"Ariana Grande’s 6th album Positions recently came out and it has already been dominating the charts, is it really worth the listen?" --Triece Kushner, 8th Grade
Ariana Grande’s 6th album Positions recently came out and it has already been dominating the charts. Not even two weeks in and all 14 songs have reached the top 100 in the United States, making it Grande’s second consecutive album to have all tracks charting simultaneously. “Positions” and “34+35” made the top ten in less than 24 hours.
This is by far one of the most impressive albums Grande has put out. Between the pain, heartbreak, loss, fear, self love, confidence, and happiness in this album, each song has a different story and different meaning. You can really tell that she pulled her heart and soul into this album. This is definitely a Mac Miller themed album, with hidden details about him in every song, some more then others.
Positions debuted at number one on the US billboard200 chart with seven 174,000 album equivalent units which includes 42,000 pure sales, making it Grande’s fifth number one album in the US. Elsewhere it has reached top spot in Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, Norway, United Kingdom.
Clearly, the album has been doing really well but obviously some songs are better than others, as we know “Positions” sas been at number one for a while now, and “34+35” following closely at number 3 but, “Motive” ft. Doja Cat (#32), “Off the table” ft. The Weekend (#35), “POV”( #40), “Just Like Magic” (#43), “Shut up” (#4), and “Nasty” (#49) made it to the top 50. “Safety net” ft. Tydollasign (#52), “Six thirty” (#62), “My hair” (#65), “Obvious” (#70), “West Side” (#71), and ‘Love Language” (#75) made it into the top 100.
Positions is a very mixed album. There are very pop songs like “Motive” or “Just Like Magic” or even the title track “Positions” that you are most likely to hear in the mall or on the radio. Then there are very R&B style songs like “Pov” or “Shut up” that you can really sob to. There are also very pop rock/funk music styles songs that I actually really enjoy like, “My hair,” or “Love language.”
Songs like “Nasty” just radiate bad girl vibes. It is a whole vibey song and I love the confidence. It is in my top three songs. I love the self love that is in this song. She really is a queen, periodt . From the opening whistle notes to the boldness of the lyrics, this is definitely one of my favorite songs. It isn’t really child appropriate in some ways but you know, neither is “34+35.”
One the other hand, songs like “Off the Table” featuring The Weekend, hit hard. The lyrics in “Off the Table” are powerful and very heart clenching. The song is about her ex Mac Miller, who unfortunately passed away two years ago.
Miller’s passing affected her profoundly. She expresses that in the lyrics like, “Will I ever love the same way again? Will I ever love somebody like the way I did you? Never thought you'd be so damn hard to replace, I swear I don't mean to be this way. If I can't have you, is love completely off the table?” She articulates feelings of guilt about dating other people and how deeply she fears that love is off the table now that he is gone. This song just gives a look into her brain and shows us the true horror of losing someone you love.
I love the way that Miller inspired a lot of this album, from the whole song, “Off the Table” or the little bits in “Just Like Magic,” like the lyric, “take my pen and write some love letters to heaven,” or the crickets that follow. “Crickets'' is one of Miller's songs that he had said was about Grande. There is also a suspicion that “SixThirty'' is actually about Miller, too because of his song “6:30” and a lot of the lyrics connect. “Safety Net'' also is about Miller. She has referred to Miller as her safety net multiple times back when they were in a relationship. “Safety Net'' features rapper TyDollaSign, who happens to be in Miller’s song “Cinderella” which Miller said was about Grande.
In Grande’s song “pov” She talks about wishing she loved herself the way that her new boyfriend, Dalton Gomez, does.You can see what I mean in this lyric, “I wanna love me, the way that you love me, for all of my pretty and all of my ugly too, I'd love to see me from your point of view.” I feel like this is such an amazing song in the sense of finding self love and building back self confidence.
A completely different song from “pov” is “34+35,” which to be honest, is definitely not a family-friendly song. I haven’t played this song in front of my parents yet and I fear the time they hear it. That said it is probably one of my favorite songs ever. The whole song is like a pop version of WAP.. This is probably one of the most pop songs on this album, yet I know for a fact that no radio shows are going to be playing this song. Between the beat and the flow of the lyrics it feels like a song that should be played at a Macy's or a JC Penny although the actual lyrics cancels out any chance of hearing this at any store. Ignoring the R-rated lyrics, this is probably one of Grande’s best songs on this album because of the vocal tracks. One of my favorite parts of the song is at the very end is “Math class...Never was good,” which I can 100% relate to.
I think the time and effort spent on the vocal tracks is astonishing. You can hear in songs like, “Shut up,”“west side,” and even “Positions” that there are layers upon layers of vocal tracks. For everyone who doesn’t know a vocal track is, it’s the backing vocals that are recorded one-by-one then mixed to create a harmony in the backing of the song. Sometimes the vocal tracks are layered on top of the main vocals to make them pop or create a certain finish to it. It takes a lot of time and is usually hard to do and singers need a big range. In fact a lot of singers don’t actually do their own vocal tracks and hire other people to do it for them. This is why it is so impressive that Grande did not only do her own but layered a lot of vocal tracks on every song. Grande is also listed for the only mixer on a lot of the songs which means that she mixed and layered all of them by herself. That's pretty impressive.
