On Ariana Grande’s fifth album, thank u, next, released just six months after her fourth, Sweetener, it is abundantly evident that she’s remained true to her recent statement made in reference to Grammys producer Ken Ehrlich claiming Grande didn’t have enough time to “pull something together,” to which she reminded everyone that music is about not compromising one’s original vision and intent behind the songs. In the case of the songs on thank u, next, it’s all about finding some sort of redemption through the agony traded for ephemeral ecstasy in her rapports (both sexual and emotional) with certain parties.
Opening with the bittersweet “imagine,” offering Lennon-esque ideals for relationships, Grande establishes the tone of the record as one punctuated by being perpetually haunted by a tormented romantic past, yet still managing to be, for all intents and purposes, hopeful. Even if a little bit shaky and anxiety-ridden (as was, naturally, the scenario in the wake of the Manchester Arena bombing). Hence being a little bit too “needy” at times, as she explains on the second track, “I admit that I’m a lil’ messed up/But I can hide it when I’m all dressed up/I’m obsessive and I love too hard.” We know, you wrote a song called “pete davidson.” But don’t be fooled, Grande is no longer in possession of the same plucky innocence of before. That the cover is still an image of Grande upside down as it is on Sweetener but slightly darker, more sinister is telling of the unspoken announcement that she is entering her “bad girl” phase just as Rihanna did with 2007’s Good Girl Gone Bad.
In contrast to “needy,” “NASA” is, appropriately, about wanting space from the pressures of not being in the public eye, but rather, being in a relationship. For while, sure, it’s something comforting at first, to have a person to make you feel as though you’re not floating all alone in the abyss of the universe, the truth boils down to: “Keep me in your orbit and you know you’ll drag me under.” While some fans had speculated that the track was an allusion to Pete Davidson because of his own NASA sweatshirt, Grande’s co-songwriter Victoria Monét responded to the speculation with, “Yo I promise we did not write a whole song about this mans shirt [crying, laughing emoji] promise. it’s just a universally common word.” For being untied to gravity despite, perhaps, wanting to be. After all, it’s the thing that causes objects’ (and people’s) pull toward one another. Diminished the farther away they are–a testament to Grande’s own experience in love.
With a Rihanna-esque dancehall sound (uh oh, appropriation!), Grande uses her grandmother Marjorie’s voice as an intro to establish that Grande “ain’t lookin’ for my one true love” as she goes through the continuous coping of the loss of the “ship that sailed away.” A.k.a. Mac Miller. Produced by Swedish god Max Martin, the eventual realization that Davidson was a fling not ultimately wanted in her family bloodline (don’t forget, Grande is of the Italian persuasion, la famiglia is sacred) is nothing if not rather deliciously diva-oriented. Like, know your place with your r*%@rd face.
Accordingly, to iterate that the euphoria of her engagement-turned-just a summer fling with Davidson was bound to be balanced out with pain as payment for her pleasure, Grande samples from the Wendy Rene song “After Laughter” to open “fake smile”: “After laughter comes tears.” It’s called paying the piper, and we all must do it eventually for the universe’s sick creditor persona. And after so much personal trauma, Grande has to insist, “Fuck a fake smile” as she describes the various pitfalls of being in the constant eye of controversy storms. Explaining, “I read the things they write about me/Hear what they’re sayin’ on the TV, it’s crazy/It’s gettin’ hard for them to shock me/But every now and then, it’s shocking, don’t blame me I know it’s the life that I chose,” Grande, like every pop star before her, is grateful for her position at most every moment except the ones when she wants to have an emotional breakdown in peace (which, as we all know, Britney never could either).
On “bad idea,” Grande touches on the notion of her newfound agency and autonomy in terms of writing more of her own content as a means to work through what she’s been going through, declaring, “‘Cause I’m the one who wrote it (yeah, yeah)/Tryna get control of it (yeah, yeah).” It is at this midpoint on the album that we understand just how vehemently she needed to get the concept behind thank u, next out. To exorcise the demons that have been brooding ever since her break up with Mac Miller, using Davidson as a diversion admitted to with further blatancy as she sings, “Even though we shouldn’t, baby boy, we will (you know we will)/Need somebody, gimme something I can feel (yeah)/But, boy, don’t trip (don’t trip), you know this isn’t real/You should know I’m temporary.” The matter-of-fact sadness to these lyrics remind one how far Grande has come already since Sweetener, so brimming with retrospectively naive optimism.
To that end, Grande touches on her historically unhealthy pattern of using the tactic of fighting and making up on, what else, “make up” so that she can get the most mileage out of the sex (again, she’s Italian). Admitting, “I like to fuck with you just to make up with you/’Cause the way you be screamin’ my name,” Grande adds with no shame, “I’m stayin’ mad all day so we can let it out tonight/Bring you to the bed where we can really make it right.” So yeah, no wonder it didn’t last with Davidson.
On “ghostin,” Grande goes back to her other favorite topic of discussion on thank u, next: Mac. Rehashing both the loss of Miller and the end of relationship with Davidson, which served to accent her not being truly over Miller, Grande croons with a controlled melancholic tone (somewhat à la Britney on “Everytime”), “I know that it breaks your heart when I cry again over him, mmh/I know that it breaks your heart when I cry again/’Stead of ghostin’ him.” But alas, true first love can never be ghosted–just watch Un Amour de Jeunesse for proof. Most especially when that love is crystallized by one party’s premature death.
Speaking to this idea of undoubtedly deifying Miller, “in my head” begins with the voice of Grande’s friend, Doug Middlebrook, snapping her out of it with, “Here’s the thing: you’re in love with a version of a person that you’ve created in your head, that you are trying to but cannot fix. Uh, the only thing you can fix is yourself. I love you, this has gone on way too long. Enough is enough. I’m two blocks away; I’m coming over.” So it is that Grande delivers lyrics that dually apply to both Miller and Davidson as she self-analyzes, “My imagination’s too creative/They see demon, I see angel, angel, angel/Without the halo, wingless angel.” In short, like the rest of us, Grande has a tendency to see what isn’t really there when it comes to a potential or actual significant other, as well as in terms of romanticizing or idealizing a relationship once it’s over.
Paling in comparison to the other offerings on the album by this juncture, “7 rings” briefly shocks the listener out of her ruminating reverie to remember that there’s no problem money can’t solve. Or an optimistic tack in looking at every “failed” relationship as a learning experience on what is already last year’s hit, “thank u, next.”
Going back to the saucier side of her persona on this record, Ari concludes with the cheeky “break up with your girlfriend, i’m bored.” Sampling from, of all things, *NSYNC’s “It Makes Me Ill,” the track would have one believe Grande is lusting heteronormatively, but, as the video shows, this isn’t necessarily the case.
So there it is. Twelve songs that have overtly proven to be Grande’s documented therapy session on how to get through cataclysmic relationship events, be single, be your own best friend and, basically, somehow still manage to be endearing while elucidating the image of being an anxiety-ridden puddle on the floor when it comes to trusting or bothering with monogamy ever again.
