While not exactly a fresh bouquet of brand-new lyrical ideas, ‘Petal’ still represents a strong effort by Ariana Grande and her production heroes from Sweden, who repackage their time-tested formula with impressive results.

Stream: ‘petal’ – Ariana Grande

If you come to Petal hoping to hear one of this generation’s leading pop stars deliver

another 40ish-minute round of solid fun, buoyed by her ever-amazing vocals and stellar production choices, you’re probably in good hands: Ariana Grande’s powers remain essentially undiminished in those critical regards.

But if you’re a longtime fan hoping that Ari will demonstrate distinct artistic and thematic development on her eighth album, you sadly may not quite get what you’re hoping for – though by no means is there none to be found.

Ariana Grande has certainly had plenty of experiences post-Eternal Sunshine with potential as lyrical fodder. She’s floated in a pink bubble up to her greatest acting heights yet via the Wicked duology (and reportedly is headed even more places onscreen shortly). She’s taken a stab at leading her own record label, Babydoll Music, for which Petal serves as a pilot project. And of course, the peaks and valleys of her relationships, personal health, family matters and more have been as well-chronicled in the media as ever. 

All of this flurry of events has left Grande feeling like a petal – a beautiful delicacy, yet highly vulnerable to wilting, wind, and trampling feet. That’s the metaphor that the album’s title and lyricism is structured around, with the summary statement of it all appearing early on in the third and title track: “all of my favorite stories end in some time of catastrophe.” 

One of those stories involves her developing rapport with her continually loyal fanbase.

Lead and smash single “Hate That I Made You Love Me” has already chronicled that much convincingly, with Grande addressing millions of fans and media members whose names she doesn’t even know as if they were her intimate romantic partners.

“Why do you so hate to see women endure?” she broadly asks. “Is it really my fault you all gave me a heart of your own accord?” It’s a double entendre she’ll return to plenty of times from thereon.

I’ve held your projections
when you’ve felt so insecure
Tell me, why is it this way?
Why you so hate to see women endure?
Is it really my fault
you all gave me your hearts
of your own accord?
I don’t really think so

I, I hate that I made you love me 
Sorry if I made me your type
Yeah, I, I hate that I made you love me
‘Cause I barely tried

Other narratives focus more explicitly on her actual beaux, past and present.

Not to obsess too much over celebrity gossip, but in the last couple years that has featured a finalized divorce with Dalton Gomez, a period together with Ethan Slater, and a reported reconnection with long-ago flame Ricky Alvarez. “My dead ends are all gathered around, dressed as friends,” she sings of these fellas and more collectively on “Oh Well.” They may have been “friends I used to need,” but now, she gets to tell them all: “Good luck on your way to hell.” 

Look: Nobody is going to finish listening to Petal and say, “Awesome! After all these years, it’s great that Grande is finally singing about her exes for the first time!” But it’s worth acknowledging the variances in Grande’s approach to one of her go-to topics on this record. For one, as has already been observed by critics, the lyrics here are a lot more venom-laced and feral-sounding than they were in her early career. “I should be wiser and realize that I’ve got one less problem without you” was no Valentine, but at least it sounds a tad more courteous than “good luck on your way to hell.” In the leading lady’s own words: “I wrote from a place that I don’t usually, which was like an unfiltered rage.” It definitely shows.

The auteure of all of those party-starting hits from the early 2010’s like “Break Free,” “Bang Bang,” and the aforementioned “Problem” would also likely have steered well clear of the much more subdued and atmospheric R&B-laced production that dominates Petal. Sweden’s Max Martin and ILYA, who have nearly a phone book’s worth of Grande credits at this point, return to deliver another dozen instrumentals here. They may not be as glitzy or fiesta-launching as some of their past work with Ms. Grande but arguably complement the more mature, restrained feel of the new record well.

Plus, there are several more upbeat moments sprinkled around to elevate the mood, including the fast-paced beat on “bad thing (bunny hop)” and the closing sentiment of hope on final track “nowhere, nobody,” where Grande sings about how, in spite of it all, “I do believe in the perfect ending.”

Overall, there is plenty to appreciate about Petal on its own merits, but – perhaps inevitably, now that she’s up to album #8 – some of it may feel overly familiar to fans who’ve stuck with her over the years.

When Eternal Sunshine, her hitherto latest release, came out in 2024, yours truly commented that the album didn’t represent radically new lyrical terrain for the singer, but that wasn’t such a fatality, given that she was still singing about topics that had mattered to her lately, and was also singing them with as much spectacular vocal command as ever.

Two years later, a similar description could be made of Petal, but the music still feels a few degrees less fresh than before, even when the primary thematic content is dressed up differently in several ways.

Still, while Petal won’t snatch the title of the greatest and most memorable Ariana Grande album away from 2018’s Sweetener, there is plenty here to make for an engaging listen, and it’s certainly commendable to see the singer going strong nearly 15 years after her debut, a point only a precious few pop artists make it to intact.

— —

:: read more Ariana Grande here ::

:: stream/purchase petal here ::

:: connect with Ariana Grande here ::

— —

— — — —

Connect to Ariana Grande on
Facebook, TikTok, Instagram

Discover new music on Atwood Magazine

 © Katia Temkin

petal

an album by Ariana Grande