"Problem" by Ariana Grande ft. Iggy Azalea and Big Sean, Thursday, August 11, 2022
The first single from Ariana Grande's second record, My Everything, in 2014, "Problem" established Grande as a pop power force. Grande certainly has talent. While appearing in the Nickelodeon teen show Victorious, Grande uploaded covers to her YouTube channel, which landed her a deal with Republic Records in 2011. Her debut record, Yours Truly, was released in 2013 and featured a few modest-charting hits. Listeners could feel a similarity with Mariah Carey from Yours Truly, and for some reason, Republic Records went bigger with Grande's follow up, My Everything, the next year.
EVEN THOUGH I HATE YA, I WANNA LOVE YA. Rock bands typically have one producer for an entire record. The goal is to produce a cohesive record that is to be enjoyed in one play. Pop records used to be produced like this, and sometimes indie and major pop albums still are. But in order to get a hit, record labels often turn to multiple hitmakers to diversify a pop record. Ariana Grande's second record My Everything is a prime example of a record label throwing everything at it an album to produce a hit. Working with everyone from Ryan Tedder to Zedd to David Guetta to today's song's producers the power team of Max Martin, Shellback, and ILYA. Grande's lyrics on "Problem" are minimal but memorable with Australian rapper and the featured artist of the day to have on a track, Iggy Azalea, does a lot of the heavy lifting for the song. The Swedish production team then adds Big Sean's whispers as an effect in a kind of Timbaland production technique.
I KNOW I SHOULD NEVER CALL BACK. Republic Records investment in the 5'3" Boca Raton native certainly paid off. Although the singer wouldn't score a #1 Billboard Hot 100 hit until 2018's hit "thank u, next," Grande became a consistent hit maker. Listeners might pick up that today's song, "Problem" the second in Grande's Hot 100 canon, plays by the Max Martin rule book. The podcasters from Switched on Pop tried to map out some of the Max Martin principles in a 2021 episode of the series titled "Searching for Max Martin." Multiple hooks (from a funky saxophone to Ariana's soaring vocals on the bridge to Big Sean's whispering, genre changing), "Don't bore us, get to the chorus," a repetitive, memorable chorus, and use of "Blank Space" as an anti-hook hook seem to apply in this case. The mid '10s seemed to spark a revival for the saxophone. Later that year, Grande would release her collaborative hit with Nicki Minaj and Jessie J, "Bang, Bang," also co-staring the saxophone. South Korean girl group EXID would release their biggest hit later that summer "Up & Down" (위 아래) and the next year's hit "Ah Yeah," featuring gratuitous sax. And of course we’re not forgetting M83’s 2011 hit “Midnight City” or how Carly Rae Jepsen took us emotionally back to the ‘80s with the sax on her 2015 record Emotion. A Max Martin track is all about giving listeners exactly what they want. And in 2014, sax sells!
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