Today sees Ariana Grande’s eighth album released, not highly anticipated since we supposed she was immersed in her film career. In any case, it is a very short album, a little over half an hour in length, recorded with her usual producer, Ilya. The mighty Max Martin contributed to three tracks, including, as expected, the two singles, ‘hate that I made you love me’ and the title track ‘petal’, which is being promoted today.
‘petal’ had been promoted as a disc “a bit wild” and “experimental,” in the sense that she didn’t intend to subscribe to any particular genre. In the lyrics, Ariana has stated she expresses emotions that previously gave her “too much shame or hesitation,” with a certain spirit of “to hell with it all.” That “unfiltered anger” doesn’t, however, manifest itself in a rougher production: essentially we’re looking at an R&B album, very pleasant to listen to, without outbursts.
‘stay’ immediately stands out for its bubbly production, and ‘oh well’ has a drum&bass base, as well as ‘freak’ being one of Ilya’s productions that generates the most intrigue: it starts with guitar and then forgets it to deliver atmospheric keyboards. At this point in the album it’s clear that atmosphere and texture creation takes precedence over chasing hits. The transition to the interlude happens almost unnoticed.
After the brilliant vocal harmonies of Ariana Grande on the pretty ‘like i do’, the catchiness of the track titled ‘never get over me’ and the uptempo guitar-driven ‘bad thing’ stand out, preventing the sequence from slipping into oblivion. The album closes with ‘nowhere, nobody’, leaving open the question of whether this will become one of Ariana Grande’s fan favorites.
In our Ariana Grande forum, Me_Adri complains about the album’s brevity, though praising its sound in a particular way: “it sounds to me like an aquarium. It’s a bit The Weeknd in an aquarium.” ElPomoDeRosie believes that “for an album of pain and rage, it whispers too much and screams too little.” And ElPajarito insists that “he liked it” despite some ups and downs: “In the end it comes back up with ‘never get over me’ and doesn’t fall again. It’s that htimylm, petal, stay, big feelings, never get over me, bad thing, nowhere nobody… I love them!”
