Ariana Grande - "Thank U, Next" (the album)

I don't hate "7 Rings". It'll be fine as an album track.

^This was a prescient comment, btw

Gucci tennis shoes, running from your issues

The way “NASA” ends — gracefully, casually, poignantly, in the middle of a verse — is just exquisite. (“Get Well Soon” did something similar.)

Nice little Tayla feature: https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/tayla-parx-artist-you-need-to-know-interview-ariana-grande-784137/

Big chart newz, we stan: https://www.billboard.com/articles/columns/chart-beat/8498762/ariana-grande-thank-u-next-debuts-at-no-1-on-billboard-200-chart-album

After spending some time with this album, I really like it.
I don't care much for "bad idea", "make up" and "in my head" but the rest goes from good to great, the best being the gorgeous "ghostin" and of course, the impossibly charming "thank u, next" which I still can't have enough of.
Also, I didn't follow the issue regarding "7 rings" but I find it pretty cool/fun !

Also there was an intw where she said she wanted to release songs and albums as they come, enjoying the creative momentum and I like that a lot.
That's one of my issues with many artists now who spend years between albums/songs.
I mean it's ok if you're McCartney or something, had a long career and need a few years to come up with new stuff but for young artists who, supposedly, are in their full creative force, I can't understand waiting years before releasing new stuff.
Especially in a time when the technology makes it so easy.
I think it's kinda sad, and frustrating, for an artist to miss the pleasure of sharing your latest creation, when you're the most excited by it (as a musician, I know how amazing the sensation of having finished a new song is !).
I like her spirit about that anyway !

"break up with your girlfriend" is easily one of the weakest tracks on here. idk why "ghostin" wasn't the closer

― ufo, Saturday, 9 February 2019 23:13 (one week ago) Permalink

I think "break up with your girlfriend, I'm bored" is fine as a song, but more than a song it's a social media meme.

One of the great things about pop music these days is how utterly easy it is to not hear it and be blissfully ignorant of it. It's taken me up until now to hear '7 Rings' out in the wild and holy fuck do I wish I could unhear it.

Interesting Savan piece, talking a lot about songwriting/recording process: https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/ariana-grande-thank-u-next-savan-kotecha-interview-791280/

Listening to this with no particular investment, and my opinion is that it is really good, and it also sounds really good, kthxbye.

Really the only song that's made an impression before this is Into You, which I love deeply.

One of the great things about pop music these days is how utterly easy it is to not hear it and be blissfully ignorant of it. It's taken me up until now to hear '7 Rings' out in the wild and holy fuck do I wish I could unhear it.

― Le Baton Rose (Turrican), lundi 18 février 2019 18:20 (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

ahah. the more I listen to that song, the more I like it !
The lyrics are fun (especially considering the idea that started the song) and the rap triplet segment is pretty cool.
I like it much more than the original song.

.@ArianaGrande is the first artist to hold the entire top 3 on the Hot 100 since @thebeatles in 1964!

She is the only solo artist to achieve this in Hot 100 history! ⚡️ pic.twitter.com/foUcVXvzB5

— Ariana Grande Today (@ArianaToday) February 19, 2019

i think this album is flat out great

prob the best big pop album since reputation

fake smile, needy, NASA, imagine are some of the best songs she’s recorded

chart records are so annoying + say more about how the charts themselves work than they do about the works/artists setting the records. (not to downplay ariana's achievement, which is estimable.) i honestly think billboard needs to stop reporting that stuff as aggressively as they do but then i guess their charts would not get as much exposure in the social media world via rt's of Music News Shady Facts Crave and so forth.

I'm still not sold on "NASA" but I love "Bloodline" more than the rest of you; it has my favorite use of "shit" in a pop song in years.

I personally think that those involved in pop music should be aiming higher and aspiring to better.

fake smile, needy, NASA, imagine are some of the best songs she’s recorded

Yes!! (I now forgive your Sweetener shade in the poll results thread 😄)

(...tho “R.E.M.” and “Get Well Soon” are as great as those four!)

"bloodline" at the very least might be my favorite of her fake dancehall songs

My thing w/“Bloodline” is it’s a bit formulaic, you can see the joints in the songwriting; in the bridge especially. It’s the kind of Max/Ilya song that could be recorded by any pop star (though probably not as well!)

I don’t really mind it, though... having a handful of fantastic songs, and then a grab bag of others (a few of which feel a little “off-the-rack,” a few a little “WTF”), contributes to the album’s appealingly “rough & ready” vibe. Especially coming on the heels of Sweetener... it’s like a quick change-up, a “what if we did this?” experiment... or, idk, a theoretically perfect EP fleshed out w/bonus tracks (because why not)?

