The joys of intentionally bad singing

Produced by ElevenLabs and News Over Audio (NOA) using AI narration.

Ariana Grande is, above all, a good singer; She has a four-octave range, which she uses for R&B ballads, pop ballads and musical theater hits. But her time as a presenter Saturday Night Live Last night he also proved that Grande is good at being a bad Singer. In one of the first skits of the episode, she played a bridesmaid performing a parody of Sabrina Carpenter's “Espresso.” The overarching joke was that Grande and her fellow wedding party members sang in song about their bachelorette party, where the bride (played by Chloe Fineman) met a man who wasn't her fiancé. But the most amusing part of the sketch was Grande intentionally singing off-key, demonstrating the atonality of an amateur with her flat tones and lackluster delivery.

In her opening monologue, Grande immediately lied. “I'll take it easy tonight, I promise,” she said, before singing, “I won't do that.” siiiiingand hit a high tone. The extent of her apparent use of irony should not be overstated; Grande sang non-stop throughout the night. But she never sounded the same, evidence that her acclaimed voice is not just a musical instrument but also a comedy instrument, one that she can modulate for laughs – a quality that puts her in the company of some of them SNL's greatest actors.

Her monologue singing was the closest thing to the Grande we've come to expect – the gentle and clear tone she expresses on her albums, including this year's Eternal sunshine. During the opening, she also performed musical impressions from Britney Spears, Miley Cyrus and Gwen Stefani – a talent she demonstrated last time as host SNLin 2016. She used this mimicry later that night with an apt Céline Dion, lovingly poking fun at Dion's strange Sunday Night Football promo. Instead, Grande's Dion was promoting the Ultimate Fighting Championship, and the humor came from the way she applied the singer's confident French-Canadian enthusiasm to the ultra-violent world of mixed martial arts.

Mimicry was just one aspect of how Grande manipulated her voice throughout the episode. In My Best Friend's House, she played a girl with ponytails who initially sang a fairly innocuous tune about how much she loved the smell of her best friend's house. When her friend's father was revealed to be a serial killer, fear crept into her tone as she took stock of all the signs she'd missed, including a frozen head in the fridge and a shaker full of teeth, and Grande took advantage of the flawless one quality of her voice to add to the bizarreness of the situation.

She later showcased her upper register in “Castrati,” a sketch set in Renaissance Italy in which she portrayed a castrato named Antonio. Castrati were among a group of men who had been castrated so they could retain their high-pitched voices, and every time Grande opened her mouth she made a beautiful but frightening sound. Meanwhile, Antonio's parents, played by former cast members Maya Rudolph and Andy Samberg, explained the benefits of the castration process to a skeptical prince – as evidenced by Antonio's angelic voice.

Read: What does Ariana Grande do?

It was fitting that this sketch was created with Rudolph and Samberg, two artists who made their appearance SNL Highlight with musical moments that found humor not only in the punchlines but also in the vocal performance. As a member of Lonely Island, the musical trio that made him famous, Samberg emphasized how humor can come from emphasizing the right words. In last week's episode, the Lonely Island returned with “Sushi Glory Hole,” its first new track SNL video in six years, and one of the funniest lines was Samberg's understated and dissatisfied repetition of the phrase Listen to us.

In the meantime, viewers only need to rewatch Rudolph's classic 2006 “National Anthem” sketch to see how her voice is a tool. At that time she played a local competition winner who got to sing the national anthem at the World Series. Their take was full of offbeat riffs and strange pronunciation; Rudolph clearly has her own way, but she's turned every lyric into comedic fare, turning the song into a deconstruction of what a bad singer thinks is good singing.

Both comedians are also aware of how their voices can enhance humor even when they're not singing. Take Rudolph's impression of Kamala Harris, which is based not only on the physical resemblance between the two, but also on Rudolph's ability to see the nuances in the presidential candidate's rhythm. In Samberg's case, he almost always sounds like Andy Samberg, but he uses the innate silliness of his cadence for comedic purposes.

This brings us back to Grande, who clearly understands the intricacies of her voice. At the beginning of the year she appeared on the Pod crushed podcast and appeared to change her speaking voice during the interview. In a TikTok comment, she explained how she intentionally shifts her register to keep her vocal cords healthy, adding that it “often depends on how much she sings.” That consideration was evident last night. Every time Grande opened her mouth, a carefully crafted sound rang out. Most of the time it was beautiful, but she understood that sometimes the sketch was funnier when she sang terribly.