While “pov” was the perfect cap to the lockdown pop stylings of Ariana Grande’s positions in October of last year (everyone’s beloved 2020), the chanteuse knows her audience well enough to be aware that they’re constantly fiending for more. Almost as well as she knows that she can get away with blackfishing in the most extreme ways and no one will really stay committed to holding her accountable. Enter positions (deluxe).
Slowly lulling us back into the heavily Brandy-inspired R&B sound, Grande wields an “interlude,” of sorts, in the form of the one minute, sixteen second “someone like u” (too bad the song didn’t exist when the Ashley Judd movie of the same name came out in 2001). Grande keeps it very simple indeed throughout the brief love note, openly reciting her prayer, “Baby, this time, please don’t be too good to be true/I’ve been waiting for someone like you.” Clearly, this is a bit of shade–whether she means it to be or not–at past loves who she then truly believed were “the one.” There’s a lot riding on Dalton Gomez working out for her at this point, almost as much as there is for Taylor Swift with Joe Alwyn. So yeah, of course she’s gonna wish and hope to God or whoever that shit pans out this time.
The more uptempo yet still endlessly chill “test drive” follows. And because it would be impossible for a girl living on the West Coast not to use the term “ride or die” with such a song title and motif, Grande earnestly declares, “I will never leave from by your side/Don’t you know you got a ride or die?” It echoes the sentiments of one of Grande’s former collaborators (and fellow L.A. residents), Lana Del Rey, who once famously remarked on “Blue Jeans,” “‘Cause I’m a ride or die/Whether you fail or fly.” And maybe Grande missed the perfect window to feature a track like this on that Edgar Scissorhands commercial. She even makes car dealerships seem relevant with her use of the metaphor, “No, I don’t feel the need to test drive nothing/Test drive nothing/Baby, I’m sold on you.” It seems Ari will never learn her lesson about looking before leaping–or driving off the cliff and hoping to land with more success than Thelma and Louise, if you will.
Grande’s enthusiasm for this particular track was so strong that she almost put it on the first go-around of the record, stating, “That was my dilemma in putting the original tracklist together, it was kind of like, the hardest decision for me was whether or not ‘test drive’ or ‘love language’ was gonna fill that spot.” Though deep down she must have known both would eventually make the cut. Along with “worst behavior,” which offers more assurances that her love is real this time as she insists, “This ain’t no game, won’t play with you/This time I know I’ll stay with you.” In contrast to the social media-centric relationship depicted on thank u, next’s “imagine” (presumably about Mac Miller) with, “Click, click, click and post” this is a song that prides itself on a rapport that doesn’t need such a hollow type of validation. Never mind that Grande and Gomez (Grandez?) have plenty of photographic evidence on their respective accounts to contradict the attitude, “No phone, no pics, no postin’ us/This love just ain’t disposable.” Not like “34+35” as a single.
Incidentally, while Dua Lipa might have released the Moonlight Edition of Future Nostalgia last week without any hype, Ari has been building up to positions (deluxe) for the past month, spurred by the release of a slightly better version of “34+35” (both in song and music video form) with “34+35 Remix” featuring Megan Thee Stallion and Doja Cat. It makes its appearance after “test drive” and before “worst behavior.” While it certainly doesn’t compare to, say, “Savage Remix,” it’s an adequate enough bridge between the two aforementioned songs.
With the most consistently named songwriters and producers on the record being Tommy Brown (who has worked with Grande on all of her albums), Steven Franks (a.k.a. Mr. Franks) and Travis Sayles, the additional five tracks on positions (deluxe) continue to carry out that collaborative permutation for the most part. Accordingly, all three show up for “main thing,” another ode to Gomez being, she’s almost pretty sure, her forever soul mate (as opposed to her pre-2020 soul mate). Which is why she pointedly uses the word “might” as she sings, “You, oh you’re really different, baby (different, baby)/You, you might be the main thing, baby.” Leave it to Ari to flip the script on men by using the generic language of a fuckboy to potentially lead them on. Channeling Adam Sandler as Robbie Hart in The Wedding Singer (and we know that sort of movie is up Grande’s alley), she offers a “sweetener” thought with, “All I wanna do is spend my time with you/Even when the learning’s done and nothing’s new.” So yeah, what Robbie said when he sang to Julia Sullivan (Drew Barrymore), “I wanna make you smile whenever you’re sad/Carry you around when your arthritis is bad/All I wanna do is grow old with you.”
The laid-back, “feelin’ on your booty” (in terms of a vibe, not the R. Kelly song) sound of “main thing” is the complete summation of Grande’s positions-era R&B phase. Who knows, maybe she’ll even continue with it on a follow-up record called transitions.
