Welcome to the New York Times Popcast, your I ain't never seen too pretty podcast, it's always one of them,

that's not your number one source of music news and criticism. I am your host John Cara Monica. Don't read beat history.

Boy, I'm trying to meet your mama on Sunday

to make a lot of love on Monday

I never need no huh. It is election week slash month in America. We are.

No one else, babe.

Because I'll be switching new positions for you.

It is election week slash month in America. We are deep into the coronavirus pandemic. We are deep into some quasi quar,

which is to say that even though things out in the world are in turmoil and not totally back to the normal level of absurdity of the American experiment, certain things are healing and certain people are returning to the fore after a little bit of time locked in along with the rest of us,

Ariana Grande is back with her sixth album.

It's called Positions.

The thing about this Ariana record that I like a lot is it feels very much off the cuff but also really playing to her vocal strengths. Ariana in my mind is probably the best

pure singer of any contemporary mainstream pop star for sure, but her references

are just much more interesting and she plays with rhythm and cadence and

texture and she is a powerful singer but also like a light-hearted songwriter. and I think all of those things really come together very well on this record.

I didn't get to write about this record. I have not been writing much lately because of some things happening out in the world, but I'm excited to talk about it.

So we're gonna have two conversations about Ariana today.

One, Lindsay Zollett's who did write about it for the paper is gonna call in and

we're gonna chat about this record and Ariana's role in

pop and beyond.

And then later, Shad Desusa is going to call in.

Shad wrote about this record for the Fader

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