Album review: Ariana Grande - My Everything

The post header image, featuring the text ‘?J Pop Album Review’ and a shot of a vinyl of Ariana Grande’s album ‘My Everything’, laid on a dark grey, almost black textured surface. The cover art features Ariana Grande sat on a white stool in white heels, wearing lingerie.

When Ariana skipped onto the scene in 2013 with her debut album Yours Truly, she filled a void that none of us really knew was there, as nobody ever occupies this void for long and end up gone as quickly as they arrived. Before Ariana, there was Esmée Denters. Before Esmée was JoJo. And in between this there were the likes of Samantha Jade, Nikki Flores and Stacie Orrico. All of whom succumbed to the struggle of remaining commercially relevant and holding the title of the young ‘white’ girl who dabbles with R&B. But where-as the likes of JoJo had transitioned on the side-lines into a young woman with a self assured sense of style, being and her sound, and Esmée is...well...back to doing covers on YouTube after being dropped like a hot brick by Justin Timberlake, Ariana still feels like a bit of a wandering girl. Coming off way younger than she is, and lacking the substance to go with the vocals. Just think about what girls her age were putting out in R&B in the early 2000s and how JoJo was handling her business on her debut at the age of 14.

A problem I’ve always had with Ariana Grande is her musical identity, or lack there-of. The girl can sing. This is not in question. But singing is but one part in a machine which makes a bonafide artist, and Ariana is still a long ways from that. Ariana sings every song near perfectly and flutters her notes in all of the right places, but she feels so pedestrian and replaceable on everything she sings. Ariana is oft compared to Mariah Carey, but Ariana does not take ownership of her songs vocally the way Mariah had done from the very start of her career. When Mariah hit that whistle register on “Vision of Love” she had made her mark. She had pissed all over the music game and marked her territory. Ariana is yet to do anything of the sort by this point.

A blurred black and white shot of Ariana Grande, in the same attire and hair style she has on the album cover, but in a different pose. Her arms are up either side of her head, with her hair covering them.
Ariana Grande - My Everything | Republic Records

The first thing that catches you about Ariana’s sophomore effort from looking at the tracklist is how top heavy it is with guest features. A good singer should be able to hold their own, but here she is surrounded by so many guest features, producers and songwriters, that Ariana isn’t even left with a tenth of platform on which to showcase her own self. Even if you strip out Zedd and Cashmere Cat (who both feature in the capacity of being the producers of their respective songs) that still leaves five guest features. Seven if you include Jessie J and Nicki Minaj on “Bang Bang”, which features on the limited edition release of the album. And so few of these guest features bring any real value to the songs.

People may mention that Mariah has guest features littering her albums these days, but Mariah went five studio albums deep without a guest feature, and by this point she had more than proven that she can hold her own for 10 tracks of an album. Ariana seems surrounded by so much, whether it’s a team of songwriters, producers or a troupe of dancers in a music video or a performance, that she’s not seeming like a vital element to anything. As good as her voice is, it doesn’t shine on this album. If we want to talk parallels with another artist who came up in kids TV shows, Demi Lovato can sing too and quite frankly owned her shit on her last studio album in a way Ariana doesn’t here, despite her being more than capable of doing so (and having a voice that I prefer).

Ariana comes off too much like a vessel on this album. She brings too little of herself it. Only on about 4 of the songs do we get something, but it’s all too fleeting on an album which should have been all about Ariana. She claims this album is her everything, but she gives nothing.

This album should have been a chance for Ariana to really take a step forward. Her debut was an ambiguous affair which left many questioning whether Ariana could deliver anything which would allude to her being able to leave behind a form of musical legacy, but nothing on My everything alludes to her being able to. It’s a massive step back from Yours Truly.

None of the songs on this album are terrible and Ariana doesn’t hit a bad note. But so many of the songs are forgettable. Yes, Ariana has a good voice, but it doesn’t take a good voice to make a good song. And whilst a good voice helps, it takes more. It takes takes character. It takes passion. It takes a special something that you can’t always put your finger on, and these are things I don’t get from Ariana on this album. When she’s singing about her deadbeat ex on “Problem”, I’m not buying it. When she's telling her boy in the club that she can break him off, I assume she’s talking about a finger of her Kit Kat; because there’s no way given her dry delivery that she’s referring to throwing that pussy at him. Ariana has no conviction.

What really hurts this album is that it feels as though nobody really tried to get a sense of who Ariana is or what works for her sonically. “Best mistake” is one of the very few moments on the album where Ariana comes through and delivers. “Love Me Harder” is another. These darker, sombre stripped back songs where Ariana sings within her low to middle registers seem to be her comfort zone. But these songs are sandwiched between track-by-track run downs of every familiar musical style which has sat in the charts over the past 3 years with the plainest of Ariana’s vocals slapped over the top. Nobody at any point seemed to try to go for consistency or cohesiveness. Very few of the personnel involved on this album seemed to care about trying to tie Ariana’s character to her music. Ariana’s Twitter and Vine accounts confirm that she is a bit of a character. And recent accounts of her making ridiculous demands, walking out on photoshoots and being an all around bitch to fans, show that there’s more to her than pigtails and batted eyelashes - but you wouldn't know that from 80% of the material of the album. And whilst I can vouch for Ariana having something of a personality, not everybody who listens to this album will be able to.

