Album of the week with Ariana Grande: Just say “So what?”

Highlights: Ariana Grande took a break for four years. Is her comeback a competition for the omnipresent Taylor Swift? “Eternal Sunshine” is our album of the week. And: News from Paula Hartmann. The four-octave vocal miracle has to fight for her place in the economy of perception, even though the 30-year-old has long been something of an icon. But four years is a long time. There's now Dua Lipa, who also makes danceable pop music. And of course there's still SZA and Beyoncé.

Pop singer Ariana Grande took a break for four years. Is her comeback a competition for the omnipresent Taylor Swift? “Eternal Sunshine” is our album of the week. And: News from Paula Hartmann.

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Pop star Grande at the Grammys on January 26th

Photo: John Shearer / The Recording Academy / Getty Images

Album of the week:

As soon as you take a paltry four-year creative break, everyone just talks about Taylor Swift.

In 2020, when Ariana Grande released her last album "Positions", things were different, there was no widespread Swiftmania, and Grande was considered serious competition in the competition for the throne of the (white-read) pop divas.

Today, the four-octave vocal miracle has to fight for her place in the economy of perception, even though the 30-year-old has actually long been something of an icon with a two-time Grammy win and around 90 million records sold.

But four years is a long time.

There's now Dua Lipa, who also makes danceable pop music, but cooler.

And of course there's still SZA and Beyoncé.

Where is Ariana Grande's place in this new order?

“Eternal Sunshine” is intended to shed light on this.

Her seventh studio album since 2013 will be a kind of concept album, the singer revealed a few days before its release this Friday.

Apparently she wrote the lyrics completely herself for the first time.

Learning from Taylor Swift means faking authenticity and honest craftsmanship;

Pop, yes, but with the claim to great art.

It was also cleverly announced that her new songs should reveal a lot about her view of the divorce from Dalton Gomez and her new relationship with actor Ethan Slater - autofictionally encoded, of course.

Grande also learned this from Swift: to sprinkle spicy breadcrumbs into her own private life so that fans have a lot to puzzle and explain.

The album title also traces its roots to the camp cinema hit “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” by Michel Gondry, who has just turned 20 years old.

Pretty meta – and perfect fodder for clever exegetes on TikTok.

How brilliantly this strategy works could already be seen in the success of the first single "Yes, and", which conquered the US charts straight away and was recorded as their eighth number one hit.

No wonder: the song is a barely concealed update of Madonna's house hit "Vogue" - and was further ennobled when Grande released a remix shortly afterwards together with her role model Mariah Carey.

In the video, she sets up a gang of snooty caricature critics who are all wishy-washy and ecstatic after Grande's glamorous performance.

However, the only thing that is disarming is the banality of the text lines that are about conquering emotional darkness: “And if you find yourself in a dark situation/ Just turn on your light and be like/ Yes, and?” – when life gives you lemons Enough, just say: “So what?” And “be your own fucking friend”, be the next to yourself.

This is a hedonistic-neoliberal attitude, which in turn fits well with the “Vogue” sound of the late 80s.

But also about the emo and mindfulness zeitgeist of 2024?

Luckily, Ariana Grande doesn't have to worry about that.

Because the sound of the electronic and R&B ballads, polished by the Swedes Max Martin and Ilya Salmanzadeh (“Yes, And?” is an exception), seems so aseptic that it is absolutely timeless: as soul pop monotony, the songs always flow past the ear again.

But that's also because Grande can't find a coherent, let alone empowering, stance.

The protagonist of her songs may say defiantly “So what?”, but also to the conceivable accusation of constantly only defining herself by the men in her life.

There is no trace of the anger and frustration that SZA transformed into furious, varied pop music on her album »SOS«; there is actually an eternal sunshine in the songs, as induced by mood enhancers.

The grief of separation that she expresses, for example, in “Bye” (“This hook is too hard to sing”) is not at all reflected in the moody, upbeat mood of the stomping disco music.

What makes matters worse is that although Grande's lyrics are commendable, she hasn't yet found the necessary depth: "I showed you all my demons, all my lies/ Yet you played me like Atari," she sings in the title song.

Well now.

Ariana Grande

Eternal Sunshine

Label: Republic

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“Eternal Sunshine” repeatedly lurches bittersweetly between break-up aftermath (“I Wish I Hated You”) and crush euphoria (“Supernatural”).

