Ariana Grande comes into full bloom with ‘petal’

MANILA, Philippines — American pop superstar Ariana Grande has reignited her flame in music through her eighth studio album “petal,” while she is on her concert tour.

Ahead of the “eternal sunshine” tour, the actress surprised the public that she would release new music and dropped the single hate that i made you love me. The song gained massive success as it hit No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 charts and has consistently been in the Top 10, as of writing.

With the release of “petal,” Ariana showed her newfound form while still showing different facets in her music.

Different facets

The album begins with the ethereal song kiss me, exuding a yearning vibe, looking for the love that she deserves.

With this opener, Ariana expresses how she is willing to risk it all for love as she nurses her broken heart.

Ariana shifts the tone of the album with her lead single hate that i made you love me and the title track.

The banger hit hate that i made you love me reflects her broken relationship with the industry and the fans. It stresses how people can’t embrace her growth as an artist and continue to box her in the past.

This narrative continues with “petal” as the lyrics go: “they say the artist needs tears, to write again,” another classic case of how pop stars are expected to deliver a certain sound they are used to hearing from them.

The synths and rock sound of “petal” tells us how Ariana is now on a different track in her music career and ready to explore her artistry.

stay gives that out-of-this-world vibe that Ariana, known as a huge fan of pop star Imogen Heap, wanted to explore for a long time. The song has very simplistic lyrics of someone wanting to stay with the love of their life, but the production of stay was really on another level of her artistry.

Ariana continues this route taking her listeners to another dimension with oh well but with a déjà vu moment. As the track goes, “Good things can replace dysfunction, obsession, friends I used to need but now, the bad guys all to hell, oh, well!,” hinting of a falling out with another person. With oh well, Ariana is now cleansed and certain of the relationships that she is building moving forward.

As the album goes to big feelings, she returns to the daring and sexy form with the track showing how she can still exude that sexiness in her tracks. This message will intensify as listeners go to the latter half of the album, showing how Ariana courageously tried new things with the album.

In new full form

Ariana continues her hopeful vibe with freak as she aims to start over with life as an artist as the track goes: “Someday all the seeds will open, all of the human life I’ve dreamt of, will be real if I start over.”

She stresses how she won’t give in to other people’s fantasies about her as she is now standing up for herself. This transitions to another mind-blowing interlude, warning signs, realizing all of that she has seen everything wrong all along.

She comes to her senses and says: “You don’t deserve me, you know you don’t, you never have.”

Ariana shows her newfound sound with like i do as she establishes how she is standing now in her life. A remarkable lyric the song goes like: “Keep my heels tall, my ego small but I’m still Grande.”

While the sound may be familiar to some, the song is not to the general public, and this is how unpredictable she wants the listeners to feel in her music.

Like with never get over me that exudes that vibe from different eras of her music discussing love and sorrow. Ariana takes a different route with bad thing (bunny hop) as she explores that rock vibe while dedicating the song to a loved one.

With the lyrics, “feeling like a teenager, I guess I really needed ya,” the singer takes herself back in the past as she rekindles her love with her ex-boyfriend Ricky Alvarez. This shows how she really is in a good state right now, and her personal life is reflective of her music.

The album concludes with a heartfelt track nowhere, nobody that exudes a reassuring vibe that she is okay despite what she’s been through for the past years.

As she goes: “So deep breaths, honey, there’s no more running and there’s nowhere, with nobody else that I’d rather be.”

The calming vibe of nowhere, nobody shows how she has come to terms with her relationship to music, and she’s not going anywhere as she pursues this career in the future.

Ariana could have easily given up on life with all the challenges throughout her career, but with “petal,” the singer showed how she was able to process that chapter in that life and what she had learned from it.

“petal” stresses how one’s artistry should not be defined by others but only by oneself, and let it be appreciated by others.