Overall, I think that I feel with every new Grande album, the production and quality intensifies. From the whistle tones to the breath control I also think that her singing has improved. I also think that Grande has grown a lot since “Thank U Next.” I am proud of her and how much she has grown. She seems a lot more happier and just overall a better person. I love this album a lot and you should definitely give it a listen.
This is by far one of the most impressive albums Grande has put out. Between the pain, heartbreak, loss, fear, self love, confidence, and happiness in this album, each song has a different story and different meaning. You can really tell that she pulled her heart and soul into this album. This is definitely a Mac Miller themed album, with hidden details about him in every song, some more then others.
Positions debuted at number one on the US billboard200 chart with seven 174,000 album equivalent units which includes 42,000 pure sales, making it Grande’s fifth number one album in the US. Elsewhere it has reached top spot in Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, Norway, United Kingdom.
Clearly, the album has been doing really well but obviously some songs are better than others, as we know “Positions” sas been at number one for a while now, and “34+35” following closely at number 3 but, “Motive” ft. Doja Cat (#32), “Off the table” ft. The Weekend (#35), “POV”( #40), “Just Like Magic” (#43), “Shut up” (#4), and “Nasty” (#49) made it to the top 50. “Safety net” ft. Tydollasign (#52), “Six thirty” (#62), “My hair” (#65), “Obvious” (#70), “West Side” (#71), and ‘Love Language” (#75) made it into the top 100.
Positions is a very mixed album. There are very pop songs like “Motive” or “Just Like Magic” or even the title track “Positions” that you are most likely to hear in the mall or on the radio. Then there are very R&B style songs like “Pov” or “Shut up” that you can really sob to. There are also very pop rock/funk music styles songs that I actually really enjoy like, “My hair,” or “Love language.”
Songs like “Nasty” just radiate bad girl vibes. It is a whole vibey song and I love the confidence. It is in my top three songs. I love the self love that is in this song. She really is a queen, periodt . From the opening whistle notes to the boldness of the lyrics, this is definitely one of my favorite songs. It isn’t really child appropriate in some ways but you know, neither is “34+35.”
One the other hand, songs like “Off the Table” featuring The Weekend, hit hard. The lyrics in “Off the Table” are powerful and very heart clenching. The song is about her ex Mac Miller, who unfortunately passed away two years ago.
Miller’s passing affected her profoundly. She expresses that in the lyrics like, “Will I ever love the same way again? Will I ever love somebody like the way I did you? Never thought you'd be so damn hard to replace, I swear I don't mean to be this way. If I can't have you, is love completely off the table?” She articulates feelings of guilt about dating other people and how deeply she fears that love is off the table now that he is gone. This song just gives a look into her brain and shows us the true horror of losing someone you love.
I love the way that Miller inspired a lot of this album, from the whole song, “Off the Table” or the little bits in “Just Like Magic,” like the lyric, “take my pen and write some love letters to heaven,” or the crickets that follow. “Crickets'' is one of Miller's songs that he had said was about Grande. There is also a suspicion that “SixThirty'' is actually about Miller, too because of his song “6:30” and a lot of the lyrics connect. “Safety Net'' also is about Miller. She has referred to Miller as her safety net multiple times back when they were in a relationship. “Safety Net'' features rapper TyDollaSign, who happens to be in Miller’s song “Cinderella” which Miller said was about Grande.
In Grande’s song “pov” She talks about wishing she loved herself the way that her new boyfriend, Dalton Gomez, does.You can see what I mean in this lyric, “I wanna love me, the way that you love me, for all of my pretty and all of my ugly too, I'd love to see me from your point of view.” I feel like this is such an amazing song in the sense of finding self love and building back self confidence.
A completely different song from “pov” is “34+35,” which to be honest, is definitely not a family-friendly song. I haven’t played this song in front of my parents yet and I fear the time they hear it. That said it is probably one of my favorite songs ever. The whole song is like a pop version of WAP.. This is probably one of the most pop songs on this album, yet I know for a fact that no radio shows are going to be playing this song. Between the beat and the flow of the lyrics it feels like a song that should be played at a Macy's or a JC Penny although the actual lyrics cancels out any chance of hearing this at any store. Ignoring the R-rated lyrics, this is probably one of Grande’s best songs on this album because of the vocal tracks. One of my favorite parts of the song is at the very end is “Math class...Never was good,” which I can 100% relate to.
I think the time and effort spent on the vocal tracks is astonishing. You can hear in songs like, “Shut up,”“west side,” and even “Positions” that there are layers upon layers of vocal tracks. For everyone who doesn’t know a vocal track is, it’s the backing vocals that are recorded one-by-one then mixed to create a harmony in the backing of the song. Sometimes the vocal tracks are layered on top of the main vocals to make them pop or create a certain finish to it. It takes a lot of time and is usually hard to do and singers need a big range. In fact a lot of singers don’t actually do their own vocal tracks and hire other people to do it for them. This is why it is so impressive that Grande did not only do her own but layered a lot of vocal tracks on every song. Grande is also listed for the only mixer on a lot of the songs which means that she mixed and layered all of them by herself. That's pretty impressive.
Overall, I think that I feel with every new Grande album, the production and quality intensifies. From the whistle tones to the breath control I also think that her singing has improved. I also think that Grande has grown a lot since “Thank U Next.” I am proud of her and how much she has grown. She seems a lot more happier and just overall a better person. I love this album a lot and you should definitely give it a listen.