Review: thank u, next
Pop’s brightest star serves us her heart on a silver platter with her newest album — thank u, next.
Close your eyes, and imagine a world where pop music’s leading lady — Ariana Grande — has released her fifth studio album only six months after her last effort. I guess that didn’t take much visualizing because last Friday the no tears left to cry singer did just that. thank u, next comes just a few months after 2018’s Sweetener — a fantastic effort by Grande that sought to find the positivity in life’s darker situations. Grande takes the more cynical approach on thank u, next — and instead focuses on what becomes of you after life has taken you to the edge of sanity. With that in mind, thank u, next easily becomes Grande’s most personal project in that we see her tackle with the very public issues she’s braved in the last six months — including the death of Mac Miller, her ex-boyfriend of almost three years, and the subsequent calling off of her engagement. Ariana lets it all out on album track ghostin which hauntingly tells of the time where she’d spend nights crying over a past relationship while sleeping next to her new lover. On In My Head, the singer talks of her inability to see the inadequacies in her lovers — which in turn leads to her just getting her heart stomped on. It is in both recognizing her sadness and admitting that she is flawed on songs like needy that Ariana has found stability.
What makes thank u, next such a triumphant record is that Grande is embracing what life has thrown her way by demonstrating the growth that comes with survival. Songs like bloodline and NASA tell us of a new Ariana that is not the hopeless romantic she so desperately wanted to be on Sweetener, but instead a woman that is more than okay with one-night stands and being alone.
Sonically, this is one of Ariana’s most tenacious efforts to date — the production on all of the songs just stick. Take for example bad idea, the track relies heavily on a deep bass, a vigorous snare, and the addition of a violin to serve as a contrast to the deep trap beat which makes for one of the smoothest sounding songs Grande has produced in years. Album closer break up with your girlfriend, i’m bored features a fun N*SYNC sample and is another production highlight as Ariana borrows from trap/R&B to make an infectious third single. Overall, the production on this album is minimalist in nature and hardly features any explosive moments that can be found on Ariana’s previous albums in the form of her 2016 single Into You and 2018’s breathin. She instead relies on her voice, cynical lyrical content, and sleek production from Tommy Brown, Max Martin, and Social House (to name a few) to cooperate with each other and tell a story.
What stops this album from being among the greats is the timing in which it was released. Just six months after Sweetener, the album hardly does anything production wise that Ariana couldn’t do last year. There is nothing about this record’s composition that sounds like it couldn’t have come out last year, and that is because Ariana hasn’t had time to grow as an artist. Ariana has matured deeply as a young woman, but her actual sound hasn’t had the time to grow with her thus this album serves more as a therapy session and less as the birth of a new artistic movement.
Regardless, through stripping herself down to the heart Grande has delivered her most raw and cohesive project to date and with doing so — immersed us further into her world.
