Sweetener (album)

This article is about the album. For its title track, see Sweetener (song).

SweetenerStudio album by Ariana Grande
General information
Artist	Ariana Grande
Release Date	August 17, 2018
Recorded	July 2016 - May 2018
Studio	Various Glenwood Place (Burbank, California) Jungle City and Germano (New York City) Chalice, Conway and East West (Hollywood, California) MXM and The Lunchtable (Los Angeles, California) Midnight Blue and South Beach (Miami, Florida) MXM and Wolf Cousins (Stockholm, Sweden) District 4-12 (Northridge, California)
Genre	Pop, trap, R&B
Length	47:25
Label	Republic Records
Producer(s)	Ariana Grande (exec.), Scooter Braun (exec.), Charles Anderson, Brian Malik Baptiste, Tommy Brown, Michael Foster, Hit-Boy, Ilya, Max Martin, Pharrell Williams; Credits and personnel
Studio albums chronology
Previous	Dangerous Woman
Current	Sweetener
Next	Thank U, Next
Singles from Sweetener
1. "No Tears Left To Cry" Released: April 20, 2018 2. "God Is A Woman" Released: July 13, 2018 3. "Breathin" Released: September 18, 2018

Sweetener is Ariana Grande's fourth studio album. It was released on August 17, 2018, through Republic Records. The album was recorded between July 2016 and May 2018.

The album won the Grammy Award for Best Pop Vocal Album at the 61st ceremony, marking Grande's first career Grammy win.

Background

Following the release of Grande's third studio album, Dangerous Woman on May 20, 2016, which was met with positive reviews, Grande confirmed she began working and writing on the album on her Snapchat and Twitter later that month.

On November 13, 2016, Grande confirmed on Snapchat that she was done with her fourth album. She later clarified by saying, "I didn't mean to make an album, and I don't know if it's done at all, but I just have a bunch of songs that I really really like. I've been working a lot and have been creating and feeling inspired." On January 10, 2017, Grande confirmed again by tweeting that she was done with the album, but later she deleted the tweet.

On March 5, 2017, Grande confirmed during the soundcheck of her Dangerous Woman Tour concert in Toronto that the songs she had previously teased ("Got Her Own", "My Way" and "Sober") won't be on the album. In a Q&A, Grande said that she wanted to have 10 tracks on the album. On March 6, 2017, Grande confirmed during a Q&A that she had been working with Pharrell Williams for several months.

On September 18, 2017, Riccardo Marcuzzo uploaded a photo on his Instagram Stories editing a song for Grande. Scooter Braun told Variety that the album has a more mature sound. Pharrell Williams told LA Times: “The things that [Ariana] has to say on this album, it's pretty next-level.” On December 13, 2017, Grande uploaded a photo and a video on her Instagram Story in the recording studio for the album. On December 31, 2017, Grande shared a snippet from the album on her Instagram, which was later revealed to be a track titled "Get Well Soon". Grande's close friend, Colleen Ballinger, said in a Q&A that she has heard some of the album. Charlie Walk, from Republic Records, also said about the album: "She's making some music that we haven't heard before from her, different types of stuff that I think is gonna be really super important for the 2018 music scene." Grande's brother, Frankie Grande, said: "It's the best thing that ever happened on earth... she's unbelievable... It's unreal".

On March 2, 2018, the album was reported to be complete. It was also revealed that Pharrell Williams and Max Martin each produced half of the album. On April 9, 2018, it was reported that Grande was set to release the lead single from the album on April 27, 2018 and it was revealed that Savan Kotecha worked on the album. On April 16, 2018, it was reported that Grande may move up the lead single release to April 20, 2018, due to labelmate Post Malone's album being released on April 27. On April 17, 2018, Grande announced that the album's lead single, "No Tears Left To Cry", would be released on April 20, 2018.

Piece of paper from the music video for "No Tears Left To Cry" showing the tracks featured in Sweetener.

In its music video, released the same day, one scene showed a piece of paper with the title "Track List" at the top, however, Grande said that the songs weren't in order.

On May 1, 2018, during an appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, Grande revealed the title of the album, Sweetener. She said the meaning behind the title is "kind of about like bringing light to a situation, or to someone's life, or somebody else who brings light to your life, or sweetening the situation." Grande also revealed three songs featured in the album: "God Is A Woman", "Raindrops" and "The Light Is Coming". On May 17, 2018, in an interview with Time magazine, Grande announced a new song, "Get Well Soon", as well as confirming that she took the lead on songwriting for the album and experimented with her sound. On May 21, 2018, Grande posted a snippet on her Instagram story, and revealed that she had added more songs to the album. On May 25, 2018, Grande confirmed that she had added 5 more songs to the album. On May 27, 2018, Grande posted a snippet of "The Light Is Coming", revealing that the song features Nicki Minaj. On May 29, 2018, Grande confirmed that the album would have fifteen tracks, three of which would be collaborations.

