The Pleasures of Intentionally Bad Singing

Ariana Grande is, notably, a good singer; she has a four-octave range that she uses for R&B ballads, pop bangers, and musical-theater showstoppers. But her stint hosting Saturday Night Live last night also proved that Grande is good at being a bad singer. In one of the episode’s first sketches, she played a bridesmaid performing a parody of Sabrina Carpenter’s “Espresso.” The overarching joke was that Grande and her fellow members of the wedding party were recounting, via song, their bachelorette trip, during which the bride (played by Chloe Fineman) hooked up with a man who was not her fiancé. But the most amusing part of the sketch was Grande singing purposely off-key, demonstrating the atonality of an amateur with her flat notes and lackluster delivery.

In her opening monologue, Grande immediately lied. “I’m gonna keep it low-key tonight, I promise,” she said, before crooning “I’m not going to siiiiing” and hitting a high note. The extent of her obvious use of irony should not be overstated; throughout the night, Grande sang constantly. But she never sounded the same, proof that her celebrated voice is not just a musical instrument but also a comedy instrument, one she can modulate for laughs—a trait that puts her in the company of some of SNL’s greatest cast members.

Her monologue singing was the closest to the Grande we expect—the soft and clear tone showcased on her albums, like on this year’s Eternal Sunshine. During the opening, she also busted out musical impressions of Britney Spears, Miley Cyrus, and Gwen Stefani—a talent she displayed the previous time she hosted SNL, in 2016. She utilized this mimicry later in the night with a spot-on Celine Dion, lovingly mocking Dion’s strange “Sunday Night Football” promo. Grande’s Dion was, instead, shilling for Ultimate Fighting Championship, and the humor came from the way she transferred the singer’s confident French Canadian enthusiasm to the extremely violent world of mixed martial arts.  

Mimicry was just one facet of how Grande manipulated her voice over the course of the episode. In “My Best Friend’s House” she played a girl in ponytails who started out by singing a fairly innocuous tune about how much she loved the smell of her best friend’s house. When her friend’s dad turned out to be a serial killer, fear crept into her inflection 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 used the pristine quality of her voice to heighten the bizarreness of the situation.

Later she exhibited her upper register in “Castrati,” a sketch set in Renaissance Italy in which she portrayed a castrato named Antonio. Castrati were part of a group of men who had been castrated so they could retain their high voices, and every time Grande opened her mouth, she released a beautiful but terrified sound. All the while, Antonio’s parents, played by ex-cast members Maya Rudolph and Andy Samberg, pitched to a skeptical prince the benefits of the castration process—as proved by Antonio’s angelic voice.

[Read: What is Ariana Grande doing?]

It was fitting that this sketch happened alongside Rudolph and Samberg, two performers who made their SNL mark with musical moments that found humor not just in the punch lines but in the vocal delivery. As a member of the Lonely Island, the musical trio that launched him to notoriety, Samberg highlighted how humor can come from emphasizing the right words. On last week’s episode, the Lonely Island returned for “Sushi Glory Hole,” its first new SNL video in six years, and one of the funniest lines was Samberg’s understated and disaffected repetition of the phrase hear us out.

Meanwhile, viewers need only to revisit Rudolph’s classic “National Anthem” sketch from 2006 to see how her voice is a tool. Back then she played a local contest winner who got to sing the national anthem at the World Series. Her take was filled with outlandish riffs and odd pronunciation; Rudolph can clearly belt, but she made every lyric a comedic meal, turning the song into a deconstruction of what a bad singer thinks good singing is.

Both comedians are also conscious of how their voices can be used to enhance humor even when 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 find the nuances in the presidential candidate’s cadence. In Samberg’s case, he almost always sounds like Andy Samberg, but he uses the innate goofiness of his cadence for comedic gain.

That brings us back to Grande, who clearly understands the intricacies of her voice. Earlier this year, she appeared on the Podcrushed 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 chords healthy, adding that it’s “often depending on how much singing” she is doing. That thoughtfulness was apparent last night. Every time Grande opened her mouth, a carefully crafted sound came out. Most of the time it was beautiful, but she understood the sketch was sometimes funnier when she sang terribly.