Thank U, Next (stylized in all lowercase) is the fifth studio album by American singer Ariana Grande. It was released on February 8, 2019, by Republic Records, six months after her fourth studio album, Sweetener (2018). Songwriters and producers that collaborated with Grande on the album included Tommy Brown, Max Martin, Ilya Salmanzadeh and Pop Wansel.
Grande began working on Thank U, Next in October 2018 amidst several personal struggles, including the death of ex-boyfriend Mac Miller and the end of her engagement to Pete Davidson. She opted not to use the traditional promotion cycle employed for her previous releases. Primarily a pop, R&B and trap record, Thank U, Next was described as Grande's most personal record up to that point, with its lyrical content reflecting on personal flaws, grief and denial, as well as independence and self-empowerment.
The album was preceded by two singles: the title track and "7 Rings", both of which debuted atop the Billboard Hot 100 chart, becoming Grande's first two number-one songs in the United States. "Break Up with Your Girlfriend, I'm Bored" became the third single on the day of the album's release, peaking at number two on the Hot 100. All of the album's 12 tracks entered the Hot 100, with the singles occupying the top three spots, making Grande the first soloist to achieve this feat. The album topped the charts in 17 countries, and broke many streaming records upon release, including the records for the largest weekly streams for a pop album and a female album in the United States. It was certified double platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America, and landed at number two on the US Billboard 200 Year-End chart of 2019. Globally, it was the eighth best-selling album of 2019, and fourth best-selling album by a female artist.
Upon its release, Thank U, Next received critical acclaim, with praise for its cohesiveness, production, and Grande's vulnerability throughout the record. It was named by several publications as the best album of 2019 and was included in numerous year-end and decade-end lists. The album and its songs received nominations for four Grammy Awards (including Album of the Year), an American Music Award, a Billboard Music Award and a Juno Award. In support of both Sweetener and Thank U, Next, Grande embarked on the Sweetener World Tour from March to December 2019, which grossed over $146 million from 97 shows.
Background and recording In August 2018, singer Ariana Grande's Sweetener was released to critical acclaim, her best received album to that point. Grande began contemplating her follow-up as she prepared touring. Republic Records sought to bolster Sweetener global rollout by releasing "Breathin" as the third single, but the label abruptly postponed their promotional endeavors when Grande's old friend and ex-boyfriend, rapper Mac Miller, died from an accidental drug overdose in early September. Grande then took a brief hiatus from the media to record new material. By the following month, the still reticent singer expressed renewed interest in touring, one supporting both Sweetener and her forthcoming project, and she soon announced the initial leg of her Sweetener World Tour. At the same time, Grande ended her five-month engagement with comedian Pete Davidson.
Thank U, Next recording commenced less than two months after the release of Sweetener. The producers conducted most of their recordings at Jungle City Studios in New York City and scheduled additional sessions in New York's Right Track Studios, MXM, Conway Recording Studios and the Record Plant in metropolitan Los Angeles, Wolf Cousins Studios in Stockholm, and Entirety Studios in London.
The fallout of Miller's death influenced Grande's choice of collaborators. She assembled Thank U, Next production team from producers and songwriters with shared rapport to better cope with the trauma. Songwriters included her longtime collaborators Victoria Monet, Max Martin, Ilya Salmanzadeh, and Tommy Brown in addition to Tayla Parx, Social House, and others.
The development of Thank U, Next was unusually swift, but productive. Grande and her team wrote about nine songs in merely a week, and they completed most of the recording after another two weeks. Grande's team kept champagne in the studio, notably Veuve Clicquot, as later referenced in her collaboration with songwriter Victoria Monét, "Monopoly". Monét contributed to six songs, including "Ghostin", the first and simultaneously longest song to develop. Grande found creating "Ghostin" difficult and initially requested the song's exclusion from the final track listing.
Composition Music and lyrics
Thank U, Next is a pop, R&B and trap record with many influences of hip hop on its beats and productions. It explores a diversity of other music genres, including dancehall, soul, pop-rap and many urban influences. Rob Sheffield from Rolling Stone stated that the album is about a woman taking her mood "out for a drive until she pedal-to-the-metals it right off a cliff." In an interview with Zach Sang she said: "We walked to the studio everyday, and just made music and it turned everything around in my life. It sounds very corny but it was like, the most beautiful."
Songs
The album begins with the song "Imagine", an R&B ballad with a trap-inspired rhythm. The song features multiple whistle notes, and its lyrics speak about Grande's denial of failed relationships, specifically her relationship with Mac Miller. The next track "Needy" is a mid-tempo minimalistic song with a metronome-like synth in the foreground. Its lyrics are about Grande's insecurities in relationships. "NASA", named after the U.S. space agency of the same name, is a "bouncy-R&B tune" with "thumping bass and trap drums". The track features a spoken introduction by Shangela, an American drag queen. She says, "One small step for woman, one giant leap for womankind", a variation on Neil Armstrong's quote, "That's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind." The fourth track is "Bloodline." It is a reggae-pop song with R&B influences that contains brassy horns and a pounding bass. It has been compared to Grande's 2016 single "Side to Side" and "Greedy" from her third studio album, Dangerous Woman. The song features a sound bite from Marjorie Grande, Grande's grandmother, in which she is talking about a hearing aid. The Guardian wrote that the song "posits the idea that maybe it's best to just see how things go relationship-wise and getting engaged after a few months isn't essential", believing that this song is about Pete Davidson.
