Album Review: Ariana Grande Grows from the Drama on "Thank U, Next"

We’re so good with that.

If you’re wondering how Ariana Grande’s handling the most eventful 18 months in perhaps any pop star’s life, she went and made a quickie album to tell you: yeah, she’s actually doing great right now.

Those events (beginning with the terrorist attack on her Manchester concert in 2017 and culminating with the dissolution of her whirlwind engagement to Pete Davidson, with countless pit stops of trauma and triumph in between) would have flattened most people. Less has ruined many in the unsparing public eye. So, as far as post-tabloid glow-ups go, Grande’s is one for the books.

Whereas Kesha rightly reinvented herself as a survivor, and Taylor Swift painted herself as Maleficent in her own comeback, Grande emerged from the rubble with the most emotionally healthy kiss off anthem anyone had ever heard: "thank u, next". She named her new record after it, and then put it as the second-to-last track, where it works as a victory lap for the album, much as the album works as a victory lap for her personally.

The best part? After everything—well, as much as we can know about, anyway—her persona hasn’t changed much at all. thank u, next thrives when Ari’s just being Ari. If there’s anything to be disappointed by, even mildly, it’s only that she hasn’t moved on, musically, from the territory trekked in sweetener, the LP she released six months ago. As a curator, however, she’s made some significant strides, abandoning featured artists, embracing self-confidence and recruiting more female writers and producers than ever before. It’s the same old Ari, but as she told us, she’s growing from the drama.

thank u, next opens with "imagine", which is either its sole overly-earnest song or a half-sarcastic nod to both the John Lennon tune of the same name and Louis Armstrong’s ode "What a Wonderful World". Complicated time signature aside, it seems like basic stuff, until you realise that her great, outlandish dream for a perfect world is one where she can just rest her head on a guy’s chest. A cop out, or a commentary on how her perspective of 'perfect' has mutated after a tumultuous year? All I know for sure is that her glass-shattering squeak at the end is an irresistible climax.

Almost instantly, she transitions back to her preferred beast mode, with maybe-illegally-catchy odes to mass seduction: "needy", "N.A.S.A." and, much later, the pièce de résistance, "break up with your girlfriend, I’m bored". Wow, when she said "next", she really meant it.

Many will listen closely looking for clues as to why her last relationship sank so suddenly. Davidson isn’t explicitly mentioned, except on the irrepressible "thank u, next", but on a sub-"Side to Side" reggae beat, she does tell an unnamed guy she doesn’t want him in her "bloodline". On "ghostin'", a string-driven lament, she acknowledges how being dumped must hurt... for an unnamed 'him'. And on the swirling "in my head", she points out "my imagination’s too creative". For Pete, she’s so thankful. He, on the other hand, may be getting a retaliatory tattoo somewhere.

The album is back-loaded (by design), though that does mean it lags in the middle. This is despite Grande’s powerhouse voice and indefatigable spirit never waning, and the sampled backing singers of "thank u, next" and "fake smile" emphasising the female empowerment of it all. In fact, "fake smile" demonstrates just how much she’s flexing these days, weaponising the same slice of Wendy Rene’s "After Laughter (Comes Tears)" that Wu-Tang once deployed for "Tearz". Sacrilegious? Not when she does it. This is donut-licking, give-no-f***s Ariana at her finest.

Still, you might want to resequence thank u, next with the highlights of sweetener (there’s nothing here better than "god is a woman"), trim the fat (like "7 rings") and make what would easily be the most bop-filled compilation of the year. Ari’s doing her right now, but the rest of us have BBQs to soundtrack.

3.5/5

thank u, next is now available.