ReportWire

Tag: Ariana Grande Ethan Slater

  • Ariana of the Spirits: Grande Goes From Feeling Haunted and Depressed on “ghostin” to Sexy and Elated on “supernatural”

    Ariana of the Spirits: Grande Goes From Feeling Haunted and Depressed on “ghostin” to Sexy and Elated on “supernatural”

    [ad_1]

    Less than a month after Sweetener was released, Ariana Grande’s freshly-made ex-boyfriend and possible love of her life, Mac Miller, was found dead in his Studio City abode. The cause was an accidental drug overdose spurred by the pills laced with fentanyl that were sold to him. At the time of his death, Miller and Grande had only been split up for about four months, with Grande making the breakup announcement in May of 2018 just before she famously moved on to Pete Davidson. 

    The May of the previous year, however, Miller was very much there for Grande right when she got off the plane in the U.S. in the wake of the Manchester Arena bombing. A horrific terrorist attack that took place during the May 22nd date of the Dangerous Woman Tour. Through the trauma of it all, Miller would be there to support her, even if he still had plenty of his own demons to wrestle with. As Grande kept soldiering through the tour, complete with a benefit concert called One Love Manchester that found her returning to the city in June to show her support, Miller was around to offer her a shoulder to cry on (and to perform onstage with her at the One Love event). Even if that shoulder flickered in and out along with the rest of him. Because it was obvious he was still going back to his drug use security blanket, remarking at one point during a 2017 interview with W, “I’ve spent a good time very sober and now I’m just, like, living regularly.” “Living regularly” by his standards, that is. 

    A lifestyle that was no longer tenable to Grande, who dealt with a major backlash in May of 2018 not only for getting together with Davidson so soon after her breakup with Miller, but also because she was blamed by many for Miller’s DUI arrest the same month, right after the media caught wind of her new relationship. In response to a viral tweet that touted that blame, Grande replied, “I am not a babysitter or a mother and no woman should feel that they need to be. I have cared for him and tried to support his sobriety & prayed for his balance for years (and always will of course) but shaming/blaming women for a man’s inability to keep his shit together is a very major problem. Let’s please stop doing that. Of course I didn’t share about how hard or scary it was while it was happening but it was.”

    The scariness of it all was something Grande hadn’t fully processed, as 2018 eventually revealed. Having thrown herself into another relationship as a balm for the one didn’t work (something of her modus operandi [in addition to J. Lo’s]), she was forced to take stock after Miller’s death. And “ghostin” was a very clear indication of that. It became part of Grande’s undeniable “therapy” in the wake of trying to deal with both Miller’s demise and the revelation that maybe being engaged to Pete Davidson wasn’t the best idea. In fact, it was only a month after Miller’s overdose that Grande and Davidson called it quits. The relationship lasted a mere six months. But it was immortalized with the Sweetener track entitled, what else, “pete davidson.” 

    Alas, with the feelings expressed on Sweetener already feeling stale to Grande in the aftermath of all she endured, it was a little less than six months later, in February of 2019, that she had a new album out: thank u, next. Instantly acclaimed, the dissection of the album led many to immediately pinpoint the song that was most overtly about Miller: “ghostin.”

    As the eighth track, the song stands out among the other eleven as the most serious and contemplative. Besides the song that appropriately follows it, “in my head,” “ghostin” sets itself apart as the most palpable lament. Perhaps it’s for this reason that Grande places it right after the more playful “make up.” The latter is a song that reduces Grande’s “erratic” behavior to something cute and intentional—because it’s just her way of building up toward hot make up sex. “ghostin” is quick to shatter that illusion. Indeed, it was so real that, for a time, Grande didn’t want it included on the record. In fact, “ghostin” fans can only thank Taylor Swift’s favorite person, Scooter Braun, that it’s on there. For, as Grande mentioned during an interview with Zach Sang, “It was a lot. It was too much, actually. I was literally begging Scooter to take it off. And he was like, ‘You’re thinking too hard now. This is special and you should share it with everybody.’” Sure, the way she tells it, it sounds a bit pushy and like maybe she was steamrolled into sharing emotions she didn’t want to, but it’s true that “ghostin” adds a rich layer to thank u, next that wouldn’t be there without it. 

