🎛️ Ariana Grande featuring Pharrell Williams - Blazed (Random J Mix)

Sweetener was a good album, but a flawed one. And the more I listen to it, the more apparent the flaws are. When I listen to certain songs, all I can hear is what should have been there, as opposed to what is.

One of the biggest issues I had with Sweetener was that pretty much all of the songs on it (particularly the Pharrell Williams productions) sounded like they were missing chunks of music, bridge sections and cleaner structures. This lack of attention to detail on the Williams cuts left songs in a state of being just good when they could have been amazing. Yes. Even “The Light Is Coming” coulda been great.

The main culprit was the album's first true track “Blazed”. Why this song came after “Raindrops (An Angel Cried)” instead of “No Tears Left to Cry” is beyond me. But to open an album with a song that sounds so clearly incomplete was most certainly a choice. And I do not get why sections of the song are so sparse and void of instrumentation when they clearly needed it. Something need to be done about “Blazed” to make it feel a little fuller. So, I just-

I like “Blazed”. But it had no reason being on Sweetener. No matter how you try and sequence it in the album, it just doesn’t fit. But it’s still a good song. And an even better one now.

📅 Mix made in 2019