The fifth track off the album is "Fake Smile", a hip hop soul-inspired track with a trap groove. Lyrically, the song is about the attack on her concert in Manchester and the death of ex-boyfriend Mac Miller, and the emotional toll that these events inflicted upon her. "Bad Idea" is an EDM and trap number, beginning with an 80's rock-ballad intro that garnered comparison to David Guetta's 2012 hit single "Titanium" featuring Sia. With an orchestra throughout the bridge and outro, its lyrics are about Grande's desire to numb her pain. The seventh track "Make Up" is Grande's most sexually explicit song on the album, featuring many double entendres. It is a trap record with wonky pop and bubblegum influences and it contains a "rap-influenced bridge". "Ghostin", the eighth track, is an emotional art pop synth-and-strings ballad. Lyrically, it discusses Grande's last two relationships, stating that "she should ghost the guy that still makes her cry and wants to stop hurting the person she is with now while he is being patient with her," being Miller and Davidson. Savan Kotecha, who co-wrote the song with Grande, told Rolling Stone of working on the track: "[When we were writing] 'Ghostin,' we were in New York... The song speaks for itself in terms of what it's about. We were with her for a week in New York witnessing that, witnessing her feelings on that." According to Grande, she "begged" her manager, Scooter Braun, to remove the track from the album, but he convinced her to keep it.
The ninth track "In My Head" begins with an excerpt of a voicemail from by Grande's close friend Doug Middlebrook. It is a trap-pop hybrid with many R&B influences. "7 Rings", the tenth track, is a trap-pop and R&B song. It features a heavy bass and sees Grande discuss "how global success has allowed her to enjoy the finer things". Billboard magazine noted it's "the most hip-hop-leaning song Grande has released in the post-Sweetener era yet, with Grande almost rapping the song's verses". The album's lead single, "Thank U, Next" is the eleventh track on the album. A self-empowerment pop and R&B song with elements of synth-pop, its lyrics discuss many of Grande's past relationships. Grande explained in an interview that "thank u, next..." is a phrase that she and fellow singer/songwriter Victoria Monét use. The final track "Break Up with Your Girlfriend, I'm Bored" is a trap-pop and R&B song. It was said to be Grande's most eye-catching song from the album. The track replaced "Remember", a song previously planned to be on the album, but was too personal for Grande to release. It samples "It Makes Me Ill" by NSYNC in the bridge.
Release and promotion Thank U, Next was released worldwide on February 8, 2019, by Republic Records, five months and 22 days after Sweetener, which was released on August 17, 2018. On releasing the album so soon after her previous offering, Grande said she dreamed of putting out music like a rapper does and break "certain standards that pop women are held to that men aren't." Tired of previous release strategies used for her records, she explained: "'Bruh, I just want to fucking talk to my fans and sing and write music and drop it the way these boys do. Why do they get to make records like that and I don't?' So I do and I did and I am, and I will continue to."
The album cover art, shot by Alfredo Flores, shows Grande laying upside-down on the floor with the album title painted on her neck. The digital edition cover features a pink border, whilst the physical edition features a black border.
Tour On October 25, 2018, Grande officially announced the Sweetener World Tour, in promotion of both Thank U, Next and Sweetener. The tour began on March 18, 2019, and concluded on December 22, 2019. Normani and Social House were opening acts for the first leg of the tour.
Singles The title track was released as the lead single from the album on November 3, 2018, without prior announcements. Commercially, the single was a massive success, peaking at number-one of the charts of 12 countries and breaking a string of records. The song also became Grande's first number-one single on the US Billboard Hot 100. She performed the song on The Ellen DeGeneres Show on November 7. Its accompanying music video was released on November 30, which broke the records for both the most-watched music video in YouTube within 24 hours and the fastest Vevo video to reach 100 million views on YouTube. The song spawned an Internet meme, inspired by the lyrics "One taught me love/one taught me patience / one taught me pain". In a similar fashion, it has also been used as a slogan.
"7 Rings" was released as the second single on January 18, 2019. The track was also commercially successful, peaking atop the charts of 15 countries, including the US, debuting atop of the Billboard Hot 100, making Grande the third female artist to have two or more songs debuting at the top slot of the Hot 100. This also made Grande the third artist in history to have an album with two songs that debuted at number one on the Hot 100, after Drake's Scorpion in 2018 and Mariah Carey's Daydream in 1995. It received generally mixed reviews from music critics, and was the center of plagiarism accusations from multiple artists. "7 Rings" was also nominated for Record of the Year and Best Pop Solo Performance at the 62nd Annual Grammy Awards.