    Her candor about still being in love with someone else—a literal ghost now—is something that many can relate to. Particularly those who have chosen to move on from a person not because they fell out of love with them, but because being with them proved to be too toxic of a situation (yes, the dichotomy is real). So it is that Grande sings, “I know that it breaks your heart when I cry again/Over him/I know that it breaks your heart when I cry again/‘Stead of ghostin’ him.” But how can Grande ghost a ghost? Not only that, how can she pretend the death of someone she loved so deeply doesn’t hurt her, even if Davidson was supposed to be her “true love” at that moment in time? Of Davidson’s patience with such an unusual scenario, Grande praises, “Baby, you do it so well/You’ve been so understanding, you’ve been so good/And I’m puttin’ you through more than one ever should/And I’m hating myself ‘cause you don’t want to/Admit that it hurts you.” 

    In the end, that patience and suppression of his own emotions were not enough to weather the storm of her sadness. Of dealing with a loss so great that she had to recognize maybe there was a force majeure at play in terms of preventing her engagement with Davidson to stick. Though it seemed, at first, she was doing her best to ignore what her feelings were inherently telling her, opening the song with, “I know you hear me when I cry/I try to hold it in at night/While you’re sleeping next to me…/Look at the cards that we’ve been dealt/If you were anybody else/Probably wouldn’t last a day/Every tear’s a rain parade from hell.” And this after Grande had truly believed on Sweetener that she had “no tears left to cry.”

    Grande then gets even more raw by confessing, “Though I wish he were here instead/Don’t want that living in your head/He just comes to visit me/When I’m dreaming every now and then.” It is this lyric in particular that many have speculated to be a foil for Miller’s verse in “Cinderella” that goes, “You in my dreams, that’s why I sleep all the time.” The addition to that being “Just to hear you say I love you, just to touch you, just to leave you behind.” It’s the “just to leave you behind” line that feels retroactively ominous. As though Miller knew somehow, one way or the other, he would be the person to truly leave the relationship, even if she left him first. But in a far less literal way. Miller’s haunting quality also intensifies with another lyric toward the end of the song when he forewarns, “Well, wherever you came from, wherever you goin’/I promise I’m not far behind, yeah/So don’t you dare throw this away.” Based on “ghostin,” Grande definitely didn’t. Or couldn’t. 

    On the song that follows it, “in my head,” her reconciliation with the fact that she tried to paint Davidson in an image and light that suited her immediate needs manifests in the lines, “Painted a picture/I thought I knew you well.” This inversely mimics the lyrics on “we can’t be friends (wait for your love)” when she declares, “I don’t like how you paint me, yet I’m still here hanging.” Just as Miller is still there hanging in the corners of Grande’s mind—no matter how far recessed. His image likely elevated in the way that can only happen when someone dies, and glorification tends to be the natural reaction. 

    With the passing of one album, Positions, released in between thank u, next and Eternal Sunshine, Grande evidently had time to reassess her take on otherworldly phenomena. For while “ghostin” laments the power of the supernatural, “supernatural” reveres it. Sees it as a divine blessing. Placed on the record as the sixth track, it follows “eternal sunshine,” one of several flagrant “divorce songs” aimed at Dalton Gomez (so much for “Only wanna do it [a.k.a. get married] once, real bad/Gon’ make that shit last”). So it is that Eternal Sunshine feels structured to reveal Grande’s emotional state as it progressed from being “over” her marriage and feeling rather stifled by it to falling for, of all people, Ethan Slater (her Munchkin-playing co-star in Wicked). Which is why, after singing things like, “So I try to wipe my mind/Just so I feel less insane/Rather feel painless/I’d rather forget than know, know for sure/What we could’ve fought through behind this door/So I close it and move,” she does move—right on to the vibrant, bright tone of “supernatural.”

