Ariana Grande

thank u, next

Of course, the album is a highly polished product and not some diary page. But it feels lived in, truthful, authentic. thank u, next is a personal statement from a generational talent who is still only 25 years old.

The difference with thank u next is, this time Grande is swaggering with the confidence that comes with unquestioned stardom.

It’s contradictory, assured yet tender. It’s delicate but strong. It’s sweet pop music wrapped in an unbreakable metal shell. It’s beautiful but vulgar. It is, frankly, much more than we could have ever hoped for from her.

The entire album plays like one epic pop-playlist, perfect for blasting in your car, getting ready for a night out (or night in) with girlfriends or while perhaps mulling the many aspects – both good and bad – of your life.

thank u, next is a younger cousin to 1989 (explosion of self) and ANTI (redefinition of voice). By encompassing both Taylor’s transformation of memory to grand pop statement and Rihanna’s reinvention of voice in space, thank u, next exists as a text of genuine pop futurability.

Ariana Grande’s choice to make thank u, next one of the most sonically interesting records of its type ever recorded, littered with warped synths, clicks, pops and esoteric whistles, is one that overflows with big dick energy.

Throughout the set’s 40-some minutes, Grande is invariably confident and assertive, but this thrilling display of empowerment is always underscored by a disarming vulnerability, a frankness which seems to go beyond the social media relatability required of today’s junior pop stars.

It’s a lovely, intimate collection that embraces its essential paradox of being both a grand pop statement and a bedroom-pop wonder.

It is an album that ultimately serves as both an emancipation and a proclamation, Grande fully bending her collaborators to her will instead of merely playing in their sandboxes, and creating a blissful fusion of pop and R&B that is entirely her own.

This feels like the work of a pop star previously happy to act as conduit for other people, finally working out who they are and what they want to say. Here, Grande finds her voice.

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.

It's been hard not to root for Grande over the past couple years, so it's especially rewarding to hear her coming out the other side of grief and trauma with her strongest body of work to date.

It could easily be a self-pitying album, one ready to dwell in the wreckage of incidents, but instead keeps picking up and moving on; providing a guide to how to keep on keeping on even when it feels like whatever you do is going to end in devastation.