Ariana Grande, aka the Human Cupcake, is quite firmly America’s Popstar at the moment. But sometimes – especially with her latest singles – it’s been hard to tell whether she wants to be Disney-dream-girl or radio hit-chaser. If you thought of her as either, you’ll probably be pleasantly surprised by Sweetener. With a huge helping hand from Pharrell Williams, she’s crafted a sugary-sweet, constantly-exciting album that makes her sound like some sort of new-age Aaliyah.

Pop albums are notorious for their paint-by-numbers approach. Each track often tries to tick off another emotional box so that each listener has their own ‘favourite’ – the ‘breakup’ song, the ‘banger’, the ‘I’m better off without you’ song. A feeling for every ear. Sweetener is refreshing for how unapologetically positive it is in its outlook. Grande has a don’t-look-back approach – any negative energy is left behind or brushed away quickly. It opens with the 40 second ‘Raindrops [An Angel Cried]’ – ostensibly an ode to her breakup with Mac Miller (he’s not doing as well) – but from then on there’s hardly a pause for a tear.

Far and away, the best decision Grande makes on this album is bringing Pharrell Williams into her circle. Williams produces around half the tracks here and he’s involved in almost all the best moments on Sweetener. His rolling, fast-tempo, drum-heavy approach is a great foil for Grande because it doesn’t let her slow down and enter ballad-mode. Instead, she has to roll with the beat and be more malleable in the process. It turns out when she’s directed away from simply blowing songs out of the water with sheer power she’s a different animal altogether.

That leads to some incessantly catchy tunes on this LP when she joins forces with Skateboard P. An early harbinger of things to come arrives in the form of ‘Blazed’, an upbeat, tropical number that has Grande silkily gliding all over the beat. “The Light is Coming” features a cascading synth breakdown and Grande fares much better over it than Nicki Minaj, who mails in a verse that sounds like it was left on the cutting room floor from the Queen sessions. “Borderline” is a vintage mushy synth/drum Pharrell milieu, and the final product almost sounds like a dance-ier song by The Internet.

But their best combination finds them meeting halfway. The title track, “Sweetener”, is more ambitious than any of their other collaborations. The track opens with a sole piano and Grande belting out a syrupy refrain (“then you come through like the sweetener you are/to bring the bitter taste to a halt”) before exploding into a thumping, sparkling drum pattern. Grande is at her best here too. She keeps the post-chorus (“hit it, hit it, hit it, hit it”) both light and slightly cheeky by delivering the lines without stretching them out in her usual Disney style. It caps off with wind-blocks knocking through the back-half of the track perfectly off-beat in a way Pharrell knows all too well. The most surprising part of Sweetener is that all this works so well – Grande is getting smaller in her sound and its a welcome switch-up.

She falls on diminishing returns when she goes to other producers who encourage more bellowing and have her falling back on insensitive candy pop. The singles that came out of Sweetener, “No Tears Left To Cry” and “God Is A Woman”, are perfectly fine radio filler produced by the likes of the ubiquitous Max Martin and Ilya, but they feel one-note compared to the rest of this album. Grande isn’t a special writer, so when the beats deliberately stagnate and leave her belting out notes, her vocal prowess is the only part that you can really appreciate. Ditto “Goodnight N Go”, which chases the EDM wave with a dropping chorus. The one exception is “Everytime”, produced by Martin and Ilya with a watery, grandiose chorus made for the radio. It’s saved by Grande’s writing on the hook and her sensual singing (“you get high and call on the regular/I get weak and fall like a teenager/why, oh why does God keep bringing me… back to you”) making her sound like a 90s R&B radio mainstay.

Sweetener is ultimately a pleasant surprise from an artist we thought we knew too well. In the wake of her highly-publicised engagement to Pete Davidson, many would have expected thirteen insufferable love ballads from the Queen of them. She could have easily done that. Oddly enough, she did create that uber-positive album. It just happens to be extremely catchy, propulsive pop music as well. Note for the future: stick close to Pharrell.

8.1