Album Review: petal by Ariana Grande

Apologizing for being irresistible and plainly enjoying it, Ariana Grande turns petal into a comedy about wanting people who cost her something.

Courtesy of Republic Records,

When nineteen-year-old pop singers begin their careers, their thirties typically involve apologies for their past actions or reminiscences of their glory days in the music industry. For pop star Ariana Grande, who had begun working with producer Ilya Salmanzadeh in January until April of that same year, she had another option to spend the duration by starting to make fun of others within her music. The music within the eighth studio release titled petal, included jokes towards the recipients of the songs, whether it’s the man she’s singing at, and often, herself. Within the lyrics of the first single, “hate that I made you love me,” the singer apologizes for being irresistible. The trap-heavy “like i do” is not about self-pitying, but more encouraging for herself. In the song, she thanks her boyfriend for the challenges that she faced in her relationship with him, because they allowed her to grow as a singer and as an individual.

She boldly takes credit for a grown man who cries during sex with her. In the R&B-inspired “big feelings,” she states, “Pussy so sweet, a tear fell from his eye.” Following that bold statement, she continues to sing about her powers and encourages her lover to enjoy them. For “never get over me,” Grande sings about the sweetness that she has to offer her lover, stating that it is a burden for her to have to let it go. However, she suggests that her lover can move on with the memory of the two of them together. While on “bad thing (bunny hop),” Grande sings to a lover from her younger days. Over ‘80s synth pop, she offers to be a student of hers to come out fluent in their sexual relationship. She suggests that the two of them engage in sexual relations at the location where they fell in love, and even proposes to have sexual relations with him twice. She states that what she likes best about her lover is his butterflies, the same butterflies that he has been making with his hands.

Most of “stay” operates on autopilot mode. He is too good to be true, and she cannot find a single fault within him. She is falling in love with him and doesn’t know how to respond to it, yet any singer alive could have performed those lines. There is only one line in the song that stands out from the rest, and that is when she tells him that she doesn’t want to be “just another corrective experience.” The phrase can be translated as the idea of being used by him in order to perform his therapy.

In relation to the old saying about artists needing tears in order to write their music, Grande uses the title track to explore that theory herself. Tears are necessary in order to create music according to the theory, and so she looks for them. She shifts to the third person and writes about a woman who is finding success with her music, who is receiving standing ovations for her performances, who is safe from the heartbreak of the real world in a paradise as long as she continues finding success with her music.

Following that, she returns to writing in the first person and makes demands of her audience: she is owed millions of dollars for her thoughts and for her experiences. She is not a victim but has too much of everything in her life, and it is the painting of a life that is not hers, as well as experimenting with different boys in her life, that has worn her down, and she is willing to continue to take advantage of that experience of hers. In contrast, the guitar interlude to “warning signs” takes that same experience and makes it colder: “My pain is music, do you hear me everywhere?/Wear me like your new tattoos.” Monday he was all over her, and Friday he was ghosting her. Her wisdom had left her, and her voice was heard in a passing taxi.

In “dead ends,” the singer’s friends surround her, as if protecting her from any more hurt in her life. She performs all the parts that she is supposed to play in her life, and she throws a band-aid upon her entire existence. She admits to loving him truly, that she wants his love, and that she wishes him ill in his journey to hell, as he will be writing breakup songs about himself his whole life. “freak” is a representation of the singer’s desire to have it all. She is not going to give him what he wants or do what he commands of her, yet she cannot leave him. According to her, human nature is what holds her to him. In her head, she is being consumed by the ethereal drum ‘n’ bass atmosphere of “nowhere, nobody,” yet she reports that she will not bite. She has been holding hands with complexity since she was five, yet she still asks why she continues to strive towards her goals in life, only to end up at the beginning of her endeavors.

On “kiss me,” she asks for a kiss that signifies a goodbye, yet she wants to be pulled into his arms as if her life is in danger. She wishes to be with him, yet she wants to love something else entirely, something to obsess over. Despite all of that, she will take any ride with him to wherever he wants to go. The song starts with her complaining about how the world needs love, and how empathy would fix it, but that is the vaguest part of the song. Two lines into the song, she demands that he write with his hands only.

Great (★★★★☆)

Favorite Track(s): “hate that i made you love me,” “petal,” “oh well”