Ariana Grande – Positions

Ariana Grande gets too much hate.  Yeah, she did sing like she had peanut butter in her mouth on her first two records.  But it was not like she was dropping bad songs, even back then.  But for some reason since her 2017 album Sweetener, people are quick to just write her off like she’s Eugene from Hey Arnold. The cold reception is pretty baseless to me, mainly because her music gets better and better each year.  The Academy even completely snubbed her from winning a single Grammy for her album Thank U Next.  I love Billie’s album too, but come on Academy.  Not even ONE Grammy for Ariana? 

 “But she also appropriates black culture in her music!”  Fair point, and if it’s her own personal decision to do so, she should stop.  But again, I think to get mad at her for that is shooting the messenger, and ignores the larger elephant in the room which is cultural appropriation being the American music industry’s standard.  If it wasn’t going to be Ariana, it was going to be every other white major label pop star.  Musicians have always been forced to turn to more underground, cutting edge black artists for song ideas since the origins of rock music, with countless black songwriters and producers often being omitted year after year from song credits.  Plus, on this track, I find the sounds more inspired by the earlier hits of Justin Timberlake and Timbaland (not that JT didn’t blackfish either, he did).  And it’s not like she doesn’t do these sounds justice with her songwriters either.  The string plucks work so well with the trap beat. The hook is super catchy, and her vocal lines are really sweet.  Lyrically, she’s as alluring as ever.  Musically, the hate towards Ariana Grande escapes me, because if this song indicates anything sonically for her next album, it could potentially be her most defining sound yet for her.

Score: HOT

Just my opinion