    If a mournful haunting was the theme of “ghostin,” then “supernatural” is all about letting the spectral take hold with joy. After mentioning the “good boy” who’s “on [her] side” in “eternal sunshine,” that “good boy” becomes the full star of “supernatural.” And yes, things get expectedly raunchy as they often do with Grande, who tells Slater, “I want you to come claim it, I do/What are you waiting for?/Yeah, I want you to name it, I do/Want you to make it yours.” Just as long as Slater doesn’t name it something like “Rebecca” à la Charlotte York in Sex and the City. Elsewhere, she lasciviously insists, “Nothin’ еlse felt this way inside me.” But in between those lyrics alluding to sexual chemistry, Grande finds time to make the lyrical theme slightly sweeter (adding a “sweetener,” if you will) via the chorus: “This love’s possessin’ me, but I don’t mind at all/It’s like supernatural/It’s takin’ over me, don’t wanna fight the fall/It’s like supernatural.”

    Thus, there’s a far more exuberant aura to the notion of supernatural forces being at play in her love life. As for Grande making her seventh album themed around Michel Gondry’s 2004 movie, eerily enough, Mac Miller cited Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind as his second favorite film in a 2013 article for Complex. Of the movie’s high-up placement on his list, Miller commented, “I love Jim Carrey when he’s being serious. He killed this role. Whenever I’m talking to a girl, I always tell them to watch Eternal Sunshine. It cuts deep.” Grande would tend to agree, obviously. 

    Other themes from thank u, next crop up again on Eternal Sunshine, too—like Grande saying, “I met someone else/And we havin’ better discussions/I know they say I move on too fast/But this one gon’ last/‘Cause her name is Ari/And I’m so good with that.” A sologamist sentiment that reappears on “we can’t be friends (wait for your love)” with the lines, “So for now, it’s only me/And maybe that’s all I need.” Except, as history has shown, Grande has a tendency to be a serial monogamist rather than a comfortable-in-her-own-skin sologamist. Perhaps being perennially haunted by past relationships has something to do with that. For nothing staves off the bitter realities of an old relationship like the celestial nature of a new one.

    [ad_2]

    Genna Rivieccio

    Source link

  • Two Different Emotional Approaches to the Aftermath of “Homewrecking”: Sabrina Carpenter’s “because i liked a boy” and Ariana Grande’s “yes, and?”

    Two Different Emotional Approaches to the Aftermath of “Homewrecking”: Sabrina Carpenter’s “because i liked a boy” and Ariana Grande’s “yes, and?”

    [ad_1]

    As two pop stars often compared on a vocal level, it’s also no surprise that Sabrina Carpenter and Ariana Grande tend to have overlapping themes in their music. Indeed, Carpenter even opened for Grande on 2017’s Dangerous Woman Tour (specifically for the Brazil dates that occurred after the illustrious Manchester Arena bombing). At that time, Carpenter had only released two albums, Eyes Wide Open and Evolution (Grande herself just had three, rounded out by Dangerous Woman).

    A year after the tour (which she cherished enough to decorate her couch with an Ariana Grande pillow so as to commemorate the momentousness of the event), Carpenter would release her “companion piece albums,” Singular: Act I and Singular: Act II. This “set” would signal her full-tilt sonic transition on 2022’s Emails I Can’t Send, which saw her shift away entirely from the country twang that still occasionally came out in the years since singles like “We’ll Be the Stars.” The same kind of twang that Taylor Swift eventually chose to shed as well. But it was a more Miley Cyrus-inspired twang that Carpenter possessed—which is perhaps what helped her to win third place in The Next Miley Cyrus Project back in 2009, six years before the release of Eyes Wide Open. 

