Ariana Grande’s third studio disc completes a transformation from Nickelodeon star to temptress, but does the music hold up?

by matt Scanlon

Nickelodeon has long known to be something of an incubator, its casting directors well known for having canny eyes for kids likely to mature into bigger stars as they get crest into young adulthood. The results are an impressive roster of such evolutions, including Kenan Thompson, Soleil Moon Frye, Miranda Cosgrove, Christine Taylor, and Amanda Bynes. Without question, however, the biggest name in post-Nickelodeon success is Ariana Grande, who, after getting her break in the series Victorious (2010 to 2013) in which she played a student attending a performing arts high school, has launched a strikingly successful solo recording career. Just two studio albums in (Music from Victorious in 2011 and My Everything in 2014), she has racked up stunning sales for a 22-year-old relative newcomer, including the latter album moving 169,000 copies in its first week, and debuting at number one in Australia and Canada. A single off the same disc, “Problem,” featuring Australian rapper Iggy Azalea, sold no fewer than 400,000 downloads. Grammy nominated for Best Pop Vocal Album, My Everything has sold to date some 700,000 copies.

Questions surrounding Grande’s third album didn’t just embrace the realm of musical evolution. The ongoing challenge for such growing performers (literally and figuratively) is in part how they address the issue of their newly sexual selves, both in life and art, and the risk they run of losing teen fans if they overplay that hand too soon. Released on May 20, Dangerous Woman is about as un-Nickelodeon an effort as can be imagined, and its eponymous title track—a sinuous, strutting ode to testing boundaries and taking risks—was marketed in part via a music video in which the Boca Raton native struts in psudeo stripper gear on a set that looks look like a very slightly glorified peep show booth.

So much for evolutionary subtlety.

Which isn’t to say the track is not good, or its associated disc. The follow-up single, “Into You,” even as it breaks from its terrific and melodic opening to embrace a sadly predictable electro dance club beat—is winning enough, and “LetMe Love You”’s collaboration with Lil Wayne is grabby and sultry. It’s when the disc courses into the contemplative, however, that things get interesting, as in “Leave Me Lonely,” featuring Macy Gray. Seemingly beamed straight from the spirit of the late Nina Simone, the languid track is arresting, showcases Grande’s considerable vocal chops, and makes all the hormonal strutting elsewhere seem unnecessary at best.