Over a year after the fatal bombing of her concert at the Manchester Arena, Ariana Grande is back with her new record, sweetener. While the twenty-five year old underwent one of the most painful tragedies a person can go through, this album is all about picking yourself back up after something terrible happens. In this piece, I’m going to dissect my favorite tracks on the album and what I think makes them especially worthy of praise. I am a firm believer in the idea that we as listeners need time to truly understand how a record affects us and how we feel about certain songs. Writing a review a week after an album comes out is fun, but tastes and relationships with that album can develop and evolve over time. My point in saying that is, I may have different favorites on this album in six months. Or maybe I won’t, but, time and fresh ears change the way we connect with tracks.
- “God is a woman”
- As of now, this is my favorite track on sweetener. From the glamorous vocals to the seductive lyrics, Grande hit every mark with “God is a woman.” While on the surface it may seem like Grande is just talking about her sexual prowess, “God is a woman” is much more than that. It’s an anthem of female empowerment and freedom. When she says “I can be all the things you told me not to be / When you try to come for me I keep on flourishing” she is essentially declaring that God could be a woman, despite the eons of referring to God as a “he.” Grande is simultaneously debunking the male narrative while also seducing the male demographic, which I think is really clever.
- “everytime”
- I deeply admire an artist’s ability to take a topic that’s been written about a million times and make it original. “everytime” does this flawlessly. Honing in on the details of a toxic relationship, Grande discusses the major issues that this person brings to her life, and despite this, she repeatedly goes back to this person. Plenty of us can relate to this, and these types of relationships often have the highest highs and the lowest lows. We all want to feel complete, and we often convince ourselves that someone who has proven themself to be bad for us can change. Most of the time, they can’t change. It’s hard to break away from a magnetic person, and usually it takes going back to them a few times, or “everytime,” to learn you’re better off without them.
- “goodnight n go”
- “goodnight n go” is an Imogen Heap track remixed, remastered, and partially rewritten for Grande. Between the mesmerizing harmonies and the satisfying electronic breakdown, “goodnight n go” is a fun and sweet track about falling for someone but still being unsure, or not ready to commit. It’s this idea of saying goodnight, and telling someone to go, even though you really don’t want them to go — and they don’t want to go either.
- “R.E.M.”
- “R.E.M” represents not only everything I adore about newfound love, but also everything I love about dreamy, story-like songs. It can sometimes be hard to see celebrities with such large followings like Grande as real human beings, but I think “R.E.M.” really paints Grande as this real, vulnerable person, who falls just as hard as we do and is just as awkward as us. The track is angelic and ethereal, and the lyrics paint a perfect picture.
- “sweetener”
- “sweetener,” the album’s title track, is no sour let down. Grande belts, “When life deals us cards/ Make everything taste like it is salt/ Then you come through like sweetener you are/ To bring the bitter taste to a halt.” Whether you want to interpret Grande’s “you” as you yourself, or perhaps her lover Pete Davidson, the message of the song is still inherently this: we are all going to go through disastrous times in our lives, where everything seems like it’s falling apart– but, we mustn’t give up. Come through with the sweetener — do your best to improve or better a situation, no matter how difficult the circumstances. For Grande, this appears to be the way Davidson makes her feel physically and emotionally. While making the best out of bad circumstances is easier said than done, hopefully we all have people who can sweeten up our lives if we are struggling to do so ourselves — whether that be through love, companionship, friendship, or “licking the bowl,” as Ariana alludes to in the track.
Written by Rachel Lachaga