    However, many seem to have forgotten that Christina Aguilera—far more than Taylor or Miley—is Carpenter’s key musical influence. And that shines through in the vocals she’s presented over the years. Aguilera’s voice has the kind of signature pitch that Mariah Carey is frequently praised for (though, of course, MC would likely mention that she has a five-octave vocal range compared to Xtina’s four-octave one). Grande has the same octave range as Aguilera, yet is most often compared to Carey. A comparison she’s more than taken a shine to in her collaborations with “The Diva” in recent years (including working on a remix of “Oh Santa!” that she performed with Carey for Mariah Carey’s Magical Christmas Special in 2020). The latest being a remix of “yes, and?” that’s, believe it or not, far inferior to the original. In any case, perhaps Carpenter’s comparisons to Grande (particularly in the wake of “nonsense”) ought to be flattering to the latter—after all, she’s not that much older than the blonde Pennsylvanian (a description that also applies to Aguilera), but is already being considered worthy of such an elevated “mentor status.”

    Alas, that mentorship came too late in terms of Grande providing inspiration to Carpenter on how to treat accusations of being a homewrecker. Something that was hurled at her in the wake of Olivia Rodrigo’s debut hit single, “drivers license,” in 2021. As Carpenter retells it on “because i liked a boy,” “I got death threats fillin’ up semi-trucks/Tell me who I am, guess I don’t have a choice/All because I liked a boy.” She also points out the fact that it’s all a little bit silly considering she wasn’t even dating Joshua Bassett (the ultimately gay dude who caused all this commotion) anymore when Rodrigo dropped her hit. Hence, her addition to the chorus: “And all of this for what?/When everything went down, we’d already broken up/Please tell me who I am, guess I don’t have a choice/All because I liked a boy.” And “who she is” to the Olivia fans who were scandalized by her “stealin’ from the young” (side note: Rodrigo is a mere four years younger than Carpenter) is a “homewrecker” and a “slut.” These being the labels Carpenter attaches to herself throughout the song, choosing to wear them like scarlet As (in fact, she said Easy A—not, say, The Scarlet Letter—was the vibe she was channeling for the track). 

    In contrast, after being accused of actually breaking up a home (namely, Lilly Jay’s home with Ethan Slater), Grande came at the mass of criticism and online hate with the simple and effective clapback, “yes, and?” While Carpenter chose to emulate a more Britney Spears in the “Circus” video route for the visual that accompanied “because i liked a boy,” Grande put a face to shrugging off outside contempt by paying homage to, of all things, the Paula Abdul video for “Cold Hearted.” But the nod to this Abdul video wasn’t as random as some might think, for the original sees a slew of “record company executives” arrive to effectively critique what Abdul has been working on. In the same vein, Grande labels her version of record company executives simply as “The Critics.” Inviting them into her “art space” with open arms as she proceeds to then tell them, “Now I’m so done with caring/What you think, no, I won’t hide/Underneath your own projections/Or change my most authentic life.”

    She then urges others who have been mercilessly criticized for their actions, like Carpenter, to “come on, put your lipstick on (no one can tell you nothin’)/Come on and walk this way through the fire (don’t care what’s on their mind)/And if you find yourself in a dark situation/Just turn on your light and be like/‘Yes, and?’/Say that shit with your chest, and/Be your own fuckin’ best friend.” 

    It’s a sharp departure from the much more self-pitying tack Carpenter takes with her go-to lyrics, “Tell me who I am, guess I don’t have a choice/All because I liked/I’m the hot topic on your tongue/I’m a rebound gettin’ ’round stealin’ from the young/Tell me who I am, guess I don’t have a choice/All because I liked a boy.” Elsewhere in the song, Carpenter is sure to downplay and diminish the relationship she had with Bassett as one of pure innocence (or, as she sings, “Fell so deeply into it/It was all so innocent”), as though making certain that all her detractors retroactively know that nothing “untoward” happened. Save for “cuddling on trampolines,” “bond[ing] over Black Eyed Peas” and “tryna hold you close while your heart was failing.” All platonic enough, surely. 

    Grande, conversely, wants to see to it that her detractors know she doesn’t give one goddamn what they think. To more “zen-ly” get that message across, Grande pronounces, “My tongue is sacred, I speak upon what I like/Protected, sexy, discerning with my time, my time/Your energy is yours and mine is mine/What’s mine is mine.” The reemphasis on that last line also seems to be a direct reference to Slater, who she now openly declares to be “hers.” She appears to double down on that message with another song on eternal sunshine titled “the boy is mine.” Making no apologies whatsoever for her “outrageous” behavior, Grande further goads, “My face is sitting, I don’t need no disguise/Don’t comment on my body, do not reply/Your business is yours and mine is mine/Why do you care so much whose dick I ride?/Why?” 

