) separate from it. And that’s maybe a somewhat rare mode for a mainstream pop singer these days (or maybe there are plenty of examples I’m not thinking of).

I don't think that's true at all about Ariana, and it's quite a challop to remove Gaga from any disco/club diva tradition.

Like what's more personal than No Tears Left To Cry? Literally no one else in pop would be able to deliver that song in the same way.

Gaga comes from that tradition, for sure — but she’s much more of an “auteur” figure, isn’t she? She’s always been about “pushing boundaries” in performance, expressing herself (sexuality, personal history, etc.) through pop songs in a Madonna-y way (sorry, I know that’s a boring comparison)... not so much about her voice or traditional pop performance. (And her last album even left the dance floor behind.)

You’re right about “No Tears,” of course... and it sounds from that Fader article like it’s true for Sweetener as a whole (so much that Ariana originally left off a batch of songs b/c she thought they got too “real”). This is a new era for her, as they say...

I like "No Tears Left to Cry" but I don't understand why we're all swallowing the "most personal album yet" PR schtick whole here

https://vg-images.condecdn.net/image/24Ld04lRo1v/crop/810/f/july-cover2.jpg

I mean, yes, of course shootings are tragic, but the same could be said for (for instance) new Jason Aldean material

(er, the same i.e. "this is so personal and heartfelt and not at all songwriting as usual," not "a tragedy on the level of jason aldean")

lmao

If an artist I like & respect says something about their artistic process in an interview, I guess I take it at face value and don’t dismiss it as PR schtick.

I guess I'm the opposite -- even the artists I like, I understand are working under a system that demands a certain level of spin

Anyway, now y’all have me arguing both sides of the fence here (lol).

No matter how “personal” the new songs may be, I don’t expect them to be “personal” in the same way that, say, Taylor Swift’s are — to return to J0rdan’s original point.

(Also, on the PR thing, the logical conclusion of a skeptical/cynical POV would be to assume she’s not being truthful when she says she was devastated by the UK attack...)

Btw -- it occurred to me that AG has in fact released a few highly "personal" songs dealing w/fame, the public's perception of her, and her feelings about those things ("You Don't Know Me," "I Don't Care")... the same sort of subjects that Taylor Swift addresses a lot these days. So it's not quite so cut & dried.

oh this album has a title! perhaps an admin would be able to update the title of this thread? :)

June 13: Troye Sivan - Dance To This (feat. Ariana Grande)

June 14: Nicki Minaj - Bed (feat. Ariana Grande)

June 20: The Light Is Coming (feat. Nicki Minaj) + Sweetener pre-order

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kXwX79EZUJo

not a fan of this one

Seems very much a piece with "Lemon" from last year's N.E.R.D album, including the fact that it also pulls a sample from here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BppB_X_jlkw

Except in this case, the sample is incredibly annoying and doesn't work at all.

wrong YouTube link(?)

this is not making me excited about pharrell having done half this album.....

No, correct YouTube link. Sample comes in at 1:01.

And Arlen Specter's "Wait a Minute" is sampled throughout Lemon.

It's a very odd sample choice.

weird!

(I haven’t listened to the track yet; distracted by the fact that the album + merch bundles from her online store — which come with presale code for future concert tour — don’t ship to California for some f’in reason!)

OK – on first listen, it is an odd track, and doesn’t seem to feature Ari in a meaningful way? (It is also extremely Pharrell-y, for better or worse...)

Interesting that Nicki’s rap is upfront, in light of the discussion above.

that's an extra track surely, one of your track 15 only-for-iTunes jobs.

I also think the upfront rap creates a structural/aesthetic problem — because there song has no bridge, without the rap breaking it up in the middle, it feels particularly repetitive (chorus, verse, long chorus, verse, chorus, end).

It doesn’t help that the chorus is a repeated chant/vocal hook.

xpost It’s track 3 on the album

Fan reaction in YouTube comments seems pretty harsh overall (esp. re: the town-hall guy sample).

I don't hate the track - I've listened to it a bunch of times now - but feels like kind of a misfire.

xp gah!

nicki verse feels like a mistake

song is such a left turn i actually completely understand now why they'd have considered xxx for it, shipping it with a feature that communicates "left turn" and "underground" before you even hear a note of the song would have set expectations in a more reasonable place and x kind of had a monopoly on the venn diagram crossover space between "feels underground" and "does numbers"

ari seems to handle herself pretty well, the beat just doesn't feel like it's on the same level as "stir fry" or "neon guts" or "lemon" and the nicki feature kneecaps the vibe before the song even has a chance to reveal it

hope the other pharrell stuff is better and this one just got pushed out first because it was the one with space for a rap feature

hope the other pharrell stuff is better

imo basically no hope for this

i would just really like to hear a new ariana grande record in my lifetime that doesn't have any max martin credits on it and one of the pharrell cuts hitting is the shortest path to that timeline

imma keep hoping

what's the issue with max martin? he doesn't have a particularly distinctive style & the tracks on Dangerous Woman that he worked on were largely great

I hope they neglected to the clear the sample of the town hall guy; he sues and is granted an injunction; and the sample is removed from the track before the album is pressed.

Like this but sounds so much like lemon
Not just the sample but the beat and bass