Brooke_the_Phoenix
she/her, time-zone AEDT
Ariana Grande- My Everything album review PART 1
My Everything is Ariana Grande’s second studio album. Grande herself has described this album as “an evolution” from her first album, Yours Truly, and uh… if she means an evolution from small to unknown names in the credits to big names in the credits, she’s certainly right. Big Sean returns after appearing in her debut album, but Grande also managed to get Iggy Azalea, The Weeknd, ASAP Ferg and Childish Gambino as featured artists, and Max Martin, David Guetta and Harry Styles were among the many names credited as song writers. Grande has certainly made some A-list friends since Yours Truly.
In all seriousness, I can see why she may call it an evolution from her debut. While a couple of songs on here still have a bit of an R&B feel to them, most of the songs on this record are straight-up pop songs, and there’s even a couple of EDM tracks on here. I'll also admit, the production, in some ways, did get better. However, in a lot of ways, this is a weaker album than Yours Truly. While Yours Truly had a few flaws, I still really like the album. This, however, isn’t really something I want to listen to multiple times. I had to do that to write this review, but I’m probably never going to listen to My Everything again after this. There are a couple of good songs on here, but most of them are just kind of average (and a few are actually really bad). First, let’s have a look at the lyrical content. Also, since I have a lot more to say about this album than the last one and there is a character limit for each blog post, I’m splitting this review into multiple parts.
LYRICS
As you’d expect, most of the songs on this record are about love and relationships, but in this record Grande does delve in to some more mature topics, such as regret and sex, with mixed results. As was the case in the first album, most of the lyrics are pretty simplistic, though the choruses actually consist of sentences this time, instead of just repeating one word or phrase over and over again… with the exception of ‘Problem’. Unfortunately, while I appreciate the songwriters expanding their vocabulary on the choruses, there were more lyrics in this album than the last one that should NEVER have been written. Yours Truly only had a couple of bad lines, but this album has more than a few that make me cringe.
Most of these lyrics come from the guest rappers. Surprisingly, Iggy Azalea’s verse in ‘Problem’ isn’t actually terrible, though the Jay-Z reference at the end of her verse did feel very forced (“I got 99 problems but you won’t be one”), and it felt like it was there to be like “Look guys, we made a Jay-Z reference! We’re clever!” You can tell they wanted you to pay attention to that lyric, because it was the last line of Iggy’s verse and the accompaniment goes silent when she says that. It’s a minor gripe, but it didn’t feel entirely natural. Still, at least Iggy Azalea of all people gave me a decent verse, which is something the other rappers just couldn’t do. Childish Gambino features on ‘Break Your Heart Right Back’, and not only does he try to convince Ariana Grande to get with him by bragging about how all the girls love him (which I doubt), but he also spits out this monstrosity of a lyric: “The flow so gross, my nickname school lunch.”
While Iggy Azalea surprised me with a mostly-decent verse and Childish Gambino surprised me with an awful verse, Big Sean met my expectations and delivered a mostly below-average verse in ‘Best Mistake’, which is otherwise a pretty good song. Unlike last time, he didn’t randomly stick in a line about all the girls he screws while trying to say that he’s loyal to Ariana, which is a good thing… but he still made sure to add ONE bragging comment, just to make sure he’d never stop feeding his own ego: “I know sometimes it’s hard to realise I’m the man that you need”. He also decided to add a lyric that probably sounded good in his head but comes off kind of creepy: “You ask why I love your mom so much, ‘cause she’s a older you”. Gross. Also, Sean, it’s ‘an older’, not ‘a older’. What is it with rappers refusing to use ‘an’?
Hey, speaking of grammar mistakes in songs, let’s talk about ‘Break Free’. Now, I actually really like the melody of the pre-chorus, but the really clumsy writing in that section in particular just wrecks it for me. First we have this lyric: “I only want to die alive.” Yes, I understand that she’s saying that she wants to die happy and joyful, but putting two antonyms next to each other doesn’t automatically create clever writing; in this case it’s clumsy as hell. Then, after a few more lines are sung, the pre-chorus ends with one of the worst lyrics ever written, at least for Grammar Nazis like myself. I could deal with “I only wanna die alive”, but “Now that I’ve become who I really are” is WAY over the line. Who I really are??? Max Martin, WHY didn’t you just come up with a different lyric? If you absolutely had to keep that lyric and “Never by the hands of a broken heart”, why didn’t you write “Now that I’ve become who I really am”? Sure, it would have been a terrible rhyme, but at least it wouldn’t have been urinating all over the English language. What were you thinking? Why would you make Ariana sing that?
