Ariana Grande Goes Dark on 'Petal': Album Review
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- Ariana Grande released "Petal," her eighth album and a self-described darker, moodier sister to 2024's "Eternal Sunshine," written and produced entirely by Grande alongside collaborators Ilya Salmanzadeh and Max Martin.
- Grande told fans in a widely circulated interview that she wrote from "unfiltered rage" — a place she said she usually filters — producing blunt lyrics including "No one fucks you like I do," "Good luck on your way to hell," and "I'm not a victim, bitch, I'm practically drowning in my blessings."
- Ilya Salmanzadeh executive-produced the album and contributes to every track, while Max Martin writes only three of its songs — pushing the sound into weirder, more avant-pop territory the reviewer likens to FKA Twigs or the Weeknd, with malfunctioning-computer synth lines and ominous rhythms.
- Lead single "Hate That I Made You Love Me" features a crinkling synthesizer hook over a spare beat, with Grande's lush, multitracked vocals building into a "mellifluous, multisyllabic middle section" that the review highlights as evidence of her melodic growth.
- The closing ballad "Nowhere, Nobody" is the album's "prettiest song" and the one track that echoes the wistfulness of "Eternal Sunshine," deliberately ending on the dangling preposition "with" — and is described as the only song on "Petal" not about vengeance or sex.
- The review calls "Petal" Grande's "most musically and lyrically accomplished album" and "probably the biggest musical departure of her career," eight albums into a discography the reviewer argues continues to surprise.
- "Never Get Over Me" layers an icy funk groove and silky soulful vocal over a distant "psycho siren-like sound" from Kill Bill — the review's note that Beatrix Kiddo's unfiltered rage serves as a thematic mirror to Grande's new lyrical posture.
Why it matters: Eight albums in, "Petal" repositions Grande as a risk-taker willing to trade pristine radio-pop for a darker, more experimental sound and explicit lyrics — a bet that her fanbase will accept music closer to FKA Twigs than the Max Martin hits that built her career.