Between the likes of hitmakers Max Martin, Savan Kotecha, Benny Blanco, Rodney Jerkins, Zedd and Ryan Tedder, My Everything should have been a much better album than this. A MUCH better album. This is a line-up most acts in pop would kill for. But each of their efforts feel diluted and half-arsed. They deliver nothing but forgettable tripe and mediocrity.

A blurred black and white shot of Ariana Grande, in the same attire and hair style she has on the album cover.
Ariana Grande - My Everything | Republic Records

My Everything is not a good album. Sure, there are nice songs on it, but there’s nothing which defines it as a whole. And even the albums better moments aren't enough to save it. They’re nothing more than reminders of how good this album could have been had somebody dug a little deeper and built the songs around Ariana instead of making her fit songs which in most cases just aren’t right for her.

Album highlights:
■ Best Mistake 🏆
■ Love Me Harder
■ Hands on Me

Comments

  1. I used to sort of kind of like Ariana at one moment in time. Now I just want her to go away. Sure she's better than the majority of today's pop stars, who have set the bar really low might I add, but she is by no means in the big league of singers. I can't believe she was actually being touted as the next mariah, BITCH PLEASE you will never be the next Mariah with that infinitesimal voice and non-existent lower register. I know people like to trash Mariah for not being able to tackle her songs like she used to, but she's two decades into her career and had a good seven where her voice was in top notch condition. Ariana has proved with her sophomore effort that she will not have the same longevity, and she's already starting to experience vocal decline. Her latest performances have been horrid: no resonance, shouting out the higher notes, wooden and delivery. Did you see her try to tackle the bridge of Bang Bang at the itunes musical festival I believe it was? sure she hit the right notes, but the delivery was a fail. I hate Jessie J but at the very least she exudes character and musicality when she sings, the same cannot be said for Ariana.

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  2. Speaking of Ariana, when do you plan on reviewing Mariah's latest album?

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  3. Break Free was such a wasted potential of-a-song. Her vocals were really REACHING to fit the style of that song in my opinion, yes it was passable, but barely. Zedd is actually a really great producer so I'm sure that people on Ariana's behalf muddled with the song and ruined it. The beat is good, but the vocal melody is.. it's okay. I mean, I suppose it could be Zedd's fault, but the song feels like his signature sound was watered down.. which I guess makes sense because it's HER song and not his. Ugh. I dunno.

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  4. Had I not already disliked Ariana Grande, definitely would have found my way to hate her after seeing her putrid flaming brother on CBS' Big Brother. A BIG MESS!

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  5. I don't think Zedd's sound was watered down at all. Ariana's vocals sound good on the song, but she doesn't own it - which is a really notable thing after the likes of Foxes on "Clarity", Hayley Williams on "Stay the night".


    My gripe with "Break free" (which may be where you feel the sound is diluted) is the song structure. The song never truly takes off or reaches its climax. The melody and music on the whole feels quite passive. There are builds which build to nothing. Melodies which never progress. Every time the music feels like it's on the cusp of turning into something big it just doesn't. It's a constant back and forth.

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  6. Mariah is the queen of shade.

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  7. Yeah, you seemed to have articulated it better than I did. (Curse you J!, LOL)


    That's probably my worst gripe about it, that the song never really goes anywhere. After the chorus finishes it teases a drop of some kind but it never happens. The whole song feels like it's always in refrain mode.

    Honestly, the vocal melody doesn't do the instrumental justice, I feel as though a different structure and melody on the vocals would have helped immensely. Even if someone with better vocal presence sang the song, I wouldn't like it. The vocal melody is a problem on it's own.


    I just keep wondering how much control Zedd had over the final product because this is subpar compared to his other releases.

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  8. It's the 2nd half of the chorus where it all deteriorates.

    Had a nice staccato thing going on: "say I don't want it!"

    Then it just smothers itself out in blandness and typicalness.

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  9. Gotcha.

    When you put it like that, I definitely get where you're coming from and agree completely.

    Max Martin produced the song with him, so maybe the typical elements of a Zedd production which are missing is a result of his input. Max Martin's productions are usually on point though and he's always been big on song structure, so it would shock me if he ended up being the reason why the song got done how it did.

    "Stay the night" is basic, but d'ya know what? I never once listened to it and felt it needed anything more. It's okay for a song to be basic if it's good and sounds as it should. "Break free" as you pointed out feels lacking to the point where I'm not even sure what could fix it. The whole thing would need to be reworked from the ground up.

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  10. The undisputed.


    Sometimes she throws it so fast the recipient doesn't even realise until they look around and see that they're surrounded by darkness.

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