    These are questions that Carpenter could have just as easily posed to the Livies that were out for blood in the wake of “drivers license” reigniting the many suspicions about Carpenter “stealing” Bassett away from Rodrigo (a speculation that was further propelled by Rodrigo’s “traitor” lyrics, “You’d talk to her/When we were together/Loved you at your worst/But that didn’t matter/It took you two weeks/To go off and date her/Guess you didn’t cheat/But you’re still a traitor”).

    Alas, Grande hadn’t yet released “yes, and?” to light the way for how to deal with being called a homewrecker and a slut. Marina and the Diamonds, however, had already released “Homewrecker” in 2012, gleefully touting the right approach and attitude for handling naysayers with the assertion: “And I don’t belong to anyone/They call me homewrecker, homewrecker (I’m only happy when I’m on the run)/They call me homewrecker, homewrecker (I broke a million hearts just for fun).”

    [ad_2]

    Genna Rivieccio

    Source link

  • Madonna and Improv Influence Ariana Grande’s “Yes, And?” 

    Madonna and Improv Influence Ariana Grande’s “Yes, And?” 

    [ad_1]

    For a minute there, Ariana Grande had a reputation for releasing new music as frequently as Rihanna once did (the singer-turned-makeup mogul could formerly be relied on for an album a year). That reached an apex in the time period between summer of 2018 and winter of 2019, when Grande famously released the one-two punch of Sweetener and thank u, next in the span of six months. Part of that rapidity stemmed from being creatively inspired by the storm of personal events that transpired in the months after Sweetener’s release, including the death of her ex, Mac Miller, and her breakup with then fiancé Pete Davidson (who Grande put on the map, dating-wise). Grande’s prolificness didn’t let up in 2020 either, when she gave the world a prime example of “pandemic pop” in the form of the Positions album. 

    Soon after the release of that record, Grande announced her engagement (again) to “celebrity (a.k.a. luxury) realtor” Dalton Gomez. This was also after the news that she had been cast as Glinda in the film version of Wicked (because turning musicals based on movies into musical movies is all the rage now). A project that also consumed her enough for her to announce that she would not release new music until production was over. Now, going on four years since Positions was released, Grande is ready to reintroduce herself. And, of course, throw some shade at one of the latest scandals to have affected her “brand” in the headlines: that she’s a homewrecker willing to wreck a home for someone who looks like Ethan Slater, her co-star in Wicked (who, appropriately, plays a munchkin with a crush on her). As for Slater’s high school sweetheart, Lilly Jay, the two divorced soon after the announcement of Grande’s relationship, with Jay commenting, “[Ariana’s] the story really. Not a girl’s girl. My family is just collateral damage.” And yet, even to Jay, Grande would likely quip, “Yes, and?” That two-word phrase being most known for its association with improv philosophy until now. 

    What’s more, the “and what?” (just a synonym for “yes, and?”) vibe of it is also associated with another pop star. The mother of all pop stars, as it were: Madonna (someone Ari is no stranger to collaborating with). Because, indeed, it isn’t just the sound of the song that emulates Madonna’s house-inspired “Vogue” stylings (something Beyoncé also wanted to resuscitate recently with “Break My Soul” [cue another “Queens Remix” instead featuring Ariana and Madonna] and Renaissance as a whole). It’s also the “I don’t give a fuck what you think” aura that Madonna has exuded, specifically, since 1985, after nude photos of her from her pre-fame days were sold to Playboy and Penthouse. Rather than cowering in shame or “apologizing,” as was usually the case in those days, Madonna was the first woman to stand up for herself in such a scenario and say simply, “So what?” Deciding that what she did for money before she was famous was her own business, and she oughtn’t be judged for it, even if the photos were splashed across these glossy men’s magazines for all to see. This unprecedented reaction on the part of a slut-shamed famous woman prompted the iconic New York Post headlines: “Madonna on Nudie Pix: So What!” and “Madonna: ‘I’m Not Ashamed,’ followed by the subtitle, “Rock star shrugs off nudie pix furor.” (Both front pages that would be “arti-ified” by Keith Haring and Andy Warhol.) With those simple two words, Madonna paved the way for Grande’s own: “yes, and?” 

