Every Single Album - 'Petal' | Every Single Album: Ariana Grande

Episode Date: August 6, 2026

Nora and Nathan talk about 'petal,' the eighth studio album from Ariana Grande. They discuss the recent public discourse surrounding the singer's body and her decision to step away from public life after her tour ends (1:00), how this album is really about her relationship with fame and fans (25:41), and the highlights from this album, including "stay," "oh well," and "big feelings" (31:48). Hosts: Nora Princiotti and Nathan HubbardProducer: Kaya McMullen Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This episode is brought to you by Accenture. When your advertising operations fall out of sync, everything else follows. Spotify and Accenture are working together to reinvent the rhythm of ad sales, using automation, analytics, and smarter workflows to simplify campaign delivery and access better data across the business. The result? Less time spent on operations, more time connecting brands with the moments and fandoms that matter most. Learn more at Accenture.com slash Spotify.

hear that it's your money calling it wants a promotion elevate your savings with the scotia high interest savings account always earn high regular interest rates that grow the more you save and invest conditions apply visit scotia bank.com slash h-i-sa to learn more scotia bank you're richer than you think oh and welcome to every single album i'm nora princiatti and as always i am joined by my pal nathan Hubbard, who's coming to us from what is supposed to be his vacation, but he's very kindly taking a step away from his lakeside retreat to chat with us today. Thank you, Nathan. Next week is technically vacation. This week is being in a place where I'm going to vacation,

not doing a vacation. Your commitment to the grind, it's admirable. It's inspiring to us all, even so. I don't believe you. All right. So, so, so. So, So we are, as we had planned, going to spend this episode talking about Petal, the latest album from Ariana Grande, which came out on Friday. It is her eighth studio album. We are going to spend, as I think it is right for us to do, the vast majority of this conversation, talking about this album, talking about the songs, talking about the music. But it would feel very strange to me to have this conversation without first talking about the fact that there is a lot going on around Ariana with Ariana. This album came out last Friday. It came out the same day that a music video for the title track was released that drew a ton of commentary. Some of it concerned. Some of it maybe other things couched as concern over her appearance. Ariana's apparent weight loss, I think, has been a topic that has sort of swirled around her for the last couple of years.

especially, and she has at times asked people not to speak on it, both in her work as a musical artist and also just on social media talking to fans and the press and whoever might happen to be listening. But the music video, I think, was a sort of new crescendo of that conversation. Then over the weekend, a rep for her spoke to People magazine and said that she is going to be taking a step back from visibility after the Eternal Sunshine Tour ends in September. People also confirmed that she is pulling out of the West End revival of Sunday in the Park with George that she was supposed to be starring in next year with Jonathan Bailey. She's no longer doing that. She spoke to fans on stage at her concert the other night in Chicago and described the decision to step back as something that had been planned

and was not impulsive. And in general and first and foremost, I think it goes without saying that most people, and certainly we hope that she's doing okay. Hope that she's healthy and hope that whatever time she's taking is beneficial and positive. I mean, even outside of any apparent concerns, she's had a breakneck couple of years. Yeah. Between touring, at this point two albums and two wicked movies.

but, you know, I think before we talk about this album, it's essential that we sort of acknowledge the fact that the dominant conversation around this person, I would say, is not related to the music. Is that fair? I think it's true. Yeah. Do you mean, is that fair to say,

or is that fair to her? To her. So I think there's a lot of what living in the public eye seems to do to a person that probably isn't fair. I think in terms of whether or not, and, you know, look, I try to do my best to consider perspectives and read and particularly try to seek out spaces where people who, in particular, have struggled with eating disorders,

have a perspective on just the images that they're seeing, which is a distinct thing from what exactly. is going on, right? We don't know this person. We don't know the people around them. We don't know the situation. But what we, I think, can fairly assess is what iconography is before our eyes and what that seems like it represents. And I think to me, what feels right and appropriate and true is that, though, of course, I feel concerned. for her and hope that she is well, I think to the extent that I

watch that music video and look at her right now and feel fear and concern, it's not for her, which is not to say that I don't want her to be well, but it's not about what she needs, which whatever that is,