The big but not very complex conceptual question of the album, "How can I tell if I'm in the right relationship?", which she formulates in the intro song, is answered in the end by a piece of wisdom from her Nonna: If you don't kiss him goodnight want to give, then you are wrong in the relationship.

It's that simple.

And so tragic.

Because as a sex-positive, shamelessly explicit lecher on “Positions,” Ariana Grande was already much further along.

And now back to Taylor Swift.

(6.0/10)

Listened briefly:

Paula Hartmann – “Little Fires”

On the very good debut album by the Berlin actress and pop artist Paula Hartmann, love still seemed like a possibility.

"I've never been in love before," she complained in a hungover fairytale princess voice in one of the best German pop-rap tracks of 2022. Her kingdom is the night-time, rain-soaked capital between Kantstrasse and Kotti, her stories tumble between glittering catwalks, excess and Crash.

“Love is dead,” Hartmann postulates in “DLIT,” “and if it’s not, then I’ll stab you.” Ouch!

In her new, now even more polished lyrics, the 22-year-old turns the disillusionment of her generation of girls into a feverish religion.

There are a lot of broken images of saints, and on Sundays there are burnings in the church for sins that you perhaps only commit in your imagination.

Hartmann's verses are written soberly to the point, and at the same time open up baroquely decorated worlds of images: "7 girls in the toilet in the bar in Westend/ Miniskirt and my friends draw chalk," it says at one point, "LEDs over my head like a halo/ I want to celebrate means , I feel alone".

And when a romance does arise with an “Atlantis” prince in one of the “black SUVs” from the song of the same name, then the doubt is always built in, the loneliness, the misery, the eating disorder lurks at every intersection: “The two of us always on-off game/ Broke up again, lost weight/ '92 Kate Moss Shape," raps Hartmann in "Crossfade."

The “little fires” of urban melancholy that are kindled here to the reliably smooth beats of producer Biztram may never burn for long, but they burn fiercely and hotly.

(8.1/10)

Kim Gordon – »The Collective«

Hip-hop from the USA is boring to the point of yawning?

Depends where you look.

Some of the best beats at the moment, mixed with harsh industrial sounds and guitar noise, come from a place you would least expect: from the New York avant-garde area where Kim Gordon is usually located.

The former bassist, guitarist and occasional singer of Sonic Youth just turned 70 and is releasing “The Collective”, her second solo album after 2019’s “No Home Record” (the rather terrible albums with Bill Nace as Body/Head don’t count).

Again, the relatively young audio hobbyist Justin Raisin (including Sky Ferreira) produced the beats for the first album track "Bye Bye" for Playboi Carti, but then thought: too blatant for the US rapper, but maybe Is this for Kim Gordon?

In the metallic trap piece, the indie rock icon lists the things she wants to leave behind with her more laconic declaiming than singing performance: milk thistle (!), calcium, high boots, Advil tablets, black jeans, blue jeans, cardigans , her handbag, her passport.

In short: part of your travel ballast and your current identity.

And "The Collective" sounds so adventurous, cool and liberated, especially in the great blues, rap and machismo deconstruction "I'm A Man", which is reminiscent of Jon Spencer's "Wail" phase.

But the rock template that served as a framework on “No Home Record” is no longer needed for this late but effective sound empowerment: Sonic Seniority.

(7.9/10)

Mannequin Pussy – “I Got Heaven”

Some albums don't have to be particularly innovative or sound new to be exciting.

Mannequin Pussy, a punk band from Philadelphia led by the constantly angry US songwriter Marisa Dabice, was actually on the verge of collapse before the pandemic after a good ten years of muddling through.

But of all things, the shutdown (and the departure of a long-time musical and private partner) brought new impulses and better songs.

Well, maybe the sought-after indie rock producer John Congleton (St. Vincent among others) sprinkled a little stardust over the previously raw sound, which now has almost pop appeal on “I Got Heaven”.

However, one that is strongly reminiscent of the 1990s and widescreen riot grrrl acts like Hole - everything is currently back in style.

So when Mannequin Pussy quote Bowie's "Heroes" guitar howl with stunning impudence in the anthemic title track, then they know about their newfound power and the retro zeitgeist that plays into their hands.

Anyone looking for the band's old punk roots, which now vibrate with groove, will find the brutal »OK!

OK!

OK!” still found it.

“Fuck a future, I don’t see it,” Dabice crows loudly.

Pure coquetry, of course, because the future promises fame: alongside The Last Dinner Party, Mannequin Pussy are the female-led rock band of the moment.

(7.7/10)