Dangerous Woman

Before the release of her latest album, Thank u Next, my all-time favorite Ariana Grande album was Dangerous Woman. This is the album that told the world that she was grown and an adult now. She isn’t just a young Nickelodeon star. The album was originally titled Moonlight, but Dangerous Woman featured where she was and who she was in this point in her life.

I’LL ADMIT IT: I am one of those naysayers who didn’t really take Ariana Grande seriously in the beginning. Not that I hate her, it’s just that most pop stars who started their careers as teen stars don’t normally transition well as dependable musicians. Either they lip sync to save their lives, get involved in a number of controversies that can ruin their careers or simply don’t give a damn about their loyal fan base. Although Ariana Grande had a number of hits that time and her collaborations with artists that I admire like Jessie J, Nicki Minaj, Iggy Azalea, The Weeknd among others did well in the charts, I felt that she is still a little girl. Yes, they’re saying that she’s the new generation’s Mariah Carey or Christina Aguilera, but something was lacking. Yah know, like when Britney Spears said in one of her songs that ‘she’s not a girl, not yet a woman’. But guuurl, Ariana Grande proved that she’s ready to dominate the world and dominate the hearts of many by releasing Dangerous Woman in 2016.

After wowing the world of music with the release of her second studio album, My Everything, Ariana Grande seems to have taken a tentative step into the adulthood of the music industry – despite being only four years into her career as a singer. Covering a duration of almost 40 minutes, Dangerous Woman conveys an interesting message about the ‘dangerous’ pop talent – she’s still searching for the right sound. Songs like “Love Me Harder”, “Problem”, “Bang Bang” (all singles from her previous album) left people wondering if she was going to continue with these styles of music – or take a dare to switch styles. However, Dangerous Woman comes with a mixture of Pop and Dance-pop styles, indicating that she’s still trying to figure out where she would pitch her ‘tent’ – although she seem to be a master at combining various styles. The album has ‘generally’ been viewed as an unforced hurdle by Ariana Grande into becoming her own vocalist and performer. Certified Platinum by the RIAA, Dangerous Woman is a 15 track long album featuring guest appearances from Future, Nicki Minaj and the legendary Lil Wayne. Being a follow up to her sophomore album, Dangerous Woman has influences of dance-pop, disco, trap and reggae – with pop and R&B being its primary genre. However, this album was the first of Ariana’s to not hit the number-one spot in the US Billboard 200, although it went on to earn about 180,000 units in its first week of release. It was also earned a Grammy nomination for Best Pop Vocal Album.

The title of Ariana Grande’s third album Dangerous Woman aptly described the force she was going to become in the music world in her next two albums. At this particular point of her career though, even if she already had two number one albums and five top 10 songs in the US, she was still looking for that elusive #1 song – a song that would be the encore of all her previous encores during her live shows – the song that her fans would be singing along with her in her sold out concerts worldwide. That would come much later. For now, the focus will be on this particular album. It can be argued that this album helped cement her status as a pop star to reckon with. As an artist, Ariana also showed at this early stage of her career, that she was willing to try different styles and sounds, working with different producers and artists, bringing to the table what she can control – which is that lovely crystal clear voice of hers that remind me of Mariah Carey when Mariah was still starting out. I feel though that her album title is a misnomer because no way would anyone guess that Ariana Grande is a ‘dangerous woman’ seeing how cute and adorable she is, especially when she wears that trademark bunny ears of hers – a popular sight during her concerts. There’s no way she could look dangerous in those bunny ears, unless of course, she adds a whip. Now that would really make her look like some badass woman – truly a dangerous woman. I guess her need to have a more mature image – quickly – was because of her being a Nickelodeon alumna, something she was trying to shed off now that she had decided to become a bonafide pop star. With this album, it provided her with the needed edginess to her image and finally supplanted the bubblegum image she has been projecting before this.