Perhaps no other artist of the twenty-first century has known what it’s like to be a Beatle. At least in terms of preteen girls screaming their motherfucking heads off at her concerts during every song. Something even Lana Del Rey–with her Christ-like appearance to fans–can’t lay as much claim to. To honor this time in her life, Grande has paid homage to the unprecedented in numbers Sweetener World Tour by releasing a live album (in keeping with modeling herself after a certain Madonna method) complete with thirty-two songs from various tour performances throughout the world (e.g. “r.e.m.” from London, “be alright” from Paris, “side to side” from Copenhagen, etc.). A world that very much fell at Grande’s feet swooning throughout the year. That much of Grande’s success of the past several years has been amplified by touring (an amplification that came in a horrifying way during the now historic terrorist attack of the May 22, 2017 date of her [unfortunately named in this instance] Dangerous Woman Tour at Manchester Arena) makes one wonder why it’s taken her this long to honor the live album concept.
Maybe she was simply waiting for more time to pass to shake the shadow of what went on during the Dangerous Woman Tour. While some pop stars might have shied away from the spotlight for quite some time after such a traumatic incident as what transpired at Manchester Arena, Grande stepped up to comfort those who suffered by returning to the city for a benefit concert called One Love Manchester on June 4th of the same year, the proceeds of which went to victims of the attack via Red Cross. From the 25th of May to the 5th of June, dates were cancelled due to the trauma Grande endured so early on in the schedule of the tour, with a large bulk of her European leg left, as well as a number of dates remaining in Asia and Australia. Still, Grande soldiered on. For her entire career has been about giving her fans what they want, which is, like the acolytes of Beatlemania, as much live time with her as possible (of course, this ultimately led The Beatles to quit touring in August of 1966). Part of that is extending the high of the experience with the live album. Granted, no amount of justice can be done to just how cuckoo the Arianators get when she takes the stage without seeing it up close and personal (though for those Ariana fans who hate crowds, screaming children and people generally singing over her voice, this album is a much better alternative to actually witnessing a show).
From the moment the crowd chants “Ari” during the brief opening, “raindrops (an angel cried),” we’re given a sense of the euphoria fans have as a lunar backdrop overlooks Grande and her Last Supper-positioned dancers (something that was also done by Madonna during “Devil Pray” on the 2015 Rebel Heart Tour) rising from the stage to the tune of “god is a woman.” A song that takes us back to when Grande was still in the thick of her relationship haze with Pete Davidson, likely the inspiration for her “I’m getting my pussy eaten out right” poses in the video. Yet it is always most noticeably the tracks from thank u, next that Grande performs with the most gusto, ramping up her lascivious choreography for “bad idea” (for we all know sex is just a coping mechanism for heartbreak). With the music softly suggesting its beat for the intro to “break up with your girlfriend, i’m bored,” Grande showcases just how adept she is at building audience anticipation, orchestrating the crescendo of their reaction like a master puppeteer–all aided by seven costume changes to feed their appraising eyes. Immune to her often long-winded oohs and ahhs (a style of singing in homage to both Mariah Carey and *NSYNC–and that also makes one think of an annoyed Rodney Dangerfield in Ladybugs saying, “The song’s over” as his assistant coach continues to lay on the same note in the national anthem), there’s nothing Grande can say or do wrong so long as she’s in her fans’ midst. Indeed, the straightforwardness of the tracks (which, unlike Madonna [for once], Grande doesn’t choose to rework very noticeably to make it incredibly worth releasing a live album) is proof that the fans don’t need her to do much of anything other than more of the same.
Even her acclaimed performance at “Arichella” this year (with a cameo by four members of *NSYNC–obviously Justin was too “good” to appear–that included them singing a few verses from “It Makes Me Ill,” sampled on “Break Up With Your Girlfriend, I’m Bored,” followed by “Tearin’ Up My Heart”) didn’t do much to revamp the songs in her oeuvre the way Beyoncé did the previous year for “Beychella” (as it’s now a requirement for headliners to have names that seamlessly blend with the suffix -chella). Yet “art” has never been Ariana Grande’s bottom line in music. She is a deliberately unpolished, “messy” persona who has, more than any other pop star of the past decade besides Billie Eilish (who isn’t really pop so much as a twenty-first century amalgam), championed her right to say when she feels like shit, or she’s not into doing something. There were numerous instances on the tour when this lack of “into it”-ness pervaded the show (a review from LA Weekly describing her May 10th performance “alludes” to this with unbridled candor, making specific mention of when Grande tweeted, “Making [music] is healing. Performing it is like reliving it all over again and it is hell…i just feel empty and i wanna have more to say / better energy to give to u and rn i don’t have anything. love u.”).
And who wouldn’t feel the same after the grueling nature of this 101-date tour? Yes, one hundred and one. Who wouldn’t check out of their body every now and again with that much repetition and faced with that many hordes wanting a piece of her (Britney-style)? The dissociation is apparent on the blasély delivered “successful” (in which she ironically sings, “I’m so excited/I can hardly wait) while performed in Nashville. Even “side to side” with Nicki Minaj making a cameo on the live album finds Grande delivering the line “I been here all night” with a certain Method acting realness, as though she’s drawing on the endlessly harrowing experience of shaking her ass for the cash on this ceaseless world tour.
Her decision to please the true die hard fans that still give a shit about some of her older schlock like “you’ll never know,” “tattooed heart” and “only 1” is a testament to Grande being well-aware that her canon is, at this point, vast enough to experiment with in a live setting–if she wanted to. Yet she would clearly prefer not to, knowing her audience through and through and catering to them with classicism. About the only time when schlock and classicism combine for an interesting effect is on her cover of the song made famous by Marilyn Monroe, “My Heart Belongs to Daddy.” Alas, Grande only has the courage to deliver such a controversial song in this climate with an interlude format (complete with Grande dressed in a getup that Lolita would surely approve of–though Humbert Humbert probably wouldn’t).
Concluding the show with the one-two punch of “no tears left to cry” and “thank u, next” (both songs that led sweetener and thank u, next respectively to the top), one gets the sense that Grande has this whole pop star thing down a little too pat. And maybe with the advent of 2020 and a new decade, she might see fit to get more experimental now that she’s proven herself enough times to her adoring, primarily zygote audience–who, like Grande, will one day tire of rehashing her syrupy, love as commercialized by pop lines, and look forward to, let us say, something with more kick.
