In less than twelve months, Ariana Grande’s gone from former Nickelodeon sitcom star to vaguely diverting “throwback” chanteuse circa ‘Yours Truly’ to the cusp of potential pop greatness with ‘Problem’. All while slipping in dog piss, defending her penchant for ponytails and trying to avoid eye contact with a giggling Rihanna at some award show or other.
She also found the time to record a new album and I went to hear it last week in a small record label meeting room.
As is the way with these things, it’s hard to get a proper feel for an album on one listen, but ‘My Everything’ feels like a genuine attempt to steal the currently vacant pop throne, as well as being the kind of gloriously all over the shop album that you often get when the planet’s songwriting and production a-list decide that they all want to get involved with an artist while the pop iron is extremely hot.
3. ‘One Last Try’
Lyrically we’re not exactly breaking new ground here – “liar” is rhymed with “fire” – but this subtle banger is an obvious album highlight. The chorus feels like it’s about to go off but never quite does, Ariana’s insane vocal flights of fancy weaving in and around a textured, EDM-esque backdrop that Wikipedia says is the work of part-time aural terrorist David Guetta, but it’s actually a Max Martin/Rami/Carl Falk trifecta of amazingness so don’t worry.
8/10
4. ‘Why Try’
This mid-paced bonanza features a massive Ryan Tedder-esque chorus, which is apt because it was quite literally written by Ryan Tedder. Production-wise, highlights include a sort of rolling, marching band beat, echoey “na, na, na” bits and there’s a great moment where Ariana sings the words “heart skips” and – guess what – the beat skips! There’s a good lyric as well, which goes something like, “we be loving like angels, living like devils”, although Ariana sings so high and so rapidly that she could have been saying anything.
7.5/10
8. 'Break Your Heart Right Back' feat Childish Gambino
She’s already ‘teased’ bits of this via the medium of Instagram video (see above, obviously), but this is that one that samples Diana Ross’ ‘I’m Coming Out’ and is apparently inspired by an ex-boyfriend who may or may not of cheated on her with a man. Again, Ariana needs to work on her diction because the first verse of this is so inaudible it sounds like a chorus of cats, but the sample – which was also used on this Notorious B.I.G song which is itself sampled here – is used in a really interesting (and surprisingly subtle) way. Again, it’s not exactly a balls out banger, more of a mid-paced, bouncing bop of a song.
8/10
9. ‘Love Me Harder’ feat The Weeknd
As anyone with fully functioning ears will tell you, The Weeknd’s own songs are a non-stop borefest of emotional inertia, but ‘Elastic Heart’ showed that he’s pretty good in small doses. And that’s true of ‘Love Me Harder’, which starts small and slightly pervy - “if you let me invade your space” is uttered in the first verse – before mushrooming out into a ‘throbbing’, electro-heavy chorus. There’s a really catchy post-chorus bit where Ariana sings “love me, love me…harder, harder” before some big vacuum-esque synths zip around all over the show.
8.5/10
10. ‘Just A Little Bit Of Your Heart’
Oh dear. This Harry Styles-penned, string-drenched ballad is so insipid that even post-Bodyguard Alexandra Burke would probably turn it down for being too clichéd.
Ariana does her best, and the production tries hard to smother the lyrical clichés in all the strings and pianos the label could afford, but this feels like a fairly cynical PR exercise. Mind you drafting in one of One Direction is an upgrade of sorts considering the first album featured one of The Wanted.
4/10
11. ‘Hands On Me’ feat A$AP Ferg
This Rodney Jerkins-produced banger is brilliantly odd and that oddness is only magnified by the fact that it’s sandwiched between the album’s two syrupy ballads. Coming on initially like something from Christina Aguilera’s ‘Bionic’ (wait, come back), it fizzes and pops like classic early noughties R&B, A$AP Ferg’s grunts and hollers peppered throughout, while Ariana sounds convincingly coquettish in a way she hasn’t done before.
9/10
12. ‘My Everything’
Ariana’s been crying, she’s been missing her baby, she’s been pondering why she only realises what she has after its gone, etc. There are lots of pianos and the faint whiff of the stuff that clogged up her first album, but this one is basically quite a boring way to end an album that shows flashes of proper megastar potential.