I think that has to come from the people around her. I think what I feel is I look at, I look at that music video and I worry about what a young woman would think if they watched it. I worry about, like, my concern is sort of for what happens when those images are projected back into the world. As a standard? Yeah, and I have to be honest, like, I don't watch that and see, for me, I don't see a beauty

standard. I don't see something that, like, I see something that to me looks frightening, but I think that that's a very different experience than someone who's struggling with an eating disorder is going to have watching that. I mean, like, and I, again, just in terms of the aesthetics of it, the pedal music video in particular has a sort of, has a presentation that I still feel like I'm working through where to some extent it feels like it is inviting commentary and it is sort of asking you to be shocked and express your shock. There's a moment in it where she has her first of this series of auditions, right? And she's in her sort of first and most authentic self.

she's in front of these people who could or could not make her a star. And she gets the feedback form that says she's not good enough. And at the bottom, you can see it written where it says, could stand to lose a few pounds. Yeah. And then the next vignette of her is she comes back in this sort of Sandy from Greece, black pedal pushers off the shoulder outfit. and the neckline of the top is just forcing you to stare at the fact that the bones in her chest are popping out of her body.

I don't know. I hope it's not bad for Ariana Grande for me to say that. The thing I feel a little bit more confident in is I think it is bad for that to be out in the world from a famous person, a pop star, a glamorized person, and for it not to be okay for people to say. that's actually not it. Like that's, this is, this shouldn't be, this shouldn't be a beauty standard and this shouldn't be something that we associate with good things in a fun music video. So I guess that's,

that is the amalgamation of, of thoughts and feelings that have passed through my mind over the course of this stuff. Well, I think there's a lot of discourse online that goes all over the place. And once again, it's the kind of thing that's being used. to just amplify dissent. And so thank you for your words on that. I feel like my words on that subject actually don't,

are not relevant and don't matter in this situation. I am more interested in it as a reflection of just what a huge star she is. And I didn't actually understand it. And we've done Ariana Records before. But like, I just didn't really contextualize how big she has gotten until looking just at the data on this release. And I remember, like, a long time ago, right, the original music to reality TV stars were the Osbournes. Ozzy Osbourne and his family, right? And he, like, moved to L.A. and fucking became obsessed with burritos and got in wars with his neighbor.

and like it was just great television. And what he always used to say was like, he and Sharon said like, you don't understand how much of a bigger star we became by being on television. And the film and TV business has evolved dramatically since then, but it still is the same concept, which is that Ozzy Osbourne was a massive music star,

and his popularity in stardom increased like 100x because he was on a screen that people watched. And it feels to me like the same thing has been, she's always been big, but like the wicked movies, even though, I don't know, was the second one good? I didn't think it was entirely successful, but there were good parts of both. So just by virtue of that franchise,

she is... And it wasn't due to her. Whatever failings of that franchise, I don't think we're centrally on her. But like we, the last two weeks have done Gracie Abrams, who did about 125,000 total units and was number one record. We did Charlie XEX, who I think ended up around number three, but big cultural people pay attention artist,

just had a huge show at Lala, came out with Lord, then did her own show. She did 75,000 units in her first week. Ariana Grande is going to do 200,000 plus in her first week. She has every song from this album in the Spotify Top 200. Gracie, two weeks later, has zero songs in the Spotify top 200. By the way, shout out to our girl, Audrey Hobert, who finally has Sue Me in the Billboard Hot 100 for the first time,

speaking of charts. But like, this is a human being from a star standpoint, who is in a completely different stratosphere than most of the artists that we talk about on this podcast. And I mean almost all of them. And it has been crescendoing for years in part because she has been on screen

in addition to being a musical artist. She is the example of the multi-hyphenate creator that has emerged in the era of social media where she is the face of fragrance, and brands. She is the face of movies. She is the face of music. She has her own record label. She has businesses, so on and so forth. But it is the magnitude of her stardom. And then what comes with that, that is the anthropological study that is most interesting from all this for me as somebody who just like has no business like talking publicly about the specifics of the

