Maggie Rogers, Ariana Grande and Branding Female Authenticity
January 18th gifted us with new music from Maggie Rogers and Ariana Grande, two female powerhouses who are giving shape to today’s amorphic pop landscape. Grande’s new release came in the form of “7 rings,” an indulgent and icy flex about the importance of friendship and retail therapy, while Rogers put out her long-awaited debut album, Heard It in a Past Life.
Grande’s new track follows a recent bout of extremely personal and vulnerable music. After releasing her album Sweetener, a meditation on anxiety and trauma that was largely a response to the 2017 Manchester bombing at her concert, Grande (whether she was aware of it or not) was removed from her pop pedestal and lowered down to be just like the rest of us.
Her Internet-smashing Sweetener follow-up, “thank u, next,” is a high-road heartbreak anthem, where she fearlessly name drops her exes and declares that her newest relationship is one with herself. “imagine” is a devastatingly human song where the confident and gracious Grande from “thank u, next” allows herself to slip up and fantasize about a life where she’s still with her ex.
Enter “7 rings,” Grande’s trap-heavy song that was written after she bought matching diamond rings for six of her best friends at Tiffany’s, subsequently replacing the engagement ring given to her by ex-fiance Pete Davidson. In song’s beat, lifted from The Sound of Music’s “Favorite Things,” Grande sings menacing lyrics that demonstrate her wealth, from “receipts that look like phone numbers” to recently purchased hair and red bottom shoes. The song arrived with an equally lavish, and neon saturated music video that featured Grande basking in her riches with her best girls in a pink trap house.
Naturally after the song was released, the Internet was...well, the Internet, and came after Grande for the song’s apparent lack of inclusivity to her fans. After previously being lauded for her relatability when it comes to personal struggles and losses, Grande’s fans couldn’t find a way to relate to the seemingly exorbitant spending habits Grande sings of in “7 rings.”
According to Pitchfork, “‘7 rings’ is a sharp, red-bottomed stiletto heel that punctures the fantasy that Grande is just like you.” If only it were that simple. Is there really a difference between Ariana dropping money on expensive shoes, and you dropping your financial equivalent on too many drinks? With “7 rings,” Grande takes a different approach to the emptiness she feels inside, fulfilling herself with material goods and channeling her frustration into an intimidating anthem that can be another way to deal with grief.
“7 rings” and the pushback it received illuminates the ways we seek out a certain authenticity with female artists, praising them when they adhere to our expectations, and criticizing them when they deviate. This is where Maggie Rogers comes in.
Rogers is the viral sensation darling that become an accidental star after footage of a speechless Pharrell listening to her song “Alaska” hit the Internet. Fresh out of college, and capitalizing on her brief spotlight, Rogers released her hurried EP, Now That The Light Is Fading in 2017. Pretty soon, enormous pressures of her rushed ascension to indie stardom caught up with her, and Rogers stepped out of the spotlight.
Heard It in a Past Life marks Rogers’ triumphant return. And our arms are wide open waiting for her. We welcome her struggle, applaud her for only making music she’s wholeheartedly proud of. We want to believe that everything about her is a refreshing change, and for the most part it is. From her makeup-free face to her slow, soft-spoken voice, everything about Maggie Rogers appears to drip in authenticity. The girl literally gave one of the best Saturday Night Live performances of all time without her shoes on.
The album itself is a remarkable reckoning of past and present, set to Rogers’ unique indie folktronica sound. Songs like “Light On” capture the harsh realization Rogers came to when she supposedly had everything she ever wanted, but felt even more unfulfilled than before. With “Back in My Body,” the last word Rogers gets in on the album, she lets us know that she has found herself again. Rogers has been praised for taking the time to craft and refine Heard It in a Past Life, especially at the risk of the world forgetting her as quickly as they discovered her.
But just how much of this “authenticity” have we actually projected on her?
Despite what her nomadic, soul-searching song “Alaska” implies, Rogers did not grow up in a log cabin in the middle of the tundra and then miraculously emerge 20something years later as a viral sensation. She attended boarding school in Delaware and Berklee College of Music for the briefest moment, before landing at the Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music at NYU. While her education no doubt demonstrates her remarkable talent, it also demonstrates a certain level of privilege not afforded to everyone. The privilege of sitting in that Clive Davis classroom and meeting Pharrell gave her career a jumpstart even before she walked across the stage to receive a diploma.
In comparison, Grande began performing before the age of 10, and appeared on Broadway at 15 years old. Still, she was cast as the secondary character on the Nickelodeon television show Victorious, and didn’t even sign with Republic Records until 2011. Even after she signed, Grande sang features with artists like Mac Miller, Zedd, Jessie J and Iggy Azalea because her name wasn’t enough yet to stand on its own.
Ultimately, the two women have more in common than Ari’s impossibly perfect ponytail and Maggie’s windblown tresses would let on. Their music possesses a featherweight production with artfully layered vocals and a kaleidoscope of harmonies. Their lyrics are unabashedly vulnerable, with Rogers exposing her unhappiness to fans at the risk of sounding ungrateful, and Grande’s embrace of her anxiety and loneliness.
Grande and Rogers have even both experienced a career resurgence. Grande ditched her bad girl Dangerous Woman persona and finally found her true voice with Sweetener. While it took Grande four albums to truly blossom, Rogers experienced her renewal even before her first album came out. When it comes to Grande, we’re watching her emotions play out on a sort of livestream, while Rogers’ album is a carefully crafted product of her feelings. The two artists have both lost themselves in different ways and found a way through music to persevere and heal.
Grande and Rogers build their foundations upon the same ethos: being unapologetically themselves. For Grande, that might mean a neck covered in diamonds, and for Rogers, that might mean boots caked in mud. With their music, Grande and Rogers offer us a shameless glimpse into their lives, for better or for worse. Masked in different words and sounds, they both bring us the beauty of the breakdown and the buildup. Listen beyond the lyrics and you’ll find that they’re a lot like each other. Maybe even a lot like you.