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Ariana Grande “Get Well Soon” (Live)

I saw Ariana Grande perform over the summer at the Barclays Center and it was one of the most memorable arena shows I’ve been to in recent years, largely because the energy of the overwhelmingly young and female audience was so overwhelming and purely joyful. I’m very glad that Grande’s new live album documenting this tour does a lot to preserve that aspect of the show, including big sing along moments as well as random girls near the front screaming out particular lines and little moments of Grande responding gamely to her fans’ enthusiasm. Grande is such a gifted R&B vocalist that it’s a given she can sing well, so this live album does some crucial work in conveying a casual charm that goes beyond that technical skill and what aspects of her persona would ordinarily make it through to a studio record.

“Get Well Soon” is one of Grande’s finest songs, and it showcases her exceptional taste in melody, her deft vocal skill, and her genuine warmth and empathy. Her lyrics are directed as advice to herself but easily double as kind, generous words to anyone struggling with serious anxiety and mental health. There’s a lot of songs like this now, and I find many of them to be rather shallow or even full-on opportunistic. But this one is the real deal, and given the circumstances of Grande’s life around the time this was being made, it very much came from a real place of sink-or-swim emotional survival instincts. But these are just the lyrics – the music is carrying a deeper, fuller feeling of love and kindness, and you can hear that resonating with people in real time in this recording. Solidarity with the girl in the front row screaming along to “girl what’s wrong with you, come back down!,” by the way.

Buy it from Amazon.