It's hard to get a bead on Ariana Grande. Is she a moderately more mysterious Taylor Swift? A child star all grown up in the Selena Gomez vein? Lady Gaga minus the pasted-on pretension? She is possibly all the above - and a whole lot more besides. The twenty-two year old Floridian is indeed a graduate of the university of teen stardom, having picked up many of her 38 million Twitter followers via her starring role on Nickelodeon teen-drama Victorious. As with Swift, she presents a slightly unnerving but nonetheless impressive mix of squeaky clean and imperiously ambitious, while there's something distinctly Gaga-esque about the sexualised bunny-outfit sported with impressive results on the cover of her third album.
For a mass-market entertainer, such a reluctance to neatly slot into a pigeonhole, might in certain circumstances, be considered a disadvantage. Yet Grande puts her inscrutability to good use on the curiously titled Dangerous Woman as she hooks up with Britney Spears songwriter Max Martin, and shares the mic variously with Lil Wayne, Macy Gray and Nicki Minaj, on a record that seeks to position her as American pop's latest sweetheart. Because we don't really have a clear idea as to what Grande stands for, she inhabits personas easily, flitting from Spector-esque swoon-rock ('Moonlight') to pell-mell tropical house ('Be Alright') via the retro slow jam of the Martin-authored title track. You might feel at times that the entire affair has been machine tooled to death. The truth, however, is that Grande remains alluringly unknowable throughout. She remains a fascinating enigma concealed in plain view. And she may just be ready to take over the world. Taylor, look out. A Dangerous Woman is aiming to snatch your crown.
Rating: 7/10