Ariana Grande - AG4 (2018 album)

(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

Chun Li reference is tops

I hate to be a negative nelly, but even that aspect of the rap is a little disappointing to me... it's obv. very standard for a rapper to call out their current project on a feature, but I can't recall it being done on an Ariana track before; and it makes the feature feel even more generic (when Nicki's past appearances were so special).

It's a bit head-scratchy to look back at the below except from The Fader article, after hearing the track:

“The Light” was made with a guest feature in mind, and Ariana auditioned eight rappers for the spot — “I don't mean to sound like a terrible person, but I wasn't in love with any of it” — before turning to her friend Nicki Minaj. She texted Nicki the song and asked if she would be interested in the spot. In Ariana’s words, Nicki was like, “Ho-lee-shit-I-love-this,” and called her on up on a rainy morning at 5:00 a.m. to come hear the verse. “I went in my slippers and pajamas to the studio and she killed it,” she says. “That's what Nicki Minaj does, she elevates a record. If you're going to have a rapper on a song, they need to really really really be there for a reason, and she does that every single time.”

this song is dope and yes it sounds like the best songs on the last Nerd album

wtf is wrong with all of you

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.

Otm. it's fine when Ari says the title phrase, but during the sung parts, I tried hard to mentally tune it out

Bud Light is coming, to give back everything the craft beer stole

I love this song

Bill otm

Chun Li is not a villain so the lyric is nonsense

From M. Bison's point of view, Chun Li is a villain

The beat at the beginning of the track reminds me of this classic:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PD5HfM3DZt8

!!

ɹǝuǝʇǝǝʍs 🌫 https://t.co/kgaHLW2iQa pic.twitter.com/JOyKQL2iup

— Ariana Grande (@ArianaGrande) June 26, 2018

frankie valli cover??

Yes – it’s a fragment of “An Angel Cried,” titled “Raindrops” (it opens the album).

I am so "here for this," as they say

just heard "the light is coming" for the first time and... that sample sure is. uh. a choice. (that town hall is on C-SPAN, and it basically sounds like a Trump rally, complete with ranting about shipping out "the illegals")

FYI, the “God Is a Woman” single drops today. Also she performed last night on the internets:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OFjB7hJROyo

lol @ vovo

Oh right, what I was here for. New song is a snooze.

I like it

I take it back, this song is great

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

Glad you came around :)

Yes, it's great. I have a few Hot Takes, but I'll just let it simmer for a while...