There's no doubt Ariana Grande has a good set of pipes - there's not too many 20-year-olds who could confidently deliver flawless Whitney Houston covers with the President and First Lady sitting within reach. And she showed she's perfectly competent when it comes to delivering the sort of awards show performances that cameras love at the MTV VMAs on Monday.
But it's often a tricky move to go from tween TV darling (Grande was a Nickelodeon star) to bona fide pop star, and her second album My Everything very much feels like an album made by a committee who are wary of the Miley pathway.
They're not quite sure how to make her seem edgy and cool without losing her shiny, clean image of petite perfection, so they've gathered a grab-bag of feature artists (Iggy Azalea, Big Sean, Cashmere Cat, Zedd, Childish Gambino, The Weeknd, A$AP Ferg, Nicki Minaj, Jessie J) and sprinkled them liberally across a bland concoction of slick, hit-making, formulaic, pop.
Her vocal performance can't be faulted - you get the feeling Grande could deliver a song in almost any genre and do it well - but there's no sense of her personality here. The songs float by in a haze of reverb, echoes, sweet vocal acrobatics, and reasonable beats, but in between the Macklemore-esque dirty sax on early single Problem, and the shimmy shake of Bang Bang there's little to hang your ears on. It seems Grande is trying on a bunch of ideas and hasn't decided who she'll be yet.