    Of course, the danger of that is how people will now start using it to justify objectively egregious acts, like, say, murder (just imagine how bad “yes, and?” would be received if Israel suddenly started adopting it as its mantra while bombing Palestine, or if Russia did the same in its actions toward Ukraine). And yes (not to be confused with yes, and), we do live in a society where certain kinds of murder are glorified, even applauded (see: Gypsy-Rose Blanchard). Certain kinds of grotesque behavior in general, mostly related to the debasing things people will do for money. One might even say, in her allyship, Grande is ultimately hollerin’ for a dollar when she says, “Boy, come on, put your lipstick on (no one can tell you nothin’).” Because obviously it benefits her makeup brand’s sales to encourage all genders to wear it. Being an “ally” in the process is just an added bonus. 

    In addition to alluding to her “homewrecking” ways (though nothing will ever compare to the homewrecker’s anthem that is Marina and the Diamonds’ “Homewrecker”), Grande also references her body being commented upon back in April of 2023. When she chose to respond to the wave of comments about how “thin” and “unhealthy” she looked with a video. One in which she stated, “I think we should be gentler and less comfortable commenting on people’s bodies, no matter what [Billie Eilish had a similar, blunter statement to make on “Not My Responsibility”]… You never know what someone is going through. So even if you are coming from a loving place and a caring place, that person is probably working on it.” This comes back again in “yes, and?” when she sings, “Don’t comment on my body, do not reply.” Not to mention the Britney-centric declaration, “Your business is yours and mine is mine” (it all has the decidedly tongue-in-cheek tone of Spears’ “Piece of Me” video).

    Grande’s positivity doesn’t extend just to the body, but also to finding light in dark situations (a running motif in her work since Sweetener, when she repeated, “The light is coming to give back everything the darkness stole” on “The Light Is Coming”). Thus, she urges, “Yes, and?/Say that shit with your chest.” In other words, stick out your chest with pride (another subtle gay allyship allusion), hold your head high, etc. Grande then adds, perhaps anticipating the fallout for daring to live one’s “most authentic life,” “Be your own fuckin’ best friend.” It’s a sentiment that echoes the sologamist verse on “thank u, next” (indeed, Ari appears to want “yes, and?” to make even more direct reference to that track when she sings, “Keep moving like, ‘What’s next?’). The one that goes, “I ain’t worried ’bout nothin’/Plus, I met someone else/We’re havin’ better discussions/I know they say I move on too fast/But this one gon’ last/‘Cause her name is Ari/And I’m so good with that.” As she also seems to be on “yes, and?”—even if currently “riding the dick” that is Ethan Slater’s. A tabloid tidbit she addresses with, “Why do you care so much whose dick I ride?/Why?” Probably because celebrity worship/envy and the according “need” to know everything about their personal lives has been an ongoing part of our culture at least since the dawn of film.

    In truth, celebrities would probably be a bit disappointed if no one cared whose dick they were riding, but that’s another story/psychological analysis. Besides, no one wants to “overthink” too much with a song like this playing, its infectious house rhythms (ready-made for striking poses on the ballroom dance floor courtesy of production from Grande, Max Martin and ILYA) likely to infiltrate LGBTQIA+ spaces the world over in no time. 

    To be sure, the release of new Ari music always feels best at the beginning of a year, as thank u, next did. Punctuating it with so much initial hope before people start to notice a few months in that shit is not only still the same, it’s probably getting worse. To which government officials might riposte, “Yes, and?”

    [ad_2]

    Genna Rivieccio

    Source link