The release of Ariana Grande’s sixth studio album ‘Positions’ may have come by a surprise with only a week’s notice, but that wasn’t the biggest surprise factor about it. With the unveiling of these fourteen tracks, she’s surprised us all with her weakest body of work yet.
‘Positions’ lacks the pure energy and memorability of her previous records, as it’s tried too hard to replicate the strong cohesion of ‘thank u, next’. But the issue is that this album only has a small handful of standout moments. Even ‘Sweetener’ had more stand out moments in-amongst its bland and confusing concept that was quickly overshadowed by the immaculate ‘thank u, next’.
The production is a little too cohesive and sticks at the same RNB-pop tempo throughout the full duration and ends up sounding like one long 41 minute song, which was the exact same issue with Justin Bieber’s recent album ‘Changes’. The song that had the biggest sonical shift was the Doja Cat collaboration ‘motive’ with its disco interpolation, and unsurprisingly it’s one of the records biggest stand outs because of it.
‘34+35’ is also one of the records brightest moments thanks to the sexually charged lyrics that hears her proclaiming “Can you stay up all night? Fuck me ’til the daylight. Thirty-four, thirty-five”, which yes, is her asking to do a 69. We stan!
‘just like magic’, ‘six thirty’, ‘nasty’ and ‘pov’ wrap up the rest of the highlights before she falls into predictable territory and gives you a bunch of songs that you won’t be able to remember. But vocally she sounds incredible on every track, so at least that’s something. And she even whistle tones the whole entirety of the final hook in ‘my hair’, which is impressive.
The biggest take away from this record is that Ariana is having some really good sex right now, and she’s right, it’s something that should be celebrated. I’m all for self-empowerment and positive sexual affirmations, but I just wish the delivery of these songs hit harder and better, as you are left feeling sexually frustrated and not relieved upon its finishing, because really the climax happened on track 2 during ‘34+35.
I know we are never going to get another ‘Dangerous Woman’ from her, but we can wish, right?