Ariana Grande - Yes, and? Review
- by Peter Källman
- in Reviews
Arianna releases new music for the first time in a long time. Most people believe this song will be a part of her upcoming seventh album, referred to as AG7. This is an upbeat, house-inspired banger with a positive message of self-empowerment. One thing that catches you off guard straight away is the choice of groove for Ari. This house thing is fairly new. I dig it.
Another thing that catches you off guard, but which Arianna explores quite often, is the key changes. The intro starts off, and into the first verse, it switches up. This is quite hard to pull off without sounding either completely out of place or completely forced. The song keeps a similar groove throughout but has a little bit of a breakdown towards the end, with a spoken-word kind of interlude.
A lot of artists talk about the bridge as something holy. Some artists mention it as their favorite part of a song, “so why not just make the whole song like a bridge?,” they say. Arianna’s bridge in this release is, however, more of a traditional bridge. Where it takes you away into another place for a few seconds and then, without too much strain, puts you back where you were.
I think the most impressive thing about this song is how it keeps switching up tonality, chords/melody but still remains coherent. The song does not have a significant difference in dynamic. The quietest parts are quiet but not so quiet in contrast to the loud part that it makes your heart break. The loud parts are loud but not so loud in contrast to the quiet parts that it makes you want to tear down the whole club. That makes this song fall into some sort of middle thing. Easy listening maybe?
Along with co-writers LLya Salmanzadeh and Max Martin, Arianna covers topics of body image, her own divorce, and romantic relationships. The music video, which comes with the song, satirizes critics. Some people think the full-length album will be released in 2024. Gathering info from Ari’s socials, fans have also guessed her album will be titled Eternal Sunshine. Let's see if they are right.
The song was also co-produced by the aforementioned co-writers. If you get Max Martin on your team, you are going to land at least something. An artist like Ari could write about anything, and fans would probably hop on it. This is because she surrounds herself with such extremely skillful people and is herself also extremely skillful, strictly musically speaking.
I personally never found that big of an interest in artists writing songs about “the industry” or making a grandstand in that sort of way. But it is beyond doubt that this song will give fans a lot of positive feelings. I am very much a fan of the trend where different branches of EDM are melded with mainstream pop. PinkPantheress is another example of an artist who just in recent years managed to bring back a certain EDM vibe into the mainstream. She brought back a lot of DnB/Garage rhythms, these genres being even more obscure than traditional house.
As for what the fan is going to think, I can’t say for sure. I can, however, say for sure that Ari contributed a lot with her own melodic prowess and writing to this song because I can hear it. If you are comfortable with a little bit of a rhythmic switch up but having a similar melodic vocal core, I think this one will do you very well.
