Flashback Friday: Ariana Grande - The Wizard and I | The witch can sing

On set footage of the Wicked movie made its way online, which featured a proper look at Ariana Grande as nasty bitch Glinda, and also featured a teeny bit of one of her songs. Maybe it was the fans just happy to hear Ariana singing again after a while. Or maybe everybody’s memories are just bad. But a lotta folk seemed to be shocked at how good Ariana Grande sounded in the clip, which is crazy to me. Because...

a) You couldn’t hear much of the song
b) They already knew Ariana Grande could sing

It does spark an interesting thought though. Because when there is talk of some of the better voices in pop or in music generally, Ariana doesn’t always come up. She certainly doesn’t always come to mind for me. And the thing is, Ariana can actually sing. And I’m aware that she can. But her music doesn’t showcase her voice at all. She’s become very taken with talk singing. And then there is her controversial diction, or lack thereof - which causes many of her songs to just sound like she’s just mumbling. So her singing ability is never a focal point of her music.

Maybe everybody genuinely did forget that a bitch could sing. Which means it’s just as well that she is starring in a movie musical where she will have to truly exercise her voice and give us great diction. And I think it will be great for her generally, because something else that people have forgotten or perhaps didn’t know is that Ariana is a musical theatre kid. She adored it growing up and still does now. Ariana is a huge fan of Wicked, which I’m sure makes being cast in the film so meaningful to her. And she has covered the popular “The Wizard and I” a couple of times over the years, the most recent being for an NBC TV special for Wicked back in 2018.

Ariana sounds great singing musicals. She honestly sounds better singing “The Wizard and I” than she does any of the songs on her albums. I’m really keen to see how her being a part of Wicked impacts not only how she sings her own songs, but her sound. I’ve long felt that Ariana should release an album of Broadway covers. But what would be great would be if she somehow worked the element of Broadway and musical theatre into a studio album. It wouldn’t feel like such an oddity, given that there were touches of this in her debut album, and that Positions at times felt like it perhaps wanted to be an album of show pieces.

Ariana is so popular that she could do anything and it would push units, hit number 1 and break streaming records. But also, Ariana’s fanbase is so divided on what her sound should be. Half of them like pop Ariana and the other half like Ar&B. She’s never going to be able to please both if she keeps approaching her music how she has for her last 3 albums. So she may as well say ‘Fuck it’ and try something new which feels fresh, fulfils her and allows her to truly exercise her talents as a singer. It would also be another page out of the Mariah blueprint in a way, as Merry Christmas II You felt very musical theatre-esque, in large part because of the involvement of American composer Marc Shaiman. I think it’s something Ariana should consider for sure. And if she teamed up with the right songwriters and producers, I think it could be something really special which would enable Ariana to not only be seen in a new light, but broaden her scope of what she can do musically; as judging from her last two albums, she seems to be a little creatively stuck and stifled.

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💿 Album reviews: Positions | Sweetener | My Everything | Yours Truly
🎛️ Mashup: Ariana Grande x Lady Gaga