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  • 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”

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    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.

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • Anne Geddes Meets American Beauty: Kali Uchis’ “I Wish You Roses” Video

    Anne Geddes Meets American Beauty: Kali Uchis’ “I Wish You Roses” Video

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    After a nearly three-year Kali Uchis album drought, the singer is set to return with a new offering in March called Red Moon in Venus. Returning to English (though of course there will be Spanish songs on the album) after paying homage to her heritage with the Spanish-language Sin Miedo (del Amor y Otros Demonios), her first single from the record is “I Wish You Roses.” Unlike Miley Cyrus’ more venomous use of flowers as a metaphor in the wake of a relationship, Uchis wields roses to provide her well wishes to an erstwhile boyfriend by declaring, “Ooh, never thought I would be without you/I wish you love, I wish you well/I wish you roses while you can still smell ’em.” For, as Uchis sees it, wishing someone “roses” infers that you have the “goodness” of spirit to set someone free without rancor or animosity—as is so often the case during a breakup. Indeed, an entire musical genre has been centered around it, with Taylor Swift reaping the most financial benefits from her pain and contempt (not to say there’s anything wrong with that…might as well turn heartache into gold, after all).

    This is why Uchis’ song is so rare in a sea of acerbic breakup singles (joined perhaps only by “thank u, next” in seeing the positive in a relationship demise). Playing up the rose theme for the video, obviously, Uchis enlisted Cho Gi-Seok, known for his surreal photography, to direct. With his help, Uchis paints a world colored in serenity and feminine divinity. For, as she said of titling the album, “Red Moon in Venus is a timeless, burning expression of desire, heartbreak, faith and honesty, reflecting the divine femininity of the moon and Venus.” What Uchis also reflects in the video is being at peace with moving on, a feat that is perhaps most often expected of women anyway. As Uchis stated, the core of the message is “about being able to release people with love. It could be a friend, a lover, or someone else, but the point is to celebrate releasing people from your life without being resentful or bitter.” The great conundrum… especially if one of the people in the equation was left against their will.

    To visually manifest the semi-reluctant beneficence of the track, the video for “I Wish You Roses” commences with the camera’s perspective moving down a thorny vine. We then see a fresh, vibrant rose open up before Uchis’ own eye does—bedecked in bright, over-the-top makeup that matches her dew-dropped lips. The sexual imagery of a flower is also played up with its “center area” separated out from the rest of its structure as it is suspended in midair next to Uchis’ own set of lips (the ones on her face, mind you). Do with that imagery what you will, but a flower can’t help its sexual nature. Which is why it’s kind of fucked up that Anne Geddes was always photographing babies in flower scenarios. Sure, new life and all that, or whatever—but still. Those photos are a creep’s sweet fantasy.

    Uchis, however, veers far more toward Mena Suvari as Angela Hayes in American Beauty territory. But not before the “labia flower” is shown in a transition that then focuses on Uchis’ own “triangle” as Gi-Seok reveals her next look to be in a very Doja Cat-esque state, complete with a bald head and multi-colored naked body. At this juncture, she announces, “I was a rose in a garden of weeds”—an analogy that channels Lana Del Rey (for whom Uchis once opened on her LA to the Moon Tour) saying, “In the land of gods and monsters/I was an angel.” Uchis’ reference to being a rose among the weeds (that, clearly, included her ex) also reminds one of the Phil Spector-penned “Spanish Harlem”—sometimes better recognized as “A Rose in Spanish Harlem.” Originally performed by Ben E. King, he croons, “There is a rose in Spanish Harlem/A red rose up in Spanish Harlem/It is the special one, it’s never seen the sun/It only comes out when the moon is on the run.” A comment on a woman who is expected to survive and thrive among such harsh conditions as the ones that exist in this world, King also adds (somewhat grossly), “I’m goin’ to pick that rose and watch her as she grows in my garden.” But Uchis needs no one to help her grow in “I Wish You Roses”—for she’s the one who already possesses all the wisdom. Including the sagacity to know that it’s better to let go and wish someone well than to hold on and let the poison of vitriol consume you. But hey, try telling that to an egregiously wronged woman like Beatrix Kiddo (or Britney Spears, for that matter), or even just a clingy dude like Pádraic Súilleabháin in The Banshees of Inisherin.

