Ariana Grande — Sweetener ANALYSIS & REVIEW
Published 08/23/2018
My final score aside, this was one of the more positively surprising listens I’ve had from a current big name pop musician. I’m sure you don’t need me to tell you that mainstream pop as a whole has severely lost hold of musical art for the sake of marketability, formulaic identity, and icon status. I won’t say that this album didn’t still use those three things to drive its creation, but the musical substance was not necessarily the plastic that could’ve been expected. It’s still nothing outstanding, but it’s worth noting that one of the biggest names in the business today was still able to create something with noticeable passion, talent, and some structural successes.
Grande has one of the strongest voices I’ve heard from a musician using these types of restrictive, run down songwriting tactics, which was one reason why this album came to at least be tolerable, and gives an easy comparison to show what other pop icons lack right out of the gate. Grande separates herself from that pack here by constantly showcasing her vocal abilities of keeping a rich tone in every part of her range and sustaining power and edge throughout her tessitura. That, along with backup vocals and overdubs constantly adding nice flair and presence within the mood, was the most positive aspect of the work.
The instrumental side to the sound was equally as important, since it needed to maintain the energy that was worked towards while not taking anything away from the vocals or giving unwanted distraction. For the most part, the timbre certainly succeeded with that. The sound was carefully crafted by use of delicate, soft synth layers as opposed to something overly poignant and bright. The sound was layered nicely with vocals always at the forefront and a backing texture of smooth harmonic synth pads and a barebones percussive sound to achieve a unified, chill, and at best fun, atmosphere. There was even some riveting vocal manipulations and neat minimalist looping experimentation in the song “the light is coming”. The textures may have always been a bit too thin and unmoving for the sound to be considered a real pull overall, as textural development, or lack thereof, was one of the mainstream tactics employed. It wasn’t anything to be considered beautiful, but it was level-headed, understandable, and layered well to feature the strengths.
The timbre is truly where this album finds its grain of identity and worthiness, which includes the strong thematic lyricism. It was also rightfully a large focus in its subtle textural shifts and vocal attention from song to song, as its reflection on being a modern 2018 work does match the general cultural desires of needing a strong timbre above all else. The actual song composition, though, did leave much to be desired. The need to sound modern also worked negatively in that too many decisions regarding melodic direction and harmonic roles were done without much artistic thought and rather the thought of market sustainability. Flat-line melodies with no syncopation, inactive harmony that doesn’t match the melodic shape, pitch movement in every layer with no real purpose but to stop repeating itself, etc. Despite the personal sonic flair, this album still couldn’t capture much interest through motivic or basic linear direction, which was where captivation was really needed most.
There were a couple of outliers, like the actual use of functional harmony rather than wandering directionless chords in the songs “sweetener” and “pete davidson”, as well as a well-shaped and nicely transforming chorus motive to pair with that in the songs “breathin” and “no tears left to cry”. On the other side, only the song “R.E.M.” had a truly insufferable and boring structure, with a very slow tempo being paired with very little melodic movement, harmonic disconnect, and a needless pounding beat. Between that lies the rest of album, which had just enough timbral care and effort on chorus memorability to be respectable, but not enough rhythmic sustainability, melodic shape, or development on any front to really make this a worthwhile listen for the average music enthusiast. For perhaps just the average human, though, who is always after what’s relevant, this will be both a rather unavoidable listen and hopefully a rather rewarding one, as this is at least a notch above lots of other corporate driven crap.
Now, because she’s such a big icon and a well-known name, I’ll let you know that I think this is about a mile better than any of her previous work. She’s improved in many ways, but to get over the next hump and make something fully decent, I think she’ll have to abolish lots of corporate interest and involvement from the writing and recording process. In a perfect world, that wouldn’t be problem, but it could prove to be a near-impossible task for her while she’s young and famous.