6/10
1. ‘Intro’
Ariana kicks things off in quite restrained, chilled-out fashion; cooing her way through some nice, gentle harmonies reminiscent of the general vibe of Yours Truly. Don’t get too relaxed, though…
3. ‘One Last Time’
This track’s great: slightly less 'kitchen sink' than your average dance-pop banger, with a glorious pulsating chorus that gets better and better every time.
4. ‘Why Try’
All you essentially need to know is that Ryan Tedder co-wrote it. What. A. Song. Definitely a standout.
6. ‘Best Mistake’ featuring Big Sean
The pace changes from here: ‘Best Mistake’ returns Ariana to her R’n’B roots with a track that wouldn’t have sounded out of place on Kelly Rowland’s under-rated last album.
7. ‘Be My Baby’ featuring Cashmere Cat
Sadly not a cover of the Ronettes’ classic, but great all the same. Rihanna wouldn’t sneer at this glitzy gem, but she’d definitely struggle to keep up with the mighty fine cross-octave ad-libbing towards the end.
8. ‘Break Your Heart Right Back’ featuring Childish Gambino
Ariana had promised that a song on the album would sample a classic gay anthem, and she wasn’t lying: Diana Ross’s ‘I’m Coming Out’ is given a mini-revival on this track, which really suits the softer side of Ariana’s Mariah-esque voice. Could have a been a great KISS-friendly summer anthem if serviced as a single.
9. ‘Love Me Harder’ (with The Weeknd)
This track’s brilliant. A pulsating slice of electropop with a stunning double chorus, it might just be the standout song of the whole collection.
10. ‘A Little Bit Of Your Heart’
Yep, this is the one penned by a certain Harry Styles. It’s a pretty song: an epic piano-driven ballad that could make a convincing X Factor winners’ single. It’s a definite change of pace from the rest of the collection, but fans of Ariana and 1D will be more than satisfied.
11. ‘Hands On Me’ featuring A$AP Ferg
Mid-late 00s Britney Spears would have been proud to put her name to this. A proper, dirty late-night urban-ish electrobanger, it sounds just a tad out of place when sandwiched between two restrained ballads - but is still a great tune.
12. ‘My Everything’
Ah yes, the obligatory downtempo closer. ‘My Everything’ is a little more restrained than ‘A Little Bit Of Your Heart’ and that remarkable voice of hers is in pristine form. The harmony-laden finale is beautiful.
And to conclude
Those overseeing Project Grande clearly mean business. The best songwriters, producers and guest rappers of the moment have been drafted in for My Everything, and it's all paid off: the record is a remarkably strong effort with plenty of single choices and a real stamp of star power from the lady at the front of it all. Collaborations may be littered all over the place but she's unmistakably the centre of attention:
her diction is sometimes a little hard to decipher but the voice easily conquers any subgenre she tries her hand at, and if the objective here is to position her as a world-class popstar then it's mission accomplished. It's a big thumbs up from us.
Where do we even start with this one? While Yours Truly was crazily cohesive in that 'I'm gonna listen to the whole album through while I do my homework/scroll Tumblr all night' kinda way, My Everything's packed with properly massive hits that all deserve sh*tloads of attention as standalone tracks.
An early fave was the Ryan Tedder-penned bangerballad (that's a thing, alright?) Why Try, which has that signature soaring chorus we've come to expect from his stuff. We're also a little bit obsessed with the ridiculously camp I'm Coming Out-sampling Childish Gambino collab Break Your Heart Right Back (y'know - that one that may or may not be about her ex cheating on her with a fella?)
The tune we were obviously *dying* to hear, though, was the Harry Styles-penned A Little Bit of Your Heart...and it doesn't disappoint. It's basically that HUGE love song Ariana's been missing from her discography until now, and while it's all a bit 'X Factor winner's single' (not necessarily a bad thing), Ari kills it vocally. We also need an X Factor performance of this with dry ice and/or one of those glitter showers, please.
Here's the thing - we frickin' LOVED everything Ariana was going for on her debut record, but with massive global success comes a more mainstream approach to things sometimes.
Basically, Yours Truly worked better as a 'body of work' (ooh er), but My Everything does exactly what it's supposed to do in taking Ariana to the next level of pop superstardom.
It's fun (HELLO Hands On Me), it's fiesty and it's packed full of talent. Yeah - some of the tunes might not be groundbreaking, but the fact Ari's genuinely a bloody incredible vocalist still seperates her from the rest of the pack. This is Ariana's breakthrough record, and we can't wait to see her crowned the new princess of pop.
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