Like I love the ‘tude behind recording an amazing sequence of deeply personal, unique tracks... and then tossing on a mindless, fun banger that shamelessly bites *NSYNC.

she really has the juice rn and i'm glad she made an album commensurate w/ the zeitgeist that is her celebrity

"needy" jesus

despite the narrative sweetener didn't feel as influenced by her personal life as it could have to me... it reminds me a bit of 'rated r' maybe in that they sorta split the difference between a weighty post-trauma album and a regular ol album. this one feels really of its moment w/o being obnoxious or ham handed about it.

all that aside the concepts/songwriting are just much better to me... "give you the whole world / i'ma need space" is a dope line. "fake smile" is a really deft & sympathetic take on the pop star complaining about fame song. "ghostin" is brutal and so specific w/o really saying anything specific at all.

texturally "ghostin" is not something i thought the max martin camp was capable of producing

Yeah "NASA" was one of the tracks I liked instantly and is still one of my favourites. The chorus is great.
And I don't why but "Fake Smile" reminds me of Lauryn Hill.

texturally "ghostin" is not something i thought the max martin camp was capable of producing

Totally; it’s pretty remarkable.

“In My Head” is the album’s sleeper, IMO... how do you even describe that feel? Woozy, psychedelic(?) I love the pair of lazy little drum fills coming out of the bridge; it’s such a great, unexpected musical choice.

There’s not a lot to recommend in this long roundtable discussion of music journos — the final section, where they’re rating/ranking pop starts like they’re baseball players or Pokemon, is downright bizarre (even depressing) — but this quote from one Jason Lipshutz does sum up nicely how I feel about the last 2 albums:

https://www.billboard.com/articles/columns/pop/8499235/ariana-grande-thank-u-next-five-questions

To me it's a matter of personal preference, and maybe even mood: the devastation at the center of Thank U, Next lands with a dazzling force, while Sweetener's 15 tracks arrive like a flurry of presents to unwrap, some imperfect but almost all sumptuous. Thank U, Next may very well be viewed as Ariana's crowning achievement when all is said and done, but the lighter moments of the six-months-older Sweetener are still difficult for me to overlook.

hey, I'm glad somebody's endorsing "Bloodline" as a single!

Talk about "converting haters left and right"(!):

thank u for some laughs and some v productive conversation ! it was nice bumping into u ! #FutureFeministPiers #FingersCrossed

— Ariana Grande (@ArianaGrande) February 20, 2019

I have just noticed that all the singles and almost all the tracks are around 3min long (the longest tracks on the album being "Ghostin" at 4.30).
That's very short in today's standards. It's (almost) early Beatles'era singles length ("7 rings" is 2.58) !

Oh and another (silly) thought : I have no idea why but I was thinking there might be as much or more use of the word "fuck" than on... Use your Illusions I AND II combined !
Is there a "parental advisory lyrics" on her cds (does these things still exist actually !?)

in an interview in the Guardian today Mark Ronson says there's pressure to keep songs under 3:15 otherwise you're at risk of boosting your "heard - incomplete" stats in Spotify which is apparently the kiss of death

Aw thanks I hadn't noticed that evolution !

So back to the spirit of the early 60s singles in terms of length...
I like that !

The parental advisory label is indeed made a prominent part of the new album’s cover art design (the “explicit” version, anyway) — to the point that when fans were doing their own mock-ups of the cover, that label and its placement were a big part of the concept.

(parody mock-ups, using other photos)

I love these stats; the only artist in history to replace herself at number 1, twice in a row

https://www.officialcharts.com/chart-news/ariana-grande-replaces-herself-at-number-1-for-a-second-time-on-the-official-singles-chart__25630/

Also, after obliterating the first-week streaming record, the album still generated more U.S. audio streams in its second week of release than any other album has in its first week. (And yes, I know streaming stats can be gamed by some fans leaving Spotify running 24/7 or whatever.)

this destroys sweetener on every level

This one lives up to what I expected from Sweetener after reading the breathless hype for that last fall.

A new collab w/ 2 Chainz (“Rule the World”) drops tonight.

flopson otm

yep

*queues up "bad idea"*

I like this album a lot and have listened to it regularly lately but I think it lacks something to be a really GREAT album.
Maybe one more big song instead of one of the 2-3 that I find meh (so that's roughly one quarter of fillers on the album...)

if you swap out some of the worse tracks for best ones on sweet that’s pretty close to a classic. just skipped thru sweetener again and it’s crazy how bad the pharrel tracks are lol

I'd keep REM, No Tears Left, Breathin and Succesful from Sweetener, i'd definitely ditch Make Up and 7 Rings from Thank You, Next but not much else. There's surely a good poll of all the tracks to be made, maybe in another coupla months or so tho.