While most of these are just individual lyrics in songs that otherwise don’t have many other instances of bad writing, there is one song in particular where the entire track is bad writing, and that song is ‘Hands On Me’, featuring A$AP Ferg (yep, because replacing the ‘S’ with a dollar-sign isn’t lame at all). This is definitely one of Ariana’s most sexual songs, and that’s not inherently a bad thing. ‘Love Me Harder’, another song from this album, is also about sex, but it’s one Ariana’s best songs. The reason it’s good, however, is because it’s slow, seductive, less noisy and has more subtle lyricism. Ariana Grande is not good at loud, in-your-face, overly sexual songs like ‘Hands On Me’, even if you don’t know that she was once on Nickelodeon and looks younger than she actually is. I know that she’s an adult now, but she still has a young-sounding voice, so lyrics like “We’ll be taking off or maybe making love / You just keep your eyes on my you-know-what” just sound even more juvenile than they already were, like a little girl who just learned about sex from a bad Twilight fanfiction. There are other lyrics like “It might be a little thing, but I like that long, yeah” that just do nothing but make me laugh, especially when I read the annotations on Genius.com.
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A$AP Ferg certainly doesn’t help matters either, with lots of metaphors for sex that don’t show any cleverness at all, and of course, references to marriage. Because you and that girl you banged at the club who doesn’t even look legal will have a long and happy marriage. Ugh, I’ll talk about this song again later in the review, but for now I need to talk about any other song. Let’s just go to the section on vocals.
VOCALS
Now, I’m sure you’ve all heard jokes on the Internet about Ariana Grande mumbling through her songs and being difficult to understand, but the reason I didn’t comment on it in my review of Yours Truly is because I didn’t think it was much of a problem in that album. On this album, however, it’s a problem, because there are a lot more fast-paced songs on here. The two songs that immediately come to mind are ‘Problem’ and ‘Break Free’, songs which have tempos of 103 BPM and 130 BPM respectively. These are both quite up-tempo songs. They’re not quite as slow and relaxed as most of the songs on Yours Truly, and you can tell that her voice is not suited for tempos this fast, as the majority of her lyrics are slurred and difficult to understand, even for people who are good at understanding the lyrics.
Apart from this problem, Grande’s vocals are still pretty strong overall. On songs like ‘Best Mistake’, which sounds like it would have fit in on her debut album, the style really complements her voice. Even on the EDM and pop tracks, her voice is still technically strong and nicely on-key, despite the slurring. Her vocals are actually the main reason I like ‘One Last Time’ so much, despite the somewhat lazy production (more on that later). Her soaring vocals on the chorus create a lively feeling, and if you read my review for ‘Ride’ by Twenty One Pilots, you’d know I have a soft spot for ‘big’-sounding songs. I do find that Grande’s vocals sound a bit weaker on ‘Problem’ though. If she’s going to sing up-tempo songs, I think she should at least keep the pitch low, because the combination of a fast tempo, high pitch, and Ariana’s slurring problem makes her vocals sound very breathy. Also, Big Sean whispering the hook like he has a bad case of laryngitis didn’t help matters, though it certainly made Grande sound better.
Ugh… I didn’t want to mention ‘Hands On Me’ again, mainly because I wanted an excuse not to keep listening to it while I write this review, but… ugh. That intro with that obnoxious sexy valley girl cheerleader imitation was incredibly cringe-worthy, especially since Grande’s got a young-sounding voice. It makes her sound like a young girl trying to be like their cooler older sister. A$AP Ferg also sounds like he had a few too many drinks and just showed up to the recording session wasted… which you’d probably have to do to record this monstrosity of a song without hating yourself. Ugh, why did they think this song was a good idea?
Click here for Part 2!
