In every artist’s career, the public sees them go through a transformation over time. Over the years, you see their maturity, rebranding or an overall change in the sound of their music. All of your favorite artists have done it. Most of them helps in the longevity of their career and they find out their lane in the music industry. 

One person that has encompassed all these traits is Ariana Grande. In a little less than ten years, she has done what most artists have done in their entire career. The 27 year old has dealt with the lot over the last few years in her personal life with breakups, death of Mac Miller and she has persevered. This October, we see the singer return with her latest album, Positions.

Now Ariana Grande is known for kicking off each of her album rollouts consistently with a chart-topping #1 single. The “title track” sets the tone for this album as we see her explore a more R&B-infused sound. As we see in the album, she has called on some of Hip-Hop’s well-known producers, London On Da Track and Murda Beatz. This sound is very familiar for Ariana and it was refreshing to see a full body of work from the artist.

Listening to the rest of the album, I began to correlate this project to that of Rihanna’s sixth studio album, Talk That Talk as both albums explore the artist’s sensual and sexual sides. She combines the two moods to create standouts ‘Nasty’, ‘My Hair’, ‘Love Language’ and the cleverly titled ’34+35’. The album’s three features complement the project very well with collaborations from Doja Cat (‘Motive’), Ty Dolla $ign (‘Safety Net’) and a reunion with The Weeknd (‘Off The Table’). 

It’s good to see Ariana Grande having some fun with her music exploring different sounds. Positions is a breakaway from her normal pop songs, but fans shall still be excited to her new music from the artist.