    Uchis continues on her innuendo-laden journey with lyrics that tease, “My petals are soft and silky as sheets.” We soon see her picking the thorny rose we were made certain to notice at the outset as she also remarks, “So do not be afraid to get pricked by the thorns/While I’m here, I’m someone to honor/When I’m gone, I’m someone to mourn/But if you and my heart should someday drift apart/I’ll make surе to give you these blеssings because they’re all I’ve got.” Again, these are very progressive sentiments for someone—especially a woman—to have after a breakup, usually so colored by bitterness and resentment as it can be. Disciples (and Calvin Harris) once asked, “How deep is your love?” and Uchis is happy to answer, “My love’s deep as the ocean, don’t you drown on me/Just know, any love I gave you is forever yours to keep.” It’s a sentiment out of Madonna’s Ray of Light-era playbook (e.g., “Like A Flower,” during which she remarks of a lover past, “You’ll always be a part of me… Like a flower, you grow”)—therefore, the Kabbalah playbook. Which speaks to letting go of any hatred in one’s heart, including when things don’t go their way in romance. Madonna herself once said in 2005’s I’m Going to Tell You A Secret, “It’s the hardest thing in the world to do. I mean, can you imagine forgiving people that, you know, fuck you over, for lack of a better word? To actually get to the end of your day and not only forgive… but to wish [those people] well.” And that’s what Uchis mostly seeks to do, even when there are certain shade-drenched lines like, “With pretty flowers can come the bee sting (ooh, never thought I would be without you)/But I wish you love, I wish you well.”

    And while she’s wishing that wellness, she perhaps wants to remind her ex of what he’s missing as she reenacts the aforementioned overhead shot in American Beauty with all of her “strategic parts” covered in petals. Adding to the tradition of flower imagery in music (as Miley recently has), Uchis brings a new high to the “rose canon” of songs, among such gems as Aretha Franklin’s “A Rose Is Still A Rose” and, yes, Poison’s “Every Rose Has Its Thorn”—with the eponymous flower in question providing no shortage of inspiration for analogies related to love and growth (and, needless to say, sex).

    Alas, Uchis’ message of “letting go” feels ultimately negated with the song’s outro, during which she lies down inside a rose (again, very Anne Geddes) and chants softly, “You’re gonna want me back/You’re gonna want me bad/You’re gonna—/You know we can’t do that/You know we can’t do that/You know we—” In other words, to paraphrase Outkast, “Lean a little closer, roses really smell like shit.”

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • Miley Cyrus’ “Flowers” Takes the Sologamy Message of “thank u, next” To A New Level

    Miley Cyrus’ “Flowers” Takes the Sologamy Message of “thank u, next” To A New Level

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    At the beginning of 2019, Ariana Grande was coming out of a whirlwind romance (complete with an engagement) to Pete Davidson. No one was all that upset about the breakup. After all, it had yielded an iconic meme involving a lollipop and, then, as Arianators were to find out, the best album of her discography. Called thank u, next, the eponymous first single took a candid, clear look at her relationships past, listing out the men by name as follows: “Thought I’d end up with Sean/But he wasn’t a match/Wrote some songs about Ricky/Now I listen and laugh/Even almost got married/And for Pete, I’m so thankful/Wish I could say ‘thank you’ to Malcolm/‘Cause he was an angel.” Obviously, not “angel” enough to make it worth it for Ari to stick around and endure his drug addiction, but hey, one can’t speak of ill of the dead. The point is, “thank u, next” was not only the sonic equivalent of Lindsay Lohan’s “fuck list,” it was also a slow unveiling of Grande’s revelation about how the relationship one has with herself is ultimately the greatest love affair of all.

    As far as societal messages geared toward hetero women go, this has always been deemed extremely dangerous (which is why it still remains rare). With every fairy tale and rom-com peddled, women are repeatedly told that, sure, you can pretend to be “content” with singledom for a while—have your fun on the dance floor, relish random one-night stands, etc.—but, eventually, you’re going to equate your self-worth and value with “finding a man.” In short, “it” follows. That ever-lingering, deep-seated mantra that goes: fall in “love,” get married and have kids. When someone like Grande—all “cute” and mainstream—briefly appeared to be quashing that mantra, it was a momentous occasion in pop culture. For, although she could have made yet another breakup with a man who couldn’t “get the job done” (least of all intellectually) come across as “heartbreaking,” she decided to render the single into a joyful celebration of the self. This being most manifest in the lyrics, “Plus, I met someone else/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.” Yes, that’s right—Grande effectively declared herself as her lifelong soul mate (Lana Del Rey once did the same, albeit in a tweet). Britney Spears has lately done something similar on her Instagram account by dressing in a wedding down and declaring she’s married herself… despite being married to the hologram known as Sam Asghari. In short, sologamy has become less and less of a “joke” (as Carrie Bradshaw sort of made it so that she could get her friend to replace her Manolo Blahniks by establishing her “gift registry” at said store). Instead, it’s starting to make all the sense in the world.