On June 2, 2018, Grande announced that the album will be available for pre-order on June 20, 2018, and "The Light Is Coming" will be released with it. On June 17, 2018, Grande revealed that she will be releasing a new song on July 20, 2018. "God Is A Woman" was announced as the album's second single. However, on July 12, 2018, Grande announced that it will be released on July 13, 2018. On July 15, 2018, Grande used the Sweetener Instagram account and began slowly revealing the album track list.

After its release, the album received universal acclaim from music critics and broke the US Spotify record for biggest opening day by a female artist.

Recording

She posted on her Snapchat and tweeted that she was in the studio on May 6, 2016 - June 29, 2016 - July 13, 2016. She wasn’t able to record between May 28, 2016 and early June 2016 due to throat and sinus infection.

On December 13, 2017, old photos of Grande recording surfaced on Twitter. To shut down rumors about them being recent, Grande posted photos of herself working on the album on her Instagram story.

On December 28, 2017, Grande posted four photos and two videos of her in the studio.

On June 7, 2018, Grande revealed that the first song recorded for the album was its title track "Sweetener", in early July 2016. She also revealed that the last song to be recorded was an interlude (later revealed to be titled "Pete Davidson"), in May 2018.

• July 22, 2016
• July 27, 2016
• July 30, 2016
• August 11, 2016
• August 12, 2016
• August 13, 2016
• April 25, 2017
• May 3, 2017
• June 17, 2017
• June 19, 2017
• June 23, 2017
• September 27, 2017
• October 4, 2017
• December 31, 2017
• February 28, 2018
• March 1, 2018

Cover art

Sweetener album cover art teased in a scene from the music video for its lead single, "No Tears Left To Cry".

On May 29, 2018, Grande confirmed that the album cover would be in color and that her eyes would be open.

On June 12, 2018, an Instagram account for Sweetener was created and began slowly revealing the album cover as a countdown to its pre-order, with one segment being posted every 25 hours. However, on June 18, 2018, the cover art was accidentally leaked by iTunes, so the last three segments were all posted on the same day.

Grande said about the cover art: "I showed Aaron a photo and he was sitting opposite me and he said 'I even love it upside down' and that was kind of it for me at the time I had been feeling very 'upside down' for a while and the simplicity of that was like 'oh duh wow my best friend [is] a genius', everything clicked after that".

The album cover art is similar to its lead single's cover art. Ariana Grande's name isn't anywhere on the cover being her first album cover without her name.

Singles

The lead single, "No Tears Left To Cry", was released on April 20, 2018.

The second single, "God Is A Woman", was released on July 13, 2018.

The third and final single, "Breathin", was released on September 18, 2018.

Promotional singles

A promotional single, "The Light Is Coming", featuring Nicki Minaj, was released on June 20, 2018, along with the pre-order of the album.

Promotion

Grande performing at The Sweetener Sessions on August 20, 2018

Main articles: The Sweetener Sessions and Sweetener: The Experience

On August 8, 2018, Grande announced a series of promotional concerts in the United States, titled The Sweetener Sessions, which took place on August 20, 22, and 25 in New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles, respectively. The tour was in partnership with American Express. On August 28, 2018, a London concert was announced in partnership with Capital Up Close, which will take place on September 4, 2018.

An art exhibit hosted by Spotify inspired by the album, called Sweetener: The Experience, was held on September 29 and 30, 2018, in New York. The exhibition featured rooms inspired by each of the songs on Sweetener.

Tour

Main article: Sweetener World Tour

On October 25, 2018, Grande announced the Sweetener/Thank u next World Tour in support of Sweetener as well as her fifth studio album, Thank U, Next. The tour began on March 18, 2019, in Albany, New York, and is set to end on December 22, 2019, in Inglewood, California.

Commercial performance

Sweetener debuted at No. 1 on the US Billboard 200 with 231,000 album-equivalent units, of which 127,000 were pure album sales. This is Grande's third studio album to debut at the top of the chart since her previous Dangerous Woman debuted and peaked at No. 2, while Yours Truly and My Everything both debuted at No. 1 in 2013 and 2014, respectively. 6 tracks of the album debuted on the Billboard Hot 100 in the same week: "Breathin" (No. 22), "Sweetener" (No. 55), "Everytime" (No. 62), "R.E.M" (No. 72), "Goodnight N Go" (No. 87) and "Pete Davidson" (No. 99).

