When you lack artistry, creativity and have a bad team, you produce such a lacklustre album.
Grande shows no musical growth throughout the long 41 minutes of this album neither vocally or artistically.
To be fair, the second half of the album is better than the first (but only marginally) as it contains song that a maybe worth a second listen, but the familiar first half just sound like leftovers from her last two recently released albums (and not good left overs either)
Doja is unable to breath life into Motive, and doesn't actually make it sound any better. The major start The Weekend doesn't bring any energy to off the table, and their voices don't compliment each other so it sounds like a match made for money.
Things pick up on what i would say is the best track on the album. Although Ty's lyrics don't fit with Ariana's, the song moves along nice enough to warrant being added to a playlist.
my hair and love language are other stand out tracks, but Ariana lethargically sings over these along with the majority of the album that it doesn't actually bring some excitement. I know that people are going to coo and gasp over the "whistle notes" but they don't add any excitement and sound (in my opinion) sound too manipulated.

The issues is that Ariana was put on a pedal stool too soon into her career, but the fact is she isn't a great singer or artist, but just a good singer with an image.