discourse because the fan base at this level of stardom comes with the weight and the heaviness of the crown that she clearly is wearing and that she's stepping back from. And what comes with that in this day and age is real fans of all shades. There is not a single monolith of a fan base, right? You've got, just look at the Taylor Swift fan base and all of the different segments, just like any brand has a ton of customer segments that are different and they have different income and likes and desires and you, they spend their time differently. So when you market to them, they're in different places. The Ariana fan base is now so large that it is extremely diverse and has its own unique set of segments. And that in and of itself creates a lot of dissension and debate and

conversation, but it's also now a vehicle for bad actors on the internet to foment dissent and chime in and pile in on all sides. And so it's a theme that you and I have spoken a lot about over the past few months as these trends online have been accelerating. But if you are just a casual fan... Can I interrupt to say also that I think this is a yes and, I think all of that, No pun intended. Pardon the pun. I think all of that is entirely right. I also think that

I think that fandom standom, like particularly online fandom I don't I don't think that anyway, we're continuing to try to wrap our

arms as a society, as a pop culture consuming public on what this means and what it has meant. for so many people and so many young people to have as this dominant source of community and connection and identity in their lives

being fans of people on the internet. Yeah. And even in people who are not bad actors who are posting about someone with the specific intention of stirring up dissent and conflict, I think there are plenty of people who start off as well-meaning who are conditioned into some pretty troubling behavior.

Yeah. And is that in reaction to Nathan, don't over-attribute some of the bad stuff to bots and shit? Like there's some kind of whacked outstands too. I think that some of it is coming from inside the building, so to say. And I think, you know, there are plenty of examples like, oh, gosh, I wish I could cite this properly because I was reading, it might have been in Slate because there was a piece about this in Slate that I thought was quite good.

That was identifying the free Brittany movement. Right. As, which was in a lot of ways, a great thing. But as a turning point to consider, an inflection point to consider. in artists' fans, and particularly the segments of artists' fanbases who are really, really active with each other online, in receiving the feedback that they were involved in a person's well-being

and that they had a certain type of agency in their favorite artist's well-being. And the type of activism maybe, vigilanteism maybe, parasyality maybe, all of the above that has perhaps been a sort of side effect of that, and that's not the only example, but that relationship between fans and an artist where there is this sense of connection, but also entitlement to how someone's life is and how it is going, that does. doesn't seem to me to be entirely healthy for either side of the relationship, I think, is relevant here.

Codified is a name by Eminem, written beautifully about in, but daddy, I love him by Taylor Swift, and manifesting itself in all of this discourse in a number of ways. So I'm just fascinated at how big of a star this person is. and she is enormously talented. She is a sneaky all-timer SNL host. Mm-hmm. Her impressions. She's also part of the era of Nickelodeon and Nickelodeon stars who went on to more and more things. Yeah.

Where it was timed up so perfectly with the advent of social media as something that people were using really really broadly, that I do think that it's easy to, it's easy to lose sight of how that particular group of stars does have this scope that is just so massive. It's like the person who, who I always think of in these terms as Selena Gomez. Yeah. But Ariana is certainly one too. So I, I mean, Timberlake was one of them back in the day, right? Bringing the Mickey Mouse Club to Brittany, for sure. like bringing a built-in visual audience to their music. But you said timing, and that is an interesting word in this format,

because this is the second album in a row where immediately upon release, and in the case of Eternal Sunshine, it was like before the release, personal life overshadowed and almost seemingly drowned out the music. The difference this time is that it really feels like this thing is just a chart dominator, regardless of, the music is not being overlooked or slipping away into the background. Like, people are streaming this album right now. Yeah. And it feels just like a little bit of a curse that in her personal life,

the online discourse right now aside, she's back with Ricky, we think. and even that alone, right? Last time she was in a new relationship that lots of people were talking about and lots of sort of speculation and page six shit that she was having to manage. It just seems like, man,

there just is always a lot of discourse around this woman that it's hard to extricate from the album launch campaign either intentionally in their case or unintentionally. And I make no judgment about that. I'm just pointing out like, this keeps happening. It's true.

