It truly seems to be the year of Ariana Grande. She released her critically acclaimed album, ‘Sweetener’, was named Billboard’s Woman of the Year 2018 and now she’s released a record-breaking single just months after releasing a No. 1 album.
‘thank u, next’ is the lead single from Ariana Grande’s already recorded fifth studio album, and broke records on streaming service Spotify for the number of streams on its day of release both in the US and globally.
When Grande announced that she would be releasing a single on November 3, half an hour before Saturday Night Live aired, the show which stars her now ex-fiancé, many feared it was going to be a scathing post break-up diss track, especially after she publicly slammed him on Twitter for a joke he made on a promo for the show.
However, the 25-year-old pop singer treated us to a song of acceptance and gratitude. The song starts by listing four of her well-known exes: Big Sean, Ricky Alvarez, Pete Davidson, and the late Mac Miller. However, unlike many songs of its genre, ‘thank u, next’ is not a breakup ballad revolving around the sadness that grew from the ending of those relationships. No, instead it focuses on the lessons they taught her: “One taught me love, One taught me patience, And one taught me pain”. She uses the song to explain how the bad experiences she suffered with any of these men have enabled her to grow into the person she is today. As Grande herself explained in a tweet, “no drags…. no shade…. jus’ love, gratitude, acceptance, honesty, forgiveness … and growth.
Yet, ‘thank u, next’ isn’t just a break-up song. Ariana uses it as a love song to the new person in her life. Though, similar to Lorde’s song ‘Liability’, this person is herself. ‘thank u, next’ serves as not only as a song to pass you through the acceptance stage of your grief, but an anthem of self-love. Grande doesn’t promote the idea of raising yourself up by putting others down. She shows that her self-love comes from within. She’s met someone new and she knows it going to last because she’s more accepting of herself than she was before, due to everything she has learnt over the years. She’s proving that you can make mistakes in life and in love and make it on your own. Mistakes do not mean you have to love yourself any less. As a major ambassador for mental health issues, Grande seems to be including this theme more and more in her music, working to open up a theme that is sometimes hard to publicly discuss. This song about loving yourself and learning from your own history only seems to further promote that.
‘thank u, next’ broke records on Spotify for the American singer, achieving 8.2 million streams on Spotify in a single day (Monday, 5th of November). On top of that, the song broke that record the next day by being streamed another 8.5 million times. The song is doing extremely well considering it doesn’t sound massively different from any other song by the artist. It includes her signature riffs, catchy lyrics and a beat that you can dance to. It’s truly the message that is getting the song some much attention and is catapulting it to the top of the charts. An empowering message goes a long way with fans these days and ‘thank u, next’ really proves that. My question is: will other artists take note of this and begin making more ‘music with a message’?
You can stream ‘thank u, next’ here.
By Robbie Nichols