Ariana Grande, thank u next review: Pop star owns her contradictions and embraces her inner mean girl

It lacks a centrepiece to match the arresting depth and space of Sweetener’s ‘God Is A Woman’, but Grande handles its shifting moods and cast of producers with engaging class and momentum

The album is packed with personal confessions for the fans – ‘Arianators’ – to pick over (Getty)

“Been through some bad s**t/ I should be a sad bitch/ Who woulda thought it’d turn me to a savage?” sings Ariana Grande to the tune of “My Favourite Things” on her fifth album, thank u, next.

Her vocals are as impeccably straight and silky as her trademark ponytail. But nobody could deny the “bad s**t” that Grande describes: 22 people were killed in a terrorist attack at her 2017 Manchester concert, and hundreds more injured, while Grande was left with PTSD. Last August she released her fourth album, Sweetener, in an attempt to claw back some positivity but in September, her ex-boyfriend, the rapper Mac Miller, died of a suspected drug overdose. Grande then broke off her engagement to comedian Pete Davidson in October.

However, what the former Nickelodeon child star has been conditioned to think of as “savagery” is actually just a woman standing up for herself, as she did yesterday (7 February) when she called out the suits behind the Grammy Awards for “lying” about the reason she would not perform at this year’s event. Even then, Grande politely thanked them for their interest and wished them well – with the same easy frankness she used to catalogue her exes on this album’s title song.

Set to a bouncy, R&B beat over a melancholy synth tune reminiscent of Ryuichi Sakamoto’s theme to Merry Christmas, Mr Lawrence, “thank u, next” has Grande scrolling back through a timeline of former lovers: “Thought I’d end up with Sean,/ But he wasn’t a match/ Wrote some songs about Ricky/ Now I listen and laugh/ Even almost got married/ And for Pete, I’m so thankful/ Wish I could say ‘thank you’ to Malcolm/ ’Cause he was an angel.”

The album is packed with personal confessions for the fans – “Arianators” – to pick over. It lacks a centrepiece to match the arresting depth and space of Sweetener’s “God Is A Woman”, but Grande handles its shifting moods and cast of producers (including pop machines Max Martin and Tommy Brown) with engaging class and momentum. One minute you’re skanking along to the party brass of “Bloodline”; the next floating into the semi-detached, heartbreak of “Ghostin’”, which appears to address Grande’s guilt at being with Davidson while pining for Miller. She sings of the late rapper as a “wingless angel” with featherlight high notes that will drop the sternest jaw.

Beneath the mellow drift of its melodies and its star’s frictionless, four-octave range, however, thank u, next finds the loveable Grande embracing her inner mean girl (on the sexy “Break Up with Your Girlfriend, I’m Bored”) then owning her flaws and contradictions (she’s a stifling girlfriend, over the layered finger snaps of “Needy”, and pushes for space against the expansive, echoing bass of “NASA”).

And it’s not all about the boyfriends. “7 Rings” (the song she appears to have been prevented from performing at the Grammys) is all about the engagement rings Grande bought for her female friends: “Yeah, breakfast at Tiffany’s and bottles of bubbles/ Girls with tattoos who like getting in trouble/ Lashes and diamonds, ATM machines/ Buy myself all of my favourite things (Yeah)”. Subverting Hammerstein’s original lines about the best things in life being free (“raindrops on roses”, etc), Grande allows herself to revel in some extreme retail therapy. She laughs off compliments about her fake hair (“I bought it”) but, later, refuses to wear a “Fake Smile” on a track that samples Wendy Rene’s 1964 soul debut “After Laughter (Comes Tears)”.

So thank you, “Ari”, for a lovely listen. I have to confess, I’d like a bit more vocal grit. Maybe that’s up next.