NYT: Ariana Grande Sails Above Sorrow on Sweetener

[Othon 33,458]

30 minutes ago, ItsTommyBitch said:

Do you really not know that your post reads like:

"This album is bad, but it is getting good reviews because of the circumstances that led to its creation instead of its actual musical merit" ? Because what you just replied seems like a huge neutral walk back from the original tone  

Note that my comment only pointed out that many of the reviews on aggregate hubs like Metacritic (in fact, most of the ones that I have read in detail If I'm remembering correctly) DO refer to some if not many technical musical aspects, reflecting on the way her voice, the production, lyrics, etc. all combine to form the entire project. People actually do like this record, and the narrative you are referring to is not the overarching reason for its positive reception. The album isn't being received well solely because it comes from a good place or has a good inspiration, people literally like the music and think it is well made as a whole and several reviews refer to what they like about the album and individual tracks specifically. It's fine if you don't like this record and think its "technically" bad, but you don't have to superimpose a grand conspiracy that everyone that likes it critically is faking it or engaging in group think  You might not be doing that - or perhaps not in that much detail, but your posts + history sure read like it  

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I am fluent in music theory btw - if that means anything to you take my word; You don't have to have training in music theory or something of that nature to be an "expert" or be qualified to give an evaluation of music. Literally the history of music (especially Western music) as an art form is riddled with never ending debates from "critics" trying to argue for the inherent goodness or badness of music and unsurprisingly there's no consensus even today. There's no objectivity to be had here, only subjective ones we can make for ourselves. Some critics are just journalists and writers that are hired by magazines, websites and social media for promotion and news but there are no qualifications to be had in the first place so its not a big deal. Pitchfork (a website the internet sort of sees as a valid music critic hub) is not full of trained musicians, its individual human writers with a good voice and a good pen to express their individual opinions  

 

"Do you really not know that it read like that" - I mean, I do, because (to a certain extent) that's akin to what I think about the album. I don't actively dislike it, but I don't think it's anything of note and the scores it's been getting in general seem ridiculous to me given what music actually made it onto the album. I wasn't walking back my tone in my second post. I was surprised that you seemed to think that there wasn't a narrative here and were mocking the idea that one existed at all; I was trying to explain what I was talking about.

I don't know why people are using the word "conspiracy" to describe an acknowledgement of something that is objectively true about the way music criticism and the nature of celebrity in general works. Artists are commodities and they sell via their images. I'm not saying that critics are banding together in some dark room conspiring to give this album good reviews because of what it represents. I'm saying that the story that they read into the album influences the way they review the work they're reviewing. To a certain extent, they should do that. Intention and circumstance matter. The problem I'm having is that review after review I've read about this album fixate on the same few points, telling the same story over and over again. The linked review is one of several nearly identical articles I've read about this album, and they've all made claims about the music in relation to the narrative they're pushing that seem ridiculous to me. One (in a review we talked about on here) claimed that Ariana was "pushing back at pop standards" when this album sounds like every other r&b/trap influenced pop album on the charts right now. 

I'm also not claiming there's some objective reading of this album. Obviously, people read art differently. I'm saying that the balance is off and the writing is often superficial. It's largely the reason Gaga was trashed during the ARTPOP era. That's literally all I was saying in the original, very short post. I wasn't intending for this to be a thing.

[Matangi 3,050]

Please dont even compare ARTPOP to sweetener.. we all know why it was critically panned- because the "reverse warholian" ideas outpaced the quality of writing and cohesion. sweetener is a far far superior album

[Matangi 3,050]

1 hour ago, OG Gaga Stan said:

this album sounds like every other r&b/trap influenced pop album on the charts right now. 

 

that's just not true at all. you are grouping a more experimental, and at times minimalist, hip hop producer w everything thats on the radio cause u dont grasp how vast hip hop and rnb is, which has got nothing to do with ariana's acclaim, that has to do w your inability to be objective.

[ItsTommyBitch 12,640]

2 hours ago, OG Gaga Stan said:

"Do you really not know that it read like that" - I mean, I do, because (to a certain extent) that's akin to what I think about the album. I don't actively dislike it, but I don't think it's anything of note and the scores it's been getting in general seem ridiculous to me given what music actually made it onto the album. I wasn't walking back my tone in my second post. I was surprised that you seemed to think that there wasn't a narrative here and were mocking the idea that one existed at all; I was trying to explain what I was talking about.

I don't know why people are using the word "conspiracy" to describe an acknowledgement of something that is objectively true about the way music criticism and the nature of celebrity in general works. Artists are commodities and they sell via their images. I'm not saying that critics are banding together in some dark room conspiring to give this album good reviews because of what it represents. I'm saying that the story that they read into the album influences the way they review the work they're reviewing. To a certain extent, they should do that. Intention and circumstance matter. The problem I'm having is that review after review I've read about this album fixate on the same few points, telling the same story over and over again. The linked review is one of several nearly identical articles I've read about this album, and they've all made claims about the music in relation to the narrative they're pushing that seem ridiculous to me. One (in a review we talked about on here) claimed that Ariana was "pushing back at pop standards" when this album sounds like every other r&b/trap influenced pop album on the charts right now. 

I'm also not claiming there's some objective reading of this album. Obviously, people read art differently. I'm saying that the balance is off and the writing is often superficial. It's largely the reason Gaga was trashed during the ARTPOP era. That's literally all I was saying in the original, very short post. I wasn't intending for this to be a thing.

1) You misinterpreted my use of quotation marks, which could've been clearer or omitted admittedly. I wasn't questioning the existence of any narrative surrounding this album (or music released in general) but rather the overstated significance to the overall point which I found to be lacking.

(That point being that while many/most reviews reference Manchester the album's context/inspiration - narrative - many also mention specific musical moments, production, lyrics, and even specific, non single, non promo tracks and furthermore go on to state that they are what make the album work as a whole, not the narrative on its own) 

Mentions of a narrative are bound to be somewhat simillar, though I did literally just skim through the top 10 reviews on Metacritic and found many differences and again specific musical evaluation that is not steeped in context (off the top of my head, liking the cowbell + old school hip-hop r&b vibe of Borderline, the ad-lib backing vocals on Sweetener, her use of low notes in R.E.M., the soulful free form approach on get well soon, Pharrell's minimalist hip-hop production's combination with Ariana's vocal timbre, etc.) 

When you add your professed dislike or lack of appreciation for the album, it just sounds like you're saying "I don't like this, and I don't see why people do" and then finding any evidence to discredit the validity of the reviews (even when they don't hold up to scrutiny). Thats why people are saying it sounds like your discussing a conspiracy theory, because you don't seem content with the reality that some people just like the album and can tell you exactly why they do  I'm not trying to make this a "thing" either, so I won't reply after this. I just think you're overgeneralizing; I've read every review I could find from release day to now though, so I do have a wider scope of references in my head. Look em up if you want to understand.

As an aside, I think this album is really good as an entire project, and its kind of Ariana's first album to do that, other than *maybe* Yours Truly. My Everything + DW, as good as they are, are pretty much generic (but VERY high quality) collections of bops/bangers with a few similarly high quality outliers. This album is her first to have a message/vision that's explicit in the music's sound, and it does an arguably very good job of committing to it; its the most she's contributed to her own music, and its not all top 40 concessions and its arguably ungeneric when you look at her other contemporaries music. These are also points pointed out across many reviews and contribute to their overall impressions of the album as a whole