It also debuted at No. 1 on the UK Albums chart, moving 45,000 album-equivalent units. It became her second number-one album in the UK and her fastest-selling album to date. In Australia, the album became Grande's third number one on the ARIA Albums Chart and all 15 of its tracks placing on the ARIA Singles Chart in the same week. In Finland, the album debuted at No. 1 being her first album to reach the top there. The album also reached the top of the charts in several other markets, including Austria, Canada,, Czech Republic, the Netherlands, Denmark, Belgium, Finland, Poland, Ireland, New Zealand, Norway, Scotland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland.

In Germany and Japan, the album debuted at No. 3 and No. 5, respectively.

Trivia

• The first song recorded for the album was "Sweetener".
• The last song recorded for the album was "Pete Davidson".
• All track titles are stylized in lowercase apart from "God Is A Woman", which is stylized in sentence case, and "R.E.M".
• The album cover is Grande's first which isn't in black and white.
• There are 30 unreleased songs that were intended for the album, including "My Way", "Sober", "Got Her Own" and "You".
• Grande's top three favorite songs from the album are "Get Well Soon", "R.E.M" and a tie between "Sweetener" and "God Is A Woman".
  • Grande also added "Blazed" and "Borderline" to her "top three".

Gallery

Official Tracklist

CD Via Insta Story

LP Vinyl

Cassette

At Midnight

1 Day

2 Days

3 Days

Recording

Photoshoot

Sweetener Photoshoot (0).jpg

Sweetener photoshoot4.png

Sweetener photoshoot5.jpg

Sweetener Photoshoot (1).jpg

007 146.jpg

Sweetener photoshoot2.png

Sweetener Photoshoot9.jpg

Sweetener photoshoot3.png

Sweetener photoshoot8.jpeg

Behind the scenes

Sweetener Slumber Party

August 8 - Sweetener Slumber Party (1).jpg

August 8 - Sweetener Slumber Party (2).jpg

Booklet

Videos

Ariana Grande - Sweetener (official Teaser)

Track listing

Standard Edition
No.	Title	Writer(s)	Producer(s)	Length
1.	"Raindrops (An Angel Cried)"	Bob Gaudio	Ilya, Max Martin	0:37
2.	"Blazed" (featuring Pharrell Williams)	Pharrell Williams, Maxine Colon	Williams	3:16
3.	"The Light Is Coming" (featuring Nicki Minaj)	Williams, Onika Maraj, Grande	Williams	3:48
4.	"R.E.M"	Williams	Williams	4:05
5.	"God Is A Woman"	Grande, Salmanzadeh, Martin, Savan Kotecha, Rickard Göransson	Ilya	3:17
6.	"Sweetener"	Williams, Grande	Williams	3:28
7.	"Successful"	Williams	Williams	3:47
8.	"Everytime"	Grande, Salmanzadeh, Kotecha, Martin	Martin, Ilya	2:52
9.	"Breathin"	Grande, Salmanzadeh, Kotecha, Peter Svensson	Ilya	3:18
10.	"No Tears Left To Cry"	Grande, Martin, Salmanzadeh, Kotecha	Martin, Ilya	3:25
11.	"Borderline" (featuring Missy Elliott)	Williams, Melissa Elliott	Williams	2:57
12.	"Better Off"	Tommy Brown, Chauncey Hollis, Brian Malik Baptiste, Kim "Kaydence" Krysiuk, Grande	Hit-Boy, Brown, Baptiste	2:51
13.	"Goodnight N Go"	Brown, Charles Anderson, Michael Foster, Grande, Victoria McCants	Brown, Anderson, Foster	3:09
14.	"Pete Davidson"	Grande, Brown, Anderson, McCants	Brown, Anderson	1:13
15.	"Get Well Soon"	Williams, Grande	Williams	5:22
Total length:				47:25

Japan Special Edition
No.	Title	Length
16.	"No Tears Left To Cry" (Instrumental)	3:25
17.	"God Is A Woman" (Instrumental)	3:17

Japan Deluxe Edition (Bonus DVD)
No.	Title	Length
1.	"No Tears Left To Cry" (Music Video)	3:59
2.	"The Light Is Coming" (featuring Nicki Minaj) (Music Video)	3:53

Cut tracks

• "My Way"
• "Sober"
• "Got Her Own"
• "You"

External links

• Sweetener on Instagram