Album Review: Ariana Grande's "My Everything" Turns On Variety... A Little Too Much?

Ariana Grande first soared onto the music scene with "The Way (feat. Mac Miller)", a catchy yet heavily sample driven rhythmic pop production. She rapidly accumulated fans by the hundreds of thousands and began working very hard on what would eventually become her first studio album, Yours Truly, which saw release in August of 2013. About 4 months later, Grande returned with a digital only Christmas inspired EP, Christmas Kisses, which received instantaneous critical acclaim. Similar critical acclaim came in April 2014 with the release of Grande's never before heard new single, "Problem (feat. Iggy Azalea)".

When "Problem" debuted on the Hot 100 with sales of 438,000 (the year's biggest debut thus far), Grande had solidified her status as a pop diva and stripped away any remaining Nickelodeon threads. She was shining and there was nothing anybody could do about it. Unfortunately for Grande, not all of My Everything really seems up to par with "Problem" and "The Way". Sure it shows more maturity and a lot more variety, but it doesn't seem to encompass one true body or theme. It's a bit too scattered. "Problem" was not a good representation of anything else on the album at all.

Relying on the strength of co-headliners like Iggy Azalea, The Weeknd, Nicki Minaj, Jessie J, and Zedd, My Everything falls a bit flat when it comes to solo performances. I mean why include "Bang Bang" if you're in the backseat the entire time? An additional slew of unneeded track samples further downgrade the quality of the album as a whole. What's the point of including a sample of Diana Ross' "I'm Coming Out" on "Break Your Heart Right Back (feat. Childish Gambino)" if its going to get hidden in the backbeat? It makes the younger generation confused and the older generation disgusted.

With that being said, there are some distinct highlights on My Everything. "One Last Time" (probably my favorite track other than the singles) blends the right amount of dance vibes and pop vibes, while supplying vocals that aren't too candy coated nor overly dull.

Among the other highlights are "Break Free (feat. Zedd)" (which was released as the album's second single), "Love Me Harder (feat. The Weeknd)" and of course "Bang Bang". Unfortunately, that short list of about 4-5 songs is composed nearly entirely of tracks that feature help from other artists, bringing several questions to mind. Most notably: Was this album rush released and filled with as many cheap collaborations as possible to distract us from the fact that Ariana hadn't actually grown that much 12 months? I'm betting on a yes.

I guess I should have known something was up when I wasn't impressed with the "Break Free" video:

"While the rest of Ariana Grande's music videos are far from perfect, the music video for "Break Free" borders on the edge of utter ridiculousness -- her worst video to date. The inspirations behind it -- original Star Trek episodes, space dominatrixes, Katy Perry's "E.T." video, Star Wars, etc. -- would normally all work together to create a strong final product, but the lack of originality and an interesting story line, combined with the fact that nearly everything in the entire video was developed on a green screen, make for a really uncomfortable and downright stupid video.
I understand that you can't actually shoot a project in space, but it feels like they spent too much time on Grande's appearance rather than the sets and plot itself. Okay, yes, she looks cute but then again when has she not?
Despite critical opinions popping up all across the internet, most of America has embraced the video for "Break Free" with open arms -- Ariantors have made sure of it. Once again, a terrible video will help propel a decent song to success. We needed another one of those."
I guess the same thing can be applied to the album. It has solid material, yet it also has some songs that sound like they were strung together randomly.

Overview: While My Everything is far from terrible, it lacks uniform and has a lazy overall structure. The over used samples and overly promoted collaborations make for an album that feels just a bit rushed. There are some notable and worthy highlights on the album ("Problem", "Break Free", "One Last Time", "Love Me Harder" and "Bang Bang"), but everything seems to lie on the shoulders of the collaborators, which is the exact opposite of what happened on her last album. Overall, the individual themes on My Everything are all pretty much clear, but when they're combined together, everything seems a lot hazier and the overall theme feels distant. There's too much going on. There's lots of pop, lots of r&b, lots of rap, lots of EDM and a lot of filler. It's solid, but at the same time its not.

Rating 71/100 (C-)