15 best Ariana Grande songs

1. “Thank U, Next”

“Thank U, Next” was released less than three months after the release of her previous record, Sweetener, but with her well-publicized break-up with Pete Davidson, she clearly felt a need to make a statement. It’s not a typical break-up song, more about gratitude, resilience, and lessons learned than the absence of another and the pain and heartbreak that often fills that vacuum. It’s a song that does a lot of tricky things simultaneously: it expresses gratitude for her exes while also sounding grateful that she is no longer with any of them, somehow walking a tightrope between being dismissive and wallowing in nostalgia. It’s generous and sweet without becoming saccharine — even the reveal that she is devoted to spending more time with herself somehow works, corny as it is. And it just sounds great too. Thank U, Next is a murkier album than the bright Sweetener and this was the introduction of that transition, showing more influence from alternative R&B acts than the pop divas she had emulated in the past. Grande had recorded a number of good songs before this, but with two years worth of hindsight, it feels like this may have been the moment she truly came into her own.