Positions is the sixth studio album by American singer Ariana Grande, released on October 30, 2020, by Republic Records [following Yours Truly, My Everything, Dangerous Woman, Sweetener & Thank U, Next].
The singer worked with a variety of producers on the album, including Tommy Brown, Anthony M. Jones, London on da Track, Murda Beatz, The Rascals, Scott Storch, Shea Taylor and Charles Anderson.
I have every Ariana album and, spoiler alert, think that this is the weakest one that she has released to date.
I wish I'd listened to the tracks on her YouTube channel first, because then I wouldn't have bothered buying the album and would have saved myself some money. It's my own fault really, as I didn't really like the lead single [positions] that much, but I dismissed it as a one off miss and still rushed to download the album anyway...
I've now reached the point where, going forward, her name being on the album cover isn't enough of a selling point for me. It's time to really focus on the lyrical content of each album and decide on each purchase I make from her future output from there. I say that because she keeps replaying the same "I'm female - hear me roar" message over and over again. It's not coming of as empowering and about confidence & equality anymore - in her head, equality/feminism seems to sum up "Girls love sex too. Boys, boys, boys." The theme has become so simplified and repetitive within her output, that it is honestly a bit cringy & boring to listen to now. Seriously - only 2 of the tracks on the entire album aren't centered around relationships/sex. Most of the album just runs together into a jumble of random noise as a result.
Positions isn't the worst album to be put out there as the chilled r&b music is great and I can't deny that Ariana has a fantastic voice, but when I take away the mid-ninties\early noughties Mariah Carey vibe of the style & music, I think that the lyrical content on the album is largely so been-there-done-that, that the lyrics on most of the tracks just scream "time to change the record".
Singles Positions and 34 + 35 [69. Get it? GET IT?!] only stick in my mind because they were singles, so featured on radio and TV music channels, not because the lyrical content is anything that demanded my attention. Both songs are so lyrically "been there and done that"; positions could easily fit onto earlier albums My Everything or Sweetener, and 34 + 35 [very juvenile & cringy track] easily the worst single of her career] could be a Dangerous Woman era leftover. I'm surprised these tracks were given the go-ahead to be singles tbh - nothing new & fresh about them...
Shut Up and Just Like Magic are the only non-boys n relationships tracks on the album, so they are the most noticeable stand-out tracks - although I don't like Shut Up in the slightest, and I would probably just label the ego-licking Just Like Magic as a filler track if it had featured on one of her earlier albums. As for the rest of the tracks on the album; I love the attitude between Ariana and Doja Cat on Motive and her & The Weeknd sound awesome together, so Off The Table is another album stand-out for me. However nothing else on offer here has a lasting impression on me in either a positive or negative way, and I struggle to remember any lyrics five minutes after listening to over half of the tracks on Positions.
In February 2021 Ariana tried to resurrect positions by releasing a deluxe edition of the album; the remix of 34 + 35 is actually the strongest track on the album now - two of Ariana's verses have fortunately been dropped so that Megan Thee Stallion an Doja Cat can each add their own rap to the song and it saves it from the dustbin - the song now has much more strength and punch. Worst Behaviour is very much like Motive in music and style, but like the older track, I like the attitude in Ariana's vocals on it. The other new tracks & interlude? They're just more unimpressive filler, I'm afraid.
Honestly? I think that since Ariana was knocked off the top of those largely pointless 'most streamed' and 'most blah, blah, blah' lìsts in 2020 when Taylor Swift released Folklore, she and her team rushed to slap an album together to try and reclaim the top spot - and if the person who toppled her hadn't had been Taylor Swift, I'm quietly confident that Scooter Braun would have applied the brakes on this project, and Ariana would have taken more time and attention to create more substance to the track list [amusingly to me, Taylor Swift released another album - Evermore - a little over a month after Positions was released, as if to say "NO. This is MY year"]
She clearly hasn't released the album because she has new messages to share, that's for sure.
Positions is the sixth studio album by American singer Ariana Grande, released on October 30, 2020, by Republic Records [following Yours Truly, My Everything, Dangerous Woman, Sweetener & Thank U, Next].
Shut Up and Just Like Magic are the only non-boys n relationships tracks on the album, so they are the most noticeable stand-out tracks - although I don't like Shut Up in the slightest, and I would probably just label the ego-licking Just Like Magic as a filler track if it had featured on one of her earlier albums. As for the rest of the tracks on the album; I love the attitude between Ariana and Doja Cat on Motive and her & The Weeknd sound awesome together, so Off The Table is another album stand-out for me. However nothing else on offer here has a lasting impression on me in either a positive or negative way, and I struggle to remember any lyrics five minutes after listening to over half of the tracks on Positions. 
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