I wonder if you have a theory on why this does seem to be this kind of instant chart dominator. Oh, because I think there is, as you just said, you just very well spoke to the phenomenon. I mean, she brings this built-in audience. The Wicked has only expanded the universe of Ariana Stans and people who are diehards for her. But would you say that this is penetrating more so than Eternal Sunshine? I think it is, but I don't think it's the music. I think it's her stardom. I also wonder if Eternal Sunshine did come out in a, I think, a more crowded space and

maybe that has something to do with it. I don't, because on, I ask, because on the face of it or to the sound of it, this is not more evidently hit-making music than Eternal Sunshine. No, no, no. And Eternal Sunshine was released March 8th, 2024. Guess what happened right after that? Just before that, we had Taylor. Right after that, we had the ascension of Chapel Rhone,

whose record had technically come out just before the start of 2024. But we had this succession of stuff that just exploded, right? We had Chapel, we had a living, like that was just, we had Charlie, Brat. We had you and I coming on this podcast every week going, I can't believe we're giving another record an A. Yeah. So it is true that that was, but I mean, how's that any different than this one? We just had Gracie, we just had Charlie, we're about to have Phoebe.

We've had, I mean, it's everywhere right now. We had a Taylor song that was released that's still sitting at the top of the charts. But she is so big that it is punching through and piercing. And, man, the first time that I listened to this album, Nora, I gave a big shoulder shrug and a sigh and said, man, we're going to have to get an hour out of this. But the second time that I listened to this album and the third time and on, I started to find a little more nuance and stuff in it that I liked. I still, as I sit here in front of you, I hate that I Made You Love Me is definitely the biggest song. It's the big hit.

There's some stuff that I like better on it. There's nothing that I listened to and went, wow, is this, you know, this is her eighth studio album. This is something transformational and special and unique that's going to go to head to head with the Olivia record or the Ray record or a number of the albums that we think could potentially be in the conversation for album of the year. This one just felt like digestible. It feels like not a stretch to me.

There is a weird absence of Ariana vocal runs for the way that it was advertised as being fueled by rage and feral. It didn't feel that way, although there are some awesome moments. And of all the shitty tweets online, probably the best tweet that I saw about this album is every song is either

fuck me or fuck me. And I love that description of this album because that's kind of what it felt like to me. But like trying to put aside all of the, you know, wicked special effects swirling color and dirt and all the shit that's in the air as the witches come around aside and talking about keeping the main thing,

the main thing, which in this case and on this podcast is the music, how did you respond to hear? hearing the music. Well, I remember when I heard Hate That I Made You Love Me for the first time. And I like the song. I don't love the song. It doesn't make my top 10 or maybe even 20

Ariana singles. And the thing that I think I bumped up against the most was that the dominant feeling I got from that song was her ambivalence. And her kind of, you know, a lot of that is lyrical, right? A lot of that is sort of bemoaning everyone's obsession with her, whether it's a romantic partner, whether it's a crowd, with her seemingly not having to try. And I think it was really hard for me

to hear that in any way other than coming from a person who had said last year, or met him two years ago at this point, that she was less interested in continuing to do music. And that it would always be something that she would dip in and out of, but that she was basically done with that. And that's fine. But it gave me this sense of, well, then why are, like, why are you making this out? I will say having heard the album, I feel like I understand why she made the album. And that's a good thing to me. We thought that way a little bit about Eternal Sunshine, though, too, didn't we? I mean, down to the fact that we... You more than me. I ride for Eternal Sunshine. I kind of love that album. We Can't Be Friends was one of the most sort of nonchalant choruses that she'd ever written.

And it still fucking holds up. I mean, it's great, but it's almost like apathetic. in the way that you spoke about this. Supernatural is one of the most underrated songs of her career. Supernatural fucking is good. Is there anything that you feel that way about on this album? Well, no.

No. I don't think there's a single song on this album that, to me, holds up in the way that something like a supernatural does, but, but, here is where, one, I do feel like,

I have to say that I still find myself struggling to hear this album outside of just the context of everything. It's hard. And that's what I mean. The chaos just, it's like it can choke you out. Because it's so much context that you don't know what, how to process in a vacuum. But I do feel like I get the sense that she, like I, I feel like I understand where she's coming from. I feel like I understand that this is an artist who felt like she had something to say and that she had something about her experience on this earth that she wanted to communicate and she went and made some music as an attempt to do that. And I do think that that makes, that is a level on which this album is successful to me.

