Grande’s sweetest album?

It’s finally here! Ariana Grande’s fourth studio album, Sweetener, released Aug. 17, was well worth the wait. Grande has developed a newer sound since her last album, 2016’s Dangerous Woman. This album has the same “pop” tone as most of her music, but she has definitely matured.

For one, Grande is using a lot more explicit language in her music, with 14 of the 15 songs on Sweetener labeled “explicit.” There are only five explicit songs on her last three albums combined.

Grande uses a lot more sexual words on Sweetener, most of which hint at her fiancée Pete Davidson, who evidently played a major role in the making of the album. This may make it harder for the younger audience to listen to the album, but she did say in an interview with MTV that she likes talking about sexual things in her songs and she has sort of hidden that in her music before.

Probably the biggest and most controversial song on the album is “God is a Woman,” a pop tune with a bigger meaning. While the song is one of those explicit tracks mentioned above, Grande uses the sexual song to empower women, making the argument that God is actually a woman. The song has a great message and is so much fun to listen to.

Grande also uses the album to talk about more personal things relating to her life. One of the biggest hits of the album, “No Tears Left to Cry,” talks about the bombing at her concert in Manchester, England, last year and how she’s moving on from the tragedy.

In the same MTV interview, Grande revealed the title Sweetener is about how she’s trying to sweeten up her life after all these bad things and how it “feels so good to be so young and have this fun and be successful” — lyrics from song “Successful.”

Sweetener is definitely a very different listening experience, given Grande’s new style of music, but she still has a very good sound and a beautiful voice. The album has a good variation of pop music and slower ballad type songs, and Grande and her crew did an amazing job.