I am a lover of Ariana Grande’s work and I am really happy her album has made it billboard hot 200 albums in the US but the fact is that the album is a very bad one. This Sweetener Album is dry and cannot be compared to her previous work. I may not know much about her but this album cannot be compared to the hits she had in “My Everything” album. She was lacking soul touching Lyrics and the producers were making tunes. I believe she was not in the mood she was when she released her second studio album. Much has been talked about the song “god is a Woman”. It is a good song no doubt about that even if I am a believer and I hate people messing with God. But the basic fact is if that song (god is a woman) was not in the “Sweetener” album then it would have been a totally bad album. I feel she has to work better on her next project. She made Onika Maraj (Niki Minaj) look so ordinary with the song they made together. If this album was the first Album of Ariana that I have listened to, I would have rated her a grade “C” artist. Picking a line from Ciara’s song, I feel Ariana has to level up and never try working with the Beat makers, producers and Executive producers that gave her this buddle of bad music.
However one song that got to me without trying so hard was “No tears Left to cry”. I say this because I have listened to “Better off”, “Blazed” “Borderline” and all the other songs she has in the album and I seemed so bored with what I was hearing. These other songs lacked one thing which drew me to Ariana and that was the melody and fusion of her voice and the harmonious well-cooked beat. Pharrell Williams who produced seven song of the fiften track album made a mess of the production. He obviously misguided the artist. Pharrell mixed the basic fact about an artist which is that every artist has his or uniqueness. Ariana is a musician who Harmonious strings cannot be taken away from her unless you want to make her song dry and disjointed. “Blazed” would have been a master piece if there was more strings and less emphasis placed on the percussion. “Borderline” had him introduce the octaves but he failed to use the equalizer to make it sound in very close level with vocals. I did not really understand what he was looking for in his emphasis on the percussion. Now Ariana went through the stress of getting Missy Elloitt on this song and he made a mess of the Harmonies. I feel he should have listen to the song “why try” which was produced by the trio of Tedder, Benny Blanco and Zancella and he would have understood what harmonious strings do to Ariana’s Voice and Music.
To buttress my point, the song “god is a woman” which I one of five songs produced by the Sweedish Persian, Ilya Salmanzadeh. He made use of every piece of instrument and effects to bring Ariana’s music out. He used a well fine-tuned electronic guiter, 808 kicks, snares, trap hats, distant sound pads jelling it up with good harmonious strings and octaves. For me it was was the best work on this album. In the song “No tears left to cry”, Ilya teamed up with Martin and they brought all of all the elements which made Ariana in the music and they produced the second best song in this album. Pharrell was trying too much in this album and he almost made a joke of the work that Ariana had been doing. To someone reading this you might have a different view but the facts is when a producer makes half of the track in an album and one of the songs he produced is not picked as a promotional song or hyped then you know that the producer has done a crazy bad job.
Conclusion
Every Musician has what flies and makes them different from the others and Ariana has what makes her Ariana. Pharrell Williams was trying to make her produce a new sound which is not good. Thank God for the Executive producers and wisdom given to Arian to give five her songs to Ilya to produce if not this album will have been her worst till date. I am not hating Pharrell but he was in the wrong way and was misleading in the “Sweetener Album” production.