And I think that's the way that I will remember it the most. Because I think what she, what it seems to me like she has had to say, You mentioned the song, but Daddy I Love Him. You say they want what's best for me, sanctimoniously performing soliloquies I'll never see. Which is not the first, you know, you talked about Eminem and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But of this current, the current crop of contemporary pop stars right now, I feel like I will always think about, but Daddy, I love him, as a kind of seminal artist addressing, like, artists saying the part out loud about how annoying the fans can be. It's what's so awesome about it. And I kind of think that this is that an album form. Like, I don't think that any of the contemporaries, this is the first time that one of these people has made, not the entire album, but the majority of this.

album, I think sometimes it gets couched as maybe it's about the media, maybe it's about a person, da-da-da-da-da-da. I think most of this is about feeling like she's in a toxic relationship with her fans. And I do think that that means that I'm going to, that this, I'm going to remember this album because that is something that we talk about all the time. But most of the artists, for reasons that I think are obvious and to some degree understandable, don't really want to go there in the work. Do you think, like I do, is about the fan base? I think you can hear it that way, certainly.

I think that you can hear O'Well as about the fan base. I think, I mean, look, the most obvious, I think, Line read is the moment in the hate that I made you love me bridge where up to that point, it at least seems like she could be addressing a former romantic partner. But then all of a sudden, she says, is it really my fault you all gave me a heart of your own accord? And so then she reveals that she's talking to a group of people. And it's, yeah. I don't think that she's going to say that, like, the press is giving her their heart.

I don't think the people who are trying to stir up dirt online are giving her her heart. Like, who's giving her her heart? If it's not a past bow, it's a stance. And in Freak, there's that line, Wake Me, when all this chatter is over. That stood out to me as very clearly there. I mean, I think Freak is definitely about fans. Yeah, it's interesting how as her stardom has expanded it from afar seems like just, again, sticking to the music.

And I guess maybe the relationships that become public, that like there's a, yeah, I don't know, there's a hole in her heart that has expanded, if not like linearly, at least in parallel with the size of her fame. And that feels reflected throughout this. This episode is brought to you by Accenture. When your advertising operations fall out of sync, everything else follows. Spotify and Accenture are working together to reinvent the rhythm of ad sales,

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make the 26 Trail Seeker the most capable EV Subaru has ever built. Test drive it at your local Subaru dealer or visit Subaru.ca. But I have to say, like, I got, through kiss me. I got through hate that I made you love me. Like I'm with you the way they felt about that. I got through pedal and I was like, oh boy, here we go. And I kind of felt that way through the whole album like, eh, it's fine. It's interesting. But I'm not hearing anything. It's so we can go, wait. But again, on the second listen, like, stay. I think stay might be my favorite song on the album. I was like, wait, is this good? And then I think the run from stay

through oh well which to me has a little bit of like the back part of Lamarma V the Billy song on there Big feelings I think is great Big feelings is funny Yeah like I think I give him

Yeah like I do I think is good Never get over me I'd like a lot I like that stretch. I mean, it's not that I don't like bad thing. I just think you get to bad thing, and it feels a lot like as it was by Harry, and then you've got the vocal layers. I do too.

I think it's fine. I just hear that in it. And it's nice to have something that goes a little bit more up-tempo. A little energy, yeah. Yeah. And then those vocal layers on nowhere, nobody. Then all of a sudden, like at the end of it, I was like, huh, I don't think any of this,

is revisitable in the long term by me, but that's okay. It just is better than I thought when I spent more time with it. There were just some moments in these songs that drew me in, whereas on first blush,

and I really wanted to challenge myself as a listener because I definitely came in with a bias thinking, okay, Ariana, Thank God, I've got an Ariana record. If nothing else, at the end of these 36 minutes, I'm going to have heard an incredible vocalist. And I didn't really hear that. She's got a beautiful voice.

