Dear /mu/,
I know that Ariana Grande has become popular here after pitchfork gave her a positive review, but I've seen a lot of people make a glaring but easily avoidable mistake when discussing this album.
You see, when you make a statement like "I really enjoy Ariana Grande's music," what you mean to say is "I really enjoy the music that the marketing team at Universal music put together"
What you're listening to is not actually Ariana Grande's album, but an album that was written and performed by several people employed by the record company. Oddly, their names don't appear on the cover and their picture is no where to be found in the inlay.
Ariana Grande's contribution to the album is supplying passable vocals that are likely heavily manipulated in studio and being skinny and attractive enough (by mainstream media standards, that is) to produce a nice, highly sexuallized and heavily airbrushed cover.
The music that you're listening to is not an artistic expression of Ariana Grande, in fact, it's not even an expression of the people who actually wrote the music. They are hired by record companies to write and compose songs for many different artists. The only two prerequisites is that they are in line with what is trendy and they can help further whatever image the record company decided to give the artist. It's all marketing.
And don't be fooled, it's been marketed towards you as well. You are not a special, open minded snowflake. You are a cog in the corporate, manufactured machine, and pitchfork is holding your hand the entire way.
I'm not saying it's not okay to enjoy this music, or that it's objectively bad, I just think you ought to be honest about what you're actually listening to, and it's not Ariana Grande.