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Post by Admin on Dec 26, 2019 1:40:57 GMT
The Last Supper gets some special sauce
There’s nothing new about pop artists giving religion a sexually charged revision (hi, Madge!) but Grande’s has certainly added her own unique spin on the Last Supper. Just two songs in, she and her cabal of dancers surround a long table, grinding and gyrating their way through “Bad Idea” in a delightfully blasphemous way. Anyone who saw the Sweetener World Tour will likely never look at Leonardo Da Vinci’s masterpiece in quite the same way again.
Less is more
The Ariana of old seemed desperate to lead with her voice, showing off her four-octave range as often as possible. While her belting prowess still emerged during songs such as “Sweetener” and a powerful “Dangerous Woman,” she now uses her most devastating weapon with a near-expert discretion — making it all the more effective.
Dance Ari, dance Ari, dance Ari, oh-oh oh!
Despite teetering around the stage and the U-shaped runway in impractical platform boots that make you think she’s always perilously close to taking a tumble, Grande barely missed a step of her tightly choreographed routines, including the energetic dance breakdowns during “Side To Side” and “7 Rings.” It’s a swagger and grace she’s worked exceptionally hard to achieve.
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Post by Admin on Dec 26, 2019 18:38:16 GMT
Hits for days The beauty of watching Grande at the end of the Sweetener World Tour is that it no longer feels like an exercise in promoting her new work. Relatively recent songs such as “Breathin” and “Break Up With Your Girlfriend, I’m Bored” already feel like classics and have been embedded into pop history, and that’s to say nothing of earlier gems such as “Honeymoon Avenue” or the still-sizzling “Into You.” For an act in her mid-20s, it’s remarkable how deep her catalogue already goes. Christmas time is Ariana’s time As fans of her Christmas EPs know, Grande takes Festivus pretty seriously and honored the season with a medley of her yuletide ditties — including the much-underrated “ Tell Me,” which was lapped up by the crowd, and marked by a giant descending bauble and a huge snow storm. (It took Mariah 25 years to top the charts with “All I Want For Christmas is You,” so don’t bet against Ari becoming a future Queen of Christmas.)
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Post by Admin on Jan 7, 2020 18:56:58 GMT
While k bye for now may not have much new information, it builds on our understanding of Grande as an artist. We know she has a dazzling voice, but we get to hear it swoop and pierce while the audience shrieks around her. We know she’s lurched and leaned into hip hop aesthetics; on the live album, we hear her chirp into raps over recorded features from Nicki Minaj and Big Sean. We also see different shades of some tracks. “Break up with your girlfriend i’m bored,” a song that can come across as glib and brash as its title, becomes huskier and tender. Sighs and coos trickle into spaces where production was left sparse. “Side to Side” crackles with a live band. The sing-songy flow of “7 rings” becomes more lilting and precise; after the line, “Happiness is the same price as red bottoms,” she blurts out, “Just kidding!”
While the tour focused on Sweetener and thank u, next, Grande weaves in past highlights from her catalog that demonstrate how much she’s grown. The titanic Zedd banger “Break Free” is fun, but can’t compare to the nuance and texture of a song like “God is a woman.” “Break Your Heart Right Back” sounds flimsy and disposable when followed by “NASA.” k bye for now becomes a way to track throughlines of Grande’s career: how feathery murmurs bloomed into dynamic tapestries, how flamboyant love ballads led to delicate pop anthems. One of the live album’s greatest assets is the juxtapositions created by the newly shuffled song order; thank u, next tracks glow brighter beside the softer edges of Sweetener songs. The pleas of “Needy” are more urgent and lovely when preceded by “Breathin,” a galvanic song about anxiety attacks. “Thank u, next” becomes even more stunning when “no tears left to cry” bleeds into it, coaxing a way forward through loss.
Like any live album, k bye for now strains to transmit the feeling of an actual concert, and banter about costumes and dancers is a clumsy reminder. Recordings only capture part of what illuminated the Sweetener tour—not outfit changes or neon lights, but the power of a woman confronting trauma. At a Brooklyn show this past summer, sobs slipped out of me during “get well soon.” Grande was singing about flashbacks, dissociations that wrench you out of your body—feelings I had barely described to other people, and had never heard sang back at me. In the live recording, her voice drops to a low, raw shudder. But just a few tracks later, you can hear her laugh.
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