But she is intentionally restrained on this album. And I noticed it. It's a thing that just sets her apart. And I just noticed the absence of it. Well, and to some extent, I think that was part of what didn't totally resonate with you on Eternal Sunshine. either because it is more,

she does sometimes work in more of an ethereal zone and her voice is still exceptionally beautiful and identifiably hers, but it's about a feather lightness and not power. And in the power category

is where she can like really, really do things that we don't hear other people do? Yeah. I just, I don't, who's a better singer than Ariana Grande? Rosalie, a beautiful, beautiful singer. But I mean, Ariana is like, particularly in her ability to do the whistle tone stuff. Like, she is virtuosic in a way where there's like, particularly in popular music, there's one or two in a generation. And you just wouldn't know it from this album. And it's her eighth and I miss it. And I think, I think this was a,

a choice and therefore I'm trying to consider the art as she's telling us something, right? Constraints breed creativity. So did she constrain herself to try to find something in the same way that, right, Brat was just a few sounds and melody, like, she put a box around herself musically and what spawned out from that was Brat. Like, did she do this intentionally to try to either have her be playing a character and maybe make some of the existential points that you talked about earlier to the fan base, or was it a considered way to try to maybe surprise

or differentiate this work of art from the other seven that she has in her catalog? Yeah, I mean, or is she, in one way or another, worn down in a way that makes some of the... the more athletic forms of singing and performing challenging. Well, but that would be, that's the whole ballgame. Right? I mean, before she made this album, right after Eternal Sunshine,

she had some sort of quote to the effective, and I'm not going to get it, I'm going to paraphrase, but where she said, to make another album right now with everything I've got going on my life, I'd need another brain and four more arms. And then like, bloop, here it is. Well, did she get another brain and four more arms? Or are we, you know, taking life force out of her?

Yeah. I mean, I don't get the sense that, again, like, I do really come away from this feeling like she had something to say and that is energizing in its way. I mean, she's continuing to work a little bit with Max Martin, but primarily with Ilya, who comes out of his studio and who she's worked with a bunch. And so I, like, I don't, I guess I doubt this took months and months and months. Why the Max Martin drive-by? Because he's, it seems odd. He's on his island. He's on his little Stockholm Marcapulago spot.

But like, he's doing, he's doing Swedish Christmas. I don't know. I think he's like, it's on the 14th or something, right? When is it? Remember we had to fucking. I know. we had to talk about the whole thing. I don't remember I should.

She was wearing the Team USA gear stuff, of course. Unbeknownst us, Travis was about to be sponsoring the clothing. I don't know, whatever. I mean, do you have a theory on that? I think he just doesn't, like, how... It's just a Max Martin drive-by to me feels odd versus, like, let's do... I mean, he touches a couple of these tracks, but, like...

Yeah. He's on, he's credited on pedal, stay. Which is good. Yeah. And stay is really good. And this is where I was like, there's sort of like a groove that falls in in the start of stay that felt it's not the same thing in any way, shape, or form, but the emotional experience of it was after

the sort of crash symbol intro on top of the guitar riff at the, the start of style. There just is like a underlying groove in both of those songs where I was like, wait, I'm in. When her delivery, I think, of the lyrics is really good. Like, particularly when she kind of lingers on those like stay this time. Hits with some resonance for me. Just one more thing on Max Martin. I also think that he came up in a system where, you know, there were protégés.

And, like, he was one of them at one point. And there was tutelage. And then you kind of try to get people to leave the nest. And so, like, I get the sense that his, what he is most invested in doing is helping the producers who he has coached up do good work now and, like, sort of be able to fly up. He cares about his family tree. I think he cares about the family tree a lot, and I think his focus is the family tree. And I think that probably lends itself, that mindset lends itself to a fair few Max Martin drive-bys

because you let your guy work with an artist and mostly have it be about them. Have it be about them. But then you pop in, A, probably because the artist wants it. B, because you're into doing the work. and see because you can help everybody but then you go back to having the mold spiced wine on the idyllic made a big impression on me

it seems like he has a nice life yeah that that visual really resonant and I see it myself as you talk about it for whatever reason it was funny to see them doing that in a living room it just was yes totally you don't know always get that insight.

What do you like better than stay on this album? Is there a song that it clearly differentiated itself to you? I think, well, more than stay. I think I agree with you that stay is my favorite. I will say, I think I've, pedal is the one that I'm really having trouble pitting myself down on because I can't tell if I like it or if I'm fat. fascinated by it, and if I'm fascinated by it in a good way or in a... Can't unsee it.