    Alas, that message felt a bit hollow when Grande married Dalton Gomez two years after “thank u, next” (yes, she really does move on fast). So now, Miley Cyrus has come along to pick up the slack and more confidently walk her talk. All while continuing to shade former flame/husband, Liam Hemsworth (e.g., “We were right ’til we weren’t/Built a home and watched it burn”). What’s more, it is absolutely no coincidence that Miley chose to drop the single and video for “Flowers” on Hemsworth’s thirty-third birthday. For those wondering how or why Cyrus could still be so “petty” by continuing to reference Hemsworth in her music (he being the dominant “muse” for the last few years), know this: women don’t forget their romantic slights. Their Love Is A Battlefield wounds. They can talk about it for the rest of their life (especially if it’s profitable), spend ages dissecting what went wrong or what caused the about-face in a man’s attitude toward her. Taylor Swift has created arguably the most enduring career out of it. And the obvious answer to “what went wrong,” of course, is that the girl in question “got too comfortable.” Was made to believe that she could ever truly be accepted without some form of veneer. But men, whether “cognizant” of it or not, need the veneers they swear mean nothing in order to stay “interested.” Miley is done playing that game, providing the first single from Endless Summer Vacation (a Del Rey-sounding project, to be sure) that firmly plants her in the sologamy camp. Indeed, she’s planned the release perfectly not only to shade Hemsworth, but for the imminence of Valentine’s Day a.k.a. Singles Awareness Day. Cue the tie-ins of various flower companies playing the song.

    And yet, with the video that Cyrus has made for “Flowers,” she’s essentially building on what Red Hot Chili Peppers said long ago: “Sometimes I feel like I don’t have a partner/Sometimes I feel like my only friend/Is the city I live in/The City of Angels.” Her tone, naturally, is far more jubilant as we see her strutting through the streets (and bridges) of L.A. (because, as she stated, Endless Summer Vacation is a “love letter” to that city). To help capture the sun-soaked isolation of Los Angeles, Cyrus secured model-turned-creative director Jacob Bixenman to helm the video. And, despite formerly loving Troye Sivan (another Ariana Grande favorite), Bixenman can still clearly appreciate the female form as he proceeds to showcase Miley swimming in her backyard and then performing some of the intense workout methods that have clearly given her the toned body we see before us. Indeed, some of her very deliberate positions (no Ari allusion intended) come across as a direct taunt at anyone who would ever dare to leave her and/or force her to leave them by treating her “less than.”

    From the series of backyard exercises to the tranquil shower session, it’s evident that all these blatant forms of self-care are a means to emphasize to the viewer that what Miley says is true: no one will ever be able to take care of you (nay, give as much of a shit about you) as well as you can. Especially if you have millions of dollars to aid with that care. Emerging from the shower in what can only be called a power suit (complete with dramatic shoulder pads) with no shirt on underneath, Miley then whole-heartedly confirms she can take herself dancing as she engages in some solo choreography inside her house that reminds one of Cameron Diaz’s moves as Amanda in The Holiday.

    By the end, as Miley finds herself on her roof with a helicopter looming above (again, it’s L.A.), she’s proven herself to be the new Queen of/Spokeswoman for Sologamy. Because, no, Ari didn’t much stick to her guns with the underlying message of “thank u, next” (she is, in the end, a self-proclaimed “needy” person a.k.a. a Cancer). But if anyone could stay consistent on this front, perhaps it’s Miley. Maybe she’ll end up truly being the exemplar of sologamy…rendering it no longer billable as the symptom of a “sad, ‘old’ cat lady,” but a hot puta who knows her worth and isn’t willing to compromise it for the so-called sake of not being “alone.”

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    Genna Rivieccio

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