Dangerous Woman is an album I hold near and dear to my heart, for a few different reasons, so I was incredibly anxious pressing play on Sweetener for the very first time this past summer. “No Tears” came out last spring and I loved it, even though it was definitely a different sound than what I was expecting. “God is a Woman” was released and I thought it was a total banger (even though I love my Jesus very much and this song *apparently* created some controversy within the Christian community—totally message me for further thoughts if you feel inclined to).
I’m not going to lie: when the whole album dropped, I felt like it was a huge disappointment. Many of the things I loved about Dangerous Woman—feeling like I always discovered new subtleties in certain songs every time I listened to them, Ariana’s ridiculously high notes in “Touch It” and “Into You,” etc.—I didn’t think were present in Sweetener, and I almost decided to not revisit a majority of the songs on the album. But I came across an extremely vulnerable and emotional clip from Grande’s Beats 1 interview, and was so inspired by her commitment to pouring her heart out to her fans, both musically and relationally, that I decided to spend more time with Sweetener. And I didn’t regret it.
This is an album that includes: a completely a capella track that heavily samples Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons, a track that was once an almost-forgotten Beyonce demo, and a track with most of its sections taken directly from an Imogen Heap song of an extremely similar name. Somehow, despite all of that, Grande has navigated her way to making all of Sweetener 100% her own.
Here are my Top 5 from Sweetener, in order of how they appear on the track list.
1) god is a woman
WOW, what a power move. I’m personally not a huge fan of the religious innuendo—I think it’s been done too many times before and it’s never been that appealing an idea to me—but Grande seriously went off on this one. One of my favorite parts of this track is the gospel choir that comes in towards the end of the song, made up solely of Ariana Grande singing 24 (yep, TWENTY-FOUR) different parts.
Set in a cool Eb minor, “god is a woman” is as confident as it is fun. It’s as bold as it is intimate. Just like the women around the world that Ariana tries to empower.
Side note: After being really tired of hearing news report after news report of powerful people sexually assaulting women and getting away with it, I wrote something about why people might think that God is a woman a while ago so like check it out if you want I mean no pressure but yeah.
2) breathin
This one has to be in the top 3 on this album for me. It’s the first non-single that I decided to take a second (and third and fourth and fifth) listen to during my initial run through the album. Grande’s vocals come out so pristine, and there are some great details in “breathin” that I only discovered after several listens (like the clacking sound playing sixteenth notes once the second verse hits, and the sixteenth note pickup—or *anacrusis* if you want to be snobby like I so often am—that comes right before the last two choruses, which is something I didn’t even hear until my boyfriend pointed it out to me). Finding all of these tiny, fun details was something I loved doing when I listened to Dangerous Woman, and something I missed doing until I heard “breathin”.
Apart from all the cool stuff happening in this track, “breathin” means a lot to me personally. From dealing with anxiety in the past three years or so because of different reasons, I know the feeling of being so overwhelmed by your own thoughts and emotions that you forget to breathe: the one thing that should come most naturally to you, the very first thing you do when you’re born. Cheesy as it sounds, when I become aware that I’m in the middle of an anxiety attack, and feel like the sky is falling over being frustrated by a big to-do list or feel so terrified about a difficult conversation that I feel physically like I can’t speak, I remember this song and take a deep breath. And then I feel like I can move along. It is so encouraging for me to see someone I look up to be transparent about mental illness and find the courage to push through PTSD and anxiety.
P.S. The electric guitarist’s fingers are moving so fast at 3:00 in this video????????????????? WOW cool
3) no tears left to cry
When “no tears” came out, I had absolutely no idea what to expect from Sweetener. There was so much to take in: the different sound, the blonde hair, the upside down-ness of everything Grande was posting… As the song grew on me, it became my go-to whenever I felt like I had overcome something really difficult and could finally celebrate (read: student teaching). Somehow, Grande has captured that emotion in song form—not just joyfulness, but celebration despite trials that a lot of people might think you would spend your whole life crying about, and mustering up the courage to pick things up. In the world we live in, with the news we watch, I think we need as much of this kind of joy as we can get.
There’s honestly not a lot about “no tears”, compositionally, that Nate Sloan and Charlie Harding haven’t dug deep into in their 85th episode of “Switched on Pop”, one of my favorite podcasts. “Equanimity” , the word Sloan and Harding have chosen to attach to “no tears”, is the perfect word to describe what Grande has managed to capture in a track that’s only a little over three minutes long.
I love that the song is catchy, radiant, and refreshing, and that in it, Grande invites the listener to soar and “vibe” with her, and to see the colors in the people around us, even when it’s raining down.
4) better off
“better off” is the one mellow moment on Sweetener, and I love it. “better off” encapsulates that quiet moment when you realize, after you process the disappointment and the hurt, that you might be better off leaving behind someone you love, who is simultaneously someone who just doesn’t know how to stop hurting you. “better off” is one of the shorter full-length tracks on Sweetener, but Grande doesn’t need longer than the two minutes and 51 seconds to convey how tired she is of the emotional investment in someone who just might not be able to keep up anymore—and you can feel every word of it.
Going back to Grande’s commitment to pouring herself out to her fans, I can imagine that even the idea of putting out a song with lyrics like these is scary, to say the least. Grande herself said this about “better off” in June of this year:
As terrifying as including “better off” on Sweetener was, it’s also such a beautiful song about maturing and understanding who you are/what you need that it absolutely deserved to be included. And I don’t know about everyone else, but Grande definitely challenges me to be more honest and vulnerable about what I feel in the moment when I take the time to write music.
5) goodnight n go
I can’t put my finger on it, but there is something really magical about this song. Maybe it’s remembering what it feels like to first fall in love, the feeling of not being able to control what’s taking over you, coming to terms with it, and letting it happen. It might be a bad idea, but maybe it’s worth it. It’s scary, but good. At the same time, there’s something bittersweet—the going away after the sweet goodbye. It’s always say “goodnight n go” for some reason or another. Something about this song keeps me coming back to it.
Structurally, this is a really fascinating track. Most pop songs are structured verse 1, (pre-chorus), chorus, verse 2, (pre-chorus), chorus, bridge, chorus, (outro). But “goodnight n go” is verse 1, pre-chorus, chorus, bridge, pre-chorus, chorus, post-chorus, outro. I don’t really know what my point is in bringing this up, but I just think the way the song structure is switched up from the norm is really cool.
Also, I feel like I’m the one person who loves Sweetener that didn’t know until MONTHS after it came out that “goodnight n go” takes so much from “Goodnight and Go” by Imogen Heap, despite thinking every time I heard it that the effects and harmonies seemed very Heap-like. Although many of the words are the same between the two songs, “goodnight n go” is distinctly Grande. From the candid and sensual first verse, to the trap beat added to the track, to the fun post-chorus—and even the change from “and” to “n” in the title—Grande doesn’t just cover “Goodnight and Go”. She makes the song hers.
Final Thoughts
I seriously hated this album as a whole when I first heard it, but now I love Sweetener because it is so unapologetically Ariana Grande. And she doesn’t care that it wouldn’t be the same as something she would unapologetically make a year from now, or ten years from now, or maybe even a week from now. Sweetener is a collection of her experiences and emotions from what just might’ve been the craziest year of her life—in the best ways and in the worst ways. It’s a snapshot of a really important season to her, and everything including the titles of the songs being in all lowercase letters, the countless *yuhs*, and the simple yet powerful and straightforward lyrics (“I’ll right there just to hug ya” in “get well soon”, because we all just need to be hugged sometimes) is her gift after coming out of all of this alive, from her to us.
