Going into listening to Ariana Grande’s new album, “Sweetener,”  my head was already buzzing with other people’s comments about how much they loved it.z I had only heard “God is a woman” and “no tears left to cry,” both songs that I had really enjoyed and thought sounded amazing vocally. I was excited to see what this new album had to offer.

“Sweetener” is  a great album that really shows Grande’s maturity. I really loved listening to it and certain songs have been on repeat since the first time I heard them. The album has some really interesting beats, fresh sounds and like always, Grande’s vocals sounded amazing. In fact, her song “breathin” made me cry.

For my first listen,  I decided to listen to the album in order. The first song, “raindrops (an angel cried)” was so powerful and haunting that it gave me actual goosebumps. The next song, “blazed,” featuring Pharell was groovy, fresh and it made me want to get up and dance.

However then, “the light is coming” featuring Nicki Minaj came on and I was underwhelmed. The song was still good and it certainly had a different sound to it but it was lacking in comparison to the first couple of songs I had heard.

This was a pattern that I noticed in the album. There were some incredibly strong songs that swept me away like “get well soon,” “better off” and “sweetener.” The originality and strength of those songs made songs like “goodnight n go” and “everytime” just sounded a bit blander and more unoriginal. However, listening to it again, some of the songs did grow on me and now “everytime” is now  the song that I listen to the most.

This is a good thing because it shows how powerful her songs truly are. It is incredibly difficult and rare to create an album of 15 songs that are all divine. And perhaps, it was only because of the hype of friends and social media that I felt certain songs were lacking.

Overall, the album was pretty stellar. It was full of such emotion and power, embracing themes of love, happiness and acceptance that echoed in every song. The album also had a candorness to it that felt raw and real.

Before listening to the album, I was expecting it to be dedicated to Manchester so I assumed it would be a dark and heavy album, but Sweetener is the opposite. Instead, it is full of love and honesty, making the album so much more powerful than I expected. With songs like “get well soon” that deal with overcoming the difficulties in life, it makes a strong response to the tragedies that happened in Manchester.

Along with strength, Grande brought so much love into the album, even titling a song “Pete Davidson,” after her fiance. However instead of having the same, basic pop love songs, Grande brought fresh ideas to the table and truly let us into her heart.

As I mentioned before, this album showed her maturity so well. Listening to this album, I would have never thought that some of the songs were Ariana Grande’s. This album was mature in sound, lyrics and personality as well. It shows her growth and transformation and there truly isn’t an album like this. Bursting with creativity, Sweetener allows us a powerful glance into the mind of Ariana Grande.