Tuesday, September 24, 2013

Albums : Ariana Grande : Yours Truly

Albums : Ariana Grande : Yours Truly

Listen To Ariana Grande : Yours Truly

Pop singer and Nickelodeon TV star Ariana Grande stormed to the top of the Billboard 200 album chart on Wednesday with her debut "Yours Truly," staving off new entries from Tamar Braxton, Nine Inch Nails and John Legend.

"Yours Truly" sold 138,000 copies in its first week, according to figures from Nielsen SoundScan. It was helped by Grande's catchy lead single, "Love the Way," with rapper Mac Miller, which has been a staple on the radio this summer.

The strong chart debut for Grande, 20, tops a busy summer for the singer-actress, who has burst out of her Nickelodeon spotlight to capture audience attention with her vast vocal range, earning comparisons to singers such as Mariah Carey.

Billboard said Grande is the first female artist to top the chart with a debut album since Ke$ha's "Animal" in 2010.

R&B singer and reality TV star Braxton's "Love and War," her first album since 2000's "Tamar," landed at No. 2 this week with sales of 115,000 copies.

Rockers Nine Inch Nails entered the chart at No. 3 with their eighth studio album, "Hesitation Marks," while R&B crooner John Legend's "Love in the Future" notched No. 4 this week.

Fellow R&B singer Jaheim rounded out the new debuts in the top 10 of the Billboard 200 this week with his latest set, "Appreciation Day," at No. 6.

On Billboard's digital songs chart, which measures downloads of singles, Katy Perry's "Roar" continued its reign at No. 1 for the fourth week with 373,000 downloads.

New Zealand singer Lorde jumped from No. 6 to No. 2 with "Royals," while Swedish electronic dance music DJ Avicii's "Wake Me Up!" rounded out the top three digital songs.

Overall album sales for the week ending September 8 clocked in at 5.1 million units, a 6 percent increase from the comparative week in 2012, according to Billboard.

Yours Truly Review
Nobody expected Ariana Grande to make one of the best pop records of the year. (At least, I certainly didn’t.) The pint-sized songbird with the Nickelodeon pedigree had a few solid songs and it was clear that she could sing, but it wasn’t until “The Way” that everyone realized she could sang: With the vocals of a young Mariah Carey, a whistle register and melismas for days, her instrument turned out to be one of the best-kept secrets in the industry.

Some of Grande’s debut LP Yours Truly, out today September 3 on Republic Records, feels a little tepid; Harmony Samuels, who helmed much of the record, is generally hit-and-miss, so when he gets it right, it’s soulful and dynamic, but all that throwback flavor can get snoozy at a certain point. That said, when it’s good, it’s so good.

Consider the retro-soul flavor of “Honeymoon Avenue,” which works gorgeously, with those scatting harmonies and a chorus that gleams. Conceptually, it stands up (“My heart is stuck in bumper to bumper” is so goofy it works), and her voice sounds simply sensational. “Baby I” is just hooks on hooks on hooks, with those Britney Spears-circa-”Oops!” choirs of affirmations. She’s treading a fine and occasionally disconcerting line between chastity and sexuality; the porny album cover was wisely ditched in favor of a more elegant one, but she never steps into anything too provocative. The come-hithers on “Right There” and “Lovin’ It” are tantalizing, not explicit, and they benefit from it.

Yours Truly runs surprisingly slender on ballads, given how her range lends itself to huge heartbreakers, but “Tattooed Heart” is masterful, borrowing ’60s girl group production that’s just spare enough to let her voice shine. Those pained notes she hits in the chorus feel well beyond her years; it’s an absolute powerhouse.

But the album suffers from the same thing that plagues Justin Bieber‘s records — an overabundance of distracting, gratuitous features. It’s one thing to slap a bunch of appearances on a pop record to give it an ostensibly urban edge, but these songs would stand up just fine on their own; there’s no added value in several of the guest spots, especially Big Sean‘s dreary spot on “Right There” and Nathan Sykes‘ thoroughly no1curr vocal on “Almost Is Never Enough.” Most egregious of all is the uncredited LMFAO-style shouting on the chorus of “Better Left Unsaid,” the best song from her recent live set (where’d those big tribal drums in the pre-chorus go?) and the only serious disappointment on the album itself.

It’s tempting to fault her manager Scooter Braun for that: If anything, his clients are increasingly guilty of appearing too on-the-nose; with recent offerings from Carly Rae Jepsen or The Wanted, there was none of the rough-around-the-edges surprise of a song like Icona Pop‘s “I Love It” or Robin Thicke‘s “Blurred Lines,” two of the other songs to unexpectedly storm the charts this year. In fact, the freshest thing on Yours Truly is still “The Way,” not because of how it sounds but because it exists at all, this lost ’90s radio gem that appeared seemingly out of nowhere, all weirdly self-possessed and in its own sonic universe.

Her album delivers on her promise, and it’s liable to make her a star; that will be a good thing. Radio needs Ariana Grande, and if this is a strong debut, the sophomore set is likelier to be even more dazzling.


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