fr who tf this was a good idea in 2024 generic trap drums are BEYOND played out atp. istg these la industry mfs live in an echo chamber high off huffing their own farts

when you and @edumist gonna executive produce an album for me and we push the genre forward? let’s really shake it up !

i like the album yall… none of my twins AGREE!!

no no no that's not what i said. well if you wanna get technical big p wrote the joint w t pain in like 2011, but i meant i love a lot of those hours truly era joints. and i fw a lot of tracks on sweetener mostly the pharrell tracks as ive mentioned, i just think the max martin ilya tracks are mostly mid

This s*** hard

i also feel like she's uninspired conceptually. another album about her leaving behind another dude except she actually married this guy, then moving onto another guy treating him like he's all that even though we all know she gon drop him like a hot potato too. like how many times are we gonna do this schtick girl? until you're old and raggedy and your skin catch up w the ponytail facelifts and you can't stretch it no more? you still gonna be making the same album over and over again when u lookin more like white MJ or foxybrown or whichever plastic surgery abomination than whatever race you choose next? girl is in need of a revitalization fr and based on her whole attitude it's probably not gonna happen she comfy as hell in that echo chamber.

i promise yall im really not coming from a place of hate. i was a kid when yours truly came out and there was nothing quite like that album on the mainstream market at the time, it was bubblegum nickelodeon and doo wop but also LaFace, because of course that nigga Babyface was all over it. it's nostalgic asf for me now and to this day that album along with sweetener's pharrell tracks and some songs off TUN, along with deep cuts off dangerous woman like knew better, are her best work because they are indicative of an artist that doesn't just want to work with the same old pop idioms as all these other white b****es and was actually interested in doing something original. we all wanted her to evolve because we all felt like she was on the brink of doing so... but nah, that ain't finna happen anymore tbh

i liked it

7 rings was also 6 mf years ago too lmfo

they generally are, usually among the worst aspects of her music. they're rarely good but when they are they REALLY enhance the song (imagine)

nigga u don’t even make music

i catch myself running back trippin on SoundCloud every now and then, RELEASE MORE

the album isn’t terrible, it’s just below her standard and has a lot of discernible flaws

maybe she’s just warming up

wym its aoty

this was always her bag but she abandoned it fast as HELL

pretty sure that one is sweetener era twin, big p got vocals on it iirc

i didn't hate it and i ain't outright dislike it to be completely fair. i like SOME of the pads, i like the pivots into r&b and trapsoul type s*** whenever they're there, LOVED the lack of blaccent finally and the absence of my yuhs, guess i vibed with the melancholy tone and certain things here and there. i just expected more from her overall and never really got it. guess ill just take what i can get atp

she would make a killing in that lane

ari's vocals when the chorus hits on supernatural

what's always been mindboggling to me is how much she claims to have been inspired by imogen heap but does literally nothing with it. also that s*** bangs

Is this real wttf!!

the clicking high heels as percussion is an ingenious touch

s*** is cray-z

hell yeah sweetener era

her leak catalog is amazing

also the fact that eternally isn't on here at least as an interlude is mf insane

Just checked the writing creds

No wonder it's such a snooze

Victoria Monet we need you

to add onto this further: i think people underrate yours truly like crazy. to me, that album is not like most popstar debut albums. it wasn't perfect, it definitely had some duds, but it shows, in my opinion, a popstar that is basically fully formed and is offering a sound conceptually that was so fresh and so original for its time (2012 was bland as F*** for mainstream music yo) just by being a combination of things ariana was passionate about, namely 80s-90s r&b by way of laface/babyface, doo-wop sentimentality which was occasionally reflected in the actual songwriting (tattooed heart), and modern pop sensibilities with a tiny hint of experimentalism. i mean, listen to the density of that honeymoon avenue instrumental, bro. a lead single that samples a mf big pun hit! that hit instantly when i was a kid; i basically grew up on big pun. she would cover imogen heap and even frank ocean and casually post that s*** to her youtube. it felt like oh this is a girl that had the voice and taste to make some really interesting s***. a popstar even attempting this sort of concept was experimental in and of itself for the time for pop, let alone considering the level she was at and the literally nickelodeon ass cultural context she had existed in up to that point. music, she was really fresh and obviously had the vocals to back it all up. yours truly was a product of its time but also timeless, and indicative of a much more ambitious artist than the one we have today, imho.

the next album came, and it was pretty clear the label had gotten their claws into her. i personally felt like everything that made her unique was pretty much gone at that point except for those pretty-ass vocals. people love break free but i got no clue why. it's just a generic edm song... guess it's mostly nostalgia. they literally just brought in the clarity guy because he was popular at the time and said nah f*** all that doo wop r&b electronic s***, you'll make the records we want your skinny ass to make. it was the antithesis of everything ariana was trying to accomplish with her first album. every album from here on out until sweetener would have but a taste of what we got on yt. dangerous woman at some point looked like it was gonna be the return to form considering basically every leak we know of related to moonlight, the original concept for her dw, and moonlight the track feels like a remnant of that, and probably because of that, it's one of her best tracks. but of course, dw wasn't really like that.

sweetener felt, and honestly this is kinda obvious when you consider the songs and credits, like a compromise of these two competing visions for her music, being ariana grande's and the label's. i mean, these tracks are literally schizo with how they switch up. listen to blazed then breathin back to back. and tun was more of that, although more cohesive. both of those projects felt like that spirit of what i mentioned before, that ariana grande spirit, was back and being molded by her new pain in a way. they were her most exciting projects yet because they felt like exciting, daring and unique projects. they literally felt like projects that could only come from ariana grande, just like yours truly. it was cool.

then positions came and... i don't know, man. there were aspects of it there, like i love pov, but meh. it feels like the chartchasing capitalist label vision of her music infected ariana herself. like it ain't comin from the heart anymore... i have no evidence to back that up ofc, just a feeling. even on this album, she's returning to r&b a little more which is truly welcome but it just ain't hittin' the same. maybe it's partially me, because some of the aspects are there, like the chords on the intro track but yeah idk. ill listen to the album again though because i didn't hear it under ideal conditions.

I dont remember imperfect for you and we cant be friends hittng like this ..