I can't unsee that music video kind of way. I do find the darkness of the production when I can separate it from everything else. I find it cool. I think those little tempo changes give it so much energy and add to that sense that it's kind of this about this disorienting way to live. It's such a fuck situation. Yeah. And so that's that, like, I keep having little snippets of that song in my head.

Did you watch the whole music video? Yeah. Yeah. I'm sorry. How you do? You okay? That's not the question. Well, I know, but I, you're not one for gore.

Not for me. It's tough. It's too scary for me. I watched the end of it like when she's going full chainsaw, I sort of had my fingers in front of my face to some extent. Yeah, it's like the Sabrina video for me where I'm just like, man, it's a lot.

But I understand it's of the moment. What do you think about, like, did you have much of a reaction to it if we let's eliminate what she looks like in it from the discussion of the music video. Yeah, I listened to it before, before that. So I took it in musically first and I did not have, I was just unmoved by it. I was unmoved. Like I get why hate that I made you love me is out there and why it is a sort of generic die with a smile type resonant hit.

Like I hear the, I hear the algorithm. there. Interesting. I keep hearing the like, da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da. Like that has worked its way into my brain. Yeah, it's hooky. Like, I get it.

I just, the components are all assembled on that song in the right way. But I, it isn't, It isn't for me. It isn't, it's going to be a song that I come on and it's like, it doesn't hurt my ears, but it's just not one where I'm like,

hey, let's go, but I talk about the lake playhouse all the time. Like, it's, or playlist, not playhouse, the lake playlist all the time. It's not, it's just not going to make it,

but if it came on in the background at the CVS, like, fine, I'm still buying the deodorant, thank God. So it's really, what is the rest of this for me? And I pedal,

I kind of lumped in with that, But I think the album gets going on stay. And I think, oh, well, is really interesting and big feelings is cool. And freak is great. And like I do is... Big feelings. I think you must have earned me historically as a great line. I think that's my favorite line.

Warning signs interlude we're going to eject into the sun for sure, because this is an interlude. Yep. That's correct. That has no business. That's correct. Blind half the time. Ever run through all you want in signs.

Like I do, it's like, okay, she's, yes, that's a very, very catchy line, Ariana. It's a very controversial line. You're delivering Ariana style. I can't believe she said that. You know, the album just kind of rolls from there. I really think it does. But there's nothing in that list of songs where I'm like, there's no mini bar.

I think I, look, you're not going to have to argue with me on that. I do think the bad thing, it stands out because it's brighter. Right. And it's fun. And it's a little bit more accessible. I mean, again, like, this is a particularly eternal sunshine. For someone who has made at this point several albums that are either about kind of the act of rising above or are delivered with a lightness where you kind of, it's not on a monotopoetically,

but like where the aesthetic of it musically kind of takes you to. a place of floating above the fray, this is not that. This is much darker. It is much more combative. It is much more not rising above, but scrapping back a little bit.

And I think that can make some of the songs pretty interesting, but it does make them a little bit less like, oh, yeah, put it on at the lake. I think Bunny Hop, a bad thing. It's a bit of a reprimal. breathe from that.

It doesn't bite though, does it? Like, are there claws to this album? Maybe there are lyrically in some places, but like, musically. Musically, no. Musically, no, because I don't think. Maybe that's it. There's a dissonance between this idea of feral and what actually comes through feels fairly smooth to me.

Yeah, but you don't go to, like, and this is where, like, I wonder if it is kind of, I agree with you that there's. maybe a disconnect between the lyrics and the music, because I don't think that you go to Max Martin and the Max Martin School of Production for Farrell. I don't think you go for sharp edges. I actually think you go to have all the edges smoothed down and gleaming. And, you know, I think there's probably more like minor chords and some stuff that's, sounds sort of lightly dark in this than eternal sunshine. And maybe it's more similar to dangerous woman, if anything.

But it's not something that I think matches up with the lyrical content, because a lot of the lyrics are pretty, it can get pretty intense. Yeah. Is this album good? Man, yeah. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know.

