Album Review: Petal
ALBUM – [petal]
ARTIST – [Ariana Grande]
LABEL – [Republic Records/Babydoll Music]
GRADE – [B-]
Following the success of her 2024 album Eternal Sunshine, Ariana Grande delivers an experimental yet familiar sound on her eighth album, petal. The first release under her new imprint, Babydoll Music, Grande attempts to write something vulnerable about toxic romantic relationships and her experience with stardom.
The release of the single “hate that i made you love me,” which charted #1 on Spotify, left fans anticipating an album with a different sound. Unfortunately, the high expectations of the single’s release fell short, as petal tended to retreat into familiar sounds and repetitive lyricism.
I believe the album starts fairly strong with the synth-pop sound in “Kiss Me,” followed by “hate that i made you love me.” The delicate sound of these tracks suits Grande’s high register, which she recently began shifting to since Wicked.
However, I found the subsequent tracks “petal,” “stay,” and “like I do” too similar to tracks like “7 rings” from 2019.
Although Grande described her writing style for this album as coming from a place of “unfiltered rage,” I find some of the lyrics surface-level and cringey, especially in the ninth track, “like i do.”
Yes, this album is experimental, but it is not original, as each song felt like something I had heard before, whether on the current charts or from her older albums.
If someone began to play the album, I wouldn’t tell them to turn it off–but I wouldn’t necessarily tell them to turn it up.
—Hannah Flammenspeck
