With its downcast, gossamer tone, the pop star’s eighth album scans as intimate and experimental even as it retreads familiar territory.
Ariana Grande’s much-scrutinized drift into a higher vocal register in recent years, to hear her tell it, is an act of self-preservation. “If I have a long day of press or I have to sing, I’ll place [my voice] a little higher,” she explained on a podcast in 2025. “That is just something that’s healthy for the voice.” As one of the most visible pop stars on the planet, she’s become adept at shielding herself: Take the oversized hoodies she frequently wore on pap walks in 2018, which she described as reflecting her desire to “hide away” as she navigated the overwhelming combined grief of the 2017 terrorist attack on her arena show in Manchester and the death of Mac Miller. Or the way she seemed to continue to perform the peppy, pink-hued role of Glinda off-screen during the back-to-back Wicked press tours in 2024 and 2025. All to say, when it comes to Grande, what seems light and carefree can also be a carefully constructed form of armor.
Never has that been more apparent than on petal, the star’s eighth studio album and her first to release via her own imprint, BabyDoll Music, as a subsidiary of Republic. The record’s grainy black-and-white cover shows her with her hair—usually scraped back in her trademark ponytail, or lately a bun, another kind of disguise—loose and scattered over her laughing face. The photographic promise of the star in an easy, lighthearted mode is borne out by a clutch of songs that drift by for the most part in that dreamy, gossamer-like higher vocal, more of a whisper than her signature belt. Written almost entirely with one collaborator, Swedish producer Ilya Salmanzadeh (with the exception of hitmaker Max Martin, who graces three tracks) the album has an intimate, experimental feel. But with songwriting that often lacks the urgency and precision of her best, Grande herself feels elusive within it.
Petal picks up the thread of 2024’s eternal sunshine, not only in its brushstroke vocals, but in its thematic thread of toxic-relationship songs that act as a Trojan horse for musings on the ultimate toxic relationship of fame. Just as “we can’t be friends” could scan as either a tortured heartbreak anthem or a kiss-off to a parasocial press, petal’s lead single “hate that i made you love me” alludes to shadows on the moon and living as a projection of someone else’s insecurities: Whether that’s the projections of a lover, critics, or someone else entirely is up to us to guess. Like Glinda’s bubble, the song dazzles with its light-refracting synth production, but Grande’s meaning feels slightly at a remove.
She’s slightly more direct on the prowling title track, where she sings about having to sing about her worst experiences to standing ovations. The lyrics tell a vague yet defiant story (“I am not a victim/Bitch, I’m practically drowning in my blessings”), punctuated by quaking percussion and a stomping sub-bass. Likewise, the sultry “like i do” is spiked with anger: “All that shit talk keeps me well-fed,” she sings over a sparse and snarling instrumental. The chorus’ promise that “no one fucks you like I do” might sound like a come-on ripped straight from Positions, but here it lands with more threat than sex appeal, making the life of a pop star sound something like a blood pact.
These rage-fuelled songs are what Grande might have been pointing toward when she described this record as being “a little feral.” But on the whole, rather than a dramatic departure, petal feels fairly constrained and, occasionally, like a tame reimagining of her older work. Downtempo crooner “big feelings” is like a defanged “Dangerous Woman,” with a hook that doesn’t stand up to so much repetition, and an ending that arrives too abruptly. “never get over me,” with its sassy distorted guitar riff and slow-rolling funk, sounds vaguely as though 2014’s “Problem” was shot with a tranquilizer dart.
The strongest moments come when Grande ventures into less familiar territory. The soft shuffle of speed garage provides a sublime counterpoint to her celestial harmonies on “oh well”; jangling, sun-bleached indie-pop brings an Olivia Rodrigo-esque feel to “bad thing (bunny hop).” On “stay,” assisted by Max Martin, she comes closest to the breezy frankness of her career high, “thank u, next,” with petal’s most full-chested vocal performance and bare-hearted lyrics. Front and center over a lush bed of keys and a driving rhythm, Grande sings, “I just wanna stay this time/Really, I should stay this time.” By the second chorus, she sneaks in an aching follow-up question—“But can you keep me safe this time?”—encapsulating the fearful courage it takes to throw yourself into a new relationship when you’ve been hurt before. It’s testament to how brilliant Grande can be when she pulls back the veil of metaphors and tells it how it is.
