‘Petal’ by Ariana Grande
★★
“Does Ariana Grande still love being a pop star?” asked Lindsay Zoladz in The New York Times. On Petal, the 33-year-old showbiz vet trades in her “signature effervescence” and “leans into something grittier, spikier, perhaps even villainous.” Case in point: “Hate That I Made You Love Me,” which seems to be “a barbed song about her own most obsessive fans” and all but heralded Grande’s recent announcement that she intends to soon step back from the spotlight for a time. Petal suggests that Grande’s “light and carefree” public persona has been “a carefully constructed form of armor,” said Aimee Cliff in Pitchfork. The three-time Grammy winner can be brilliant here when she tells it like it is, as on “Stay,” which nearly equals her career high, “Thank U, Next.” More often, though, the album plays like “a tame reimagining” of past work, with “Big Feelings” a “defanged” version of 2016’s “Dangerous Woman” while “Never Get Over Me” suggests 2014’s “Problem,” only “shot with a tranquilizer dart.” Grande is trying to make a statement with songwriting that “lacks urgency and precision.” That only makes her seem more elusive.
‘The Outlaw Cherie Lee & Other Western Tales’ by Shaboozey
★★★
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On his new album, Shaboozey refuses to be merely “the guy who had that one big bar song,” said Jon Dolan in Rolling Stone. In 2024, “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” topped the U.S. singles chart for a record-tying 19 weeks and has garnered 1.75 billion Spotify streams overall. Now, while continuing to infuse the sound of mainstream country with hip-hop, the Virginia-raised artist, 31, has created a concept album about a sheriff’s daughter who, while pursuing vengeance for her father’s death, falls in love with one of his killers. It’s “a romance tucked inside an outlaw epic, right on par for a guy who does well with genre mash-ups.” The 20-track album is certainly a swing for the fences, said Alexis Petridis in The Guardian. There are “ambient and Pink Floyd–y” interstitial tracks that feature plot-advancing narration by Jamie Foxx, Sam Elliott, and Teyana Taylor. “Bullets and Blades” is “a strikingly beautiful ballad” in which Shaboozey croons with “glowering power” while dueting with R&B star Kehlani. And while his vocals are still liveliest when he gives them a hip-hop spin, his “strike rate” is high here even when he’s taking chances.
‘I Can See’ by Nick Hakim
★★★
Nick Hakim’s fourth album is “R&B from a different planet,” said Jem Aswad in Variety. The New York City–based artist continues working in the vein of stoner R&B, a subgenre that Frank Ocean and Dijon also ply. But even by his cohort’s standards, Hakim favors an “unusually hazy” sound in which “vocals and instruments waft in and out of the mix like music from a passing car or sounds from the apartment next door.” That doesn’t mean the music’s not accessible. “Real Here Now” is “one of the most gorgeous R&B songs you’ll hear all year, almost like an Usher song from a parallel universe.” In these “spectral” songs, created with an assist from Dijon and Bon Iver producer Andrew Sarlo, the sound design is “so immaculate it becomes an instrument unto itself,” said Chris DeVille in Stereogum. They at once evoke “holograms and dusty old vinyl,” and because they were written by Hakim just after the end of a long-term relationship, they’re “possessed by a profound mournfulness.” Still, Hakim “breathes soothing grace into these tracks.” They “might render you a puddle, but they’re just as likely to lead you into a transcendent calm.”
