Ariana Grande’s 4th studio album , Sweetener, was very highly anticipated in the days leading up to the release on August 17th. Despite the praise on the album itself, some fans were not loving some of the songs. Some fans said that the album had more of a R&B sound, which they believe is the reason they did not like all of the songs.

With this album, Grande seemed to go with a more dreamy and light sound on some songs and a sound similar to the style of her previous album, Dangerous Woman. For instance, the song titled “goodnight n go” has a very light and whimsical sound, while her song titled “everytime” has a more similar sound to her previous album, Dangerous Woman.

Hit songs “no tears left to cry” and “God is a woman” is another example of this as “no tears left to cry” has a more light, upbeat sound, whereas “God is a woman” definitely has a darker more mature sound with powerful vocals. Similar to both “God is a woman” and “no tears left to cry”, the track “breathin” is another fan favorite, as well as one of my personal favorites, as it includes both powerful, mature sounds but, it also has the lively, fun sound to it.

The album in general, however,  includes a lot of songs about toxic relationships, such as her song titled “better off” which, just as the title says, is about her being better off without the relationship. The song ends with a beautiful harmony of overlapping vocals and the violin. Both “everytime” and “better off” appear this way, as “better off” seems to be about being in a relationship you don’t want to be in anymore and “everytime” appears to be about always going back to them.

The other component of the album is about love and her experiences with mental health. On May 22, 2017, there was a terrorist attack at Grande’s concert in Manchester, United Kingdom. As a result of this, Grande has said she had a lot of anxiety, which is a major influence in the song “get well soon” in which she sings, “Girl what’s wrong with you? Come back down,” and “ I’m too much in my head, did you notice?”. The song also includes 40 seconds of silence at the end which fans have discovered is in honor of Manchester as the songs length goes to 5:22 which is the date of the attack. I personally found this very touching and admirable of Ariana.

Another thing I admire about Grande’s album was the song titled “pete davidson”. Recently Grande has been getting a lot of disapproval from fans after announcing she is engaged to comedian, Pete Davidson. However, despite the controversy around her and Davidson, she chose to include a track named after Davidson. I applaud her for not letting the media affect her decision to include this track, as it is a beautiful ballad and definitely one of my personal favorites on the album.   

While I liked most of the songs as they stay true to Ariana’s sound, the songs titled “successful” and “the light is coming” featuring Nicki Minaj were most definitely my least favorite songs. “successful” is, in my opinion, not fitting for Ariana’s voice. As for “the light is coming”, I loved Nicki Minaj’s verse and Ariana’s verses, refrain, and pre-chorus, however, the chorus itself and the background voice were very annoying, repetitive, and made the song less enjoyable.

Overall, I loved the album and I think this is definitely one of my favorite albums by Grande. I am definitely excited to hear more from her in the future.