I really don't know. Does it stand out for you? It doesn't stand. The way in which it stands out is because, and I do think that this is related, but somewhat distinct from the conversation about her stepping aside and her body, I think to me what stands out is hearing an artist

really spend the majority of their time in a project addressing. fans in a way that is not full of gratitude. I think that's how I will remember this album. I think that is what is most interesting to me about this album. I think that she's a real pro, and I think that she made this with some real pros. She's a pro. There's no doubt.

It sounds professional pop. Right. She doesn't, she does not face plant. She doesn't do, like, name a time, you know, because it just, this is, a steady, steady artist who, perfectly reliably when she puts out music, people listen to it.

Like, it does well. It sounds for the most part good. I don't, yeah, musically, like, I will choose other Ariana Grande music over this. Thematically, I am pretty engaged with it. Well, so I'm at fault for... talking about first week numbers, but it will be highly instructive to see what second, third, fourth, tenth week numbers look like. How does this sustain? The fan base is tuning in

that love her, the stand base too, to listen now, and it's massive. Does it deeply resonate? What do the daily streams look like after day 120, after day, 180. Yeah. What did you think? I thought it was interesting that she has the line and pedal where she says, because this music and I will never die.

I don't need someone to save me. Because this music and I will never die. And it struck me, I think, in part because we'd been talking about Charlie last week and

the very long outro. Right. That lands that album in this place of actually most of it that's not the point. Immortality is maybe not attainable

or rarely attainable through art and it certainly shouldn't be the point and you know people can have different opinions but did it strike you any particular way to have an artist presenting the opposite case

a week later? This is an artist that is five times as popular as Charlie. So when you are going for that specific niche of stuff that Charlie's doing, maybe Charlie's more interested in making a statement regardless of how it resonates. Ariana doesn't even have the choice because, again, she could put out an album, and she does in a few cases on this album where she's just talking in the background and you can sort of make out what she's saying.

and 200,000 people are going to are going to buy it and millions and millions and millions of streams are going to happen in the first week. Yeah. So to me that makes her eternal. Yes. And my question about days 120 and 180

is what about this music? Will this music actually continue on and resonate? Or will this be part of a catalog and part of the sort of aura and legend of Ariana Grande that isn't the one that you put on first. Yeah. How often do you put on Speak Now? Reliably.

Relative to Fearless. Oh, God. Like, as an album, quite possibly more. I actually think I play Speak Now more than I play Fearless. Okay. There's stuff on Speak now that I like a lot more than stuff on Fearless. But my only silly point on that. I think I have a...

I think if we're just talking about the singles from Fearless, yes, I think they come up more. But I also have a particular... I mean, they did at your wedding. We did not dance to Dear John at your fucking wedding. Can you imagine? Well, I can probably dance easier to Dear John than I can to... Love story.

Anything else from this that you feel like we need to talk about? No. I mean, I think it is inextricably linked. with the with the online discourse. And for me, I would just want to keep watching whether that gives it wings or there's an Icarus moment and it makes it fall a bit.

And by it, I mean specifically the music. Sure. Yeah. I don't want this to be a cop-out, but I don't personally feel the need to grade this. grade this album in this moment. I think I would probably give it a B minus. Yeah. But it just doesn't, so like there, there you have it. That's my grade for the album. Feels inessential to me.

Yeah. It feels not the point. Feels like I continue to, I just, I have, I'm making an attempt to separate the music out as music. I don't feel that I have been entirely successful in that. In some ways, that's just an academic exercise to undertake as someone yapping into a microphone because, of course, everybody consumes all art and culture within the context that it is put out in. But I just don't feel like I'm speaking that grade in the same way that I am other albums when we do that. So there it is if you want it, but this one does feel a little bit different to me. if it didn't resonate with you the first time,

give it another spin, start with stay, and see if anything makes you stay. Good advice. And again, it goes without saying that, you know, we want everybody to be happy and healthy and for everything to be good,

so wishing for the best. And I think we'll leave it there. This has been every single album. As always, I'm Nora Preciati. He's Nathan Hubbard. Thank you to Kai McMullen for producing this episode and to you for listening. We'll talk to you next week.

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