Ariana Grande and her new album "Positions": Sexual Healing

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Singer Grande: Attractive, explicit positioning

Photo: Valerie Macon / AFP

Huh, now it's getting political!

At least that's what that's thought when the single "Positions" was released a week ago, the harbinger and title track of Ariana Grande's new album.

In the video for the groovy R&B pop number, the 27-year-old Italian American from Florida can be seen as US President and stylizes herself as a kind of Jackie Kennedy granddaughter who has her meetings and meetings just as well under control as her kitchen - and you Bedroom.

A feminist statement?

Only on the surface.

If you listen more closely to the text of "Positions", then it is less about political and more about sexual positions - with Olympic claims even.

Ariana Grande, who has been with her new boyfriend Dalton Gomez since spring, apparently spent the summer months' Corona lockdown mainly in bed.

Her new, sixth album, is unabashedly erotic and full of puns that only ever paraphrase one thing: sex.

You grant her the pleasure, the joie de vivre and the time out.

Grande, who grew to become a youth idol and soul star as a sensual and sweet voice wonder from 2013, has three hellish years behind her.

In May 2017, a suicide bomber blew himself up in the foyer of the Manchester arena where she was giving her sold out concert.

23 people were killed, the singer suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder.

Barely a year and a half later, her ex-boyfriend, rapper Mac Miller, died of a drug overdose, the two of whom had separated only a few weeks earlier.

Grande processed these demons on her two albums "Sweetener" and "Thank You, Next", on which she was more sober, adult and more vulnerable than before.

Grande drew a lot of strength from the show of strength to face grief and suffering, to work artistically on it instead of looking the other way and suppressing it.

"All these demons helped me see shit differently", she sings in the opening track "Shut Up", which immediately makes it clear that she finds pity unattractive: "Don't be sad for me".

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Pop star Grande: Spent the corona lockdown in the US with her new boyfriend

Photo: Dave Meyers / Universal Music

This unapologetic attitude is now revealed in the great musical clarity of "Positions" - and the casual impudence to just sing about fucking.

Sex can heal emotional wounds, as soul god Marvin Gaye already knew, who had one of his greatest successes in the eighties with the lewd "Sexual Healing".

Janet Jackson's sensual album "Janet" from 1993 is the musical and vocal godfather of Grande.

But Ariana Grande no longer has to hide behind role models.

As with the previous album, she co-wrote all 14 songs - and apparently had a lot of fun encoding overly explicit things with funny metaphors so that her teenage fans can still listen without blushing (maybe she had her parents in the Look).

Well, in some places she is as direct as it gets: "Can you stay all night, fuck me til the daylight", she whistles in "34 + 35".

The sum of these two numbers is of course 69, which would also make it clear which position she would like for the sex marathon that night.

"Six Thirty" is the name of another ballad, light as a sheet, with a lot of sweet satin soul, in which Grande asks casually: "Are you down, what's up?", As if it were a harmless evening at the Playstation.

The position of the clock at 6:30 a.m. already points exactly in the direction where on your body your lover should go to work with his, uh, controller.

The Netflix and chill version of the juicy summer hit "WAP", if you will.

"My Hair", the main and best song on the album, is about the fact that you can pull on her trademark fake ponytail while fondling, that's what it's there for.

And in "POV" she uses a term from the porn repertoire with increasing vocal excitement to imagine how she might see her partner during sex.

So it goes on maximally kinky - in a relaxed flow, which sometimes treats itself to a few Hollywood strings, sometimes a faster beat and a few finger snaps, but mostly stays in a cozy, provocative mid-tempo.

Only rarely is it about romantic love, in the beautiful duet "Off The Table" with the no less lustful The Weeknd, for example, when Grande sings: "Not quite yet healed or ready, shouldn't be going too steady" - and with it signals that an overly stable relationship is currently not on the negotiating table.

Fair enough.

Ariana Grande is just enough for herself. She enjoys her position as a crisis-ridden, successful exceptional artist in pop: "Just like magic / I'm attractive / I get everything I want cuz I attract it", she sings at one point on her irresistible album.

An impressive, self-confident determination of position.

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