Ariana Grande’s song “thank u, next” is an intimate, revealing portrayal of how she is professing grief. The music video does not do this song justice. I’ve never been a fan of Ariana Grande or had any real interest in her personal life before now, but the song “thank u, next” nearly made me cry in public a couple of times.
Grande was able to be honest about her personal life and relationships. For a subject which had gathered so much media attention, being constantly under the bright lights of the internet’s scrutiny, it would be understandable if Grande would want to pack away everything personal. It cannot be underestimated the personal strength releasing this song took.
The video opens with people discussing rumours they heard about the singer. I thought initially this was a response to the internet fervour surrounding Grande after Mac Miller’s death, but it was actually a reference to the 2004 film Mean Girls (I hadn’t seen it in a while—forgive my ignorance). My confusion became annoyance and then disappointment, as the video continued with these references to teen movies of yester-year.
Coming off the heels of the untimely death of Miller, the internet had been ablaze with commentary and slanderous opinions: crowds of people blaming Grande for the rapper’s continued spiral fuelled drug problems which lead to him fatally overdosing.
The juxtaposition in tone between this song and the pop-culture references of the music video is jarring and completely undermines the emotional integrity of the song. As such a well-recognized media presence, people were quick to jump to conclusions and assumed they understood the situation. Grande’s “thank u, next” sought to address the misconceptions people had.
The intimacy and emotion is inescapable in Grande’s voice when she sings the line “Wish I could say thank you to Malcolm, ‘cause he was an angel.” It hits you like a tsunami.
At that moment in the song, I felt an emotional swell. When the video came to this point, Grande was making a distracting reference to the movie Mean Girls, which did nothing to for the song. It just detracted from it.
When the music video was released, there was much fervour and resulted in it breaking the record for most views on YouTube on its first day. All this did was add to my disappointment upon witnessing it. That was the overall emotion five minutes and 30 seconds after I clicked play. In fact, the disappointment set in way sooner.
This video seems inexplicable to me. Why would such an emotionally raw, intimate song be given this casual, poppy-fun video to accompany it? In discussions with my friends afterwards, the only positive we could agree on was “It had good production value,” which is damning faint praise. Music videos have come a long way—“good production value” should be a given. The artistic direction behind this trailer seems inexplicable to me. I tried to reason it out.
All I can think is perhaps the song was too raw and emotional for Grande to create a fitting video tribute.
Music videos are supposed to enhance the meaning behind the song, but this only detracted from the depth that was already there. It’s all distraction. The whole project seems designed to distance the audience from the emotion in the lyrics from the song. Maybe in doing so, it allowed Grande to distance herself from that meaning as well.
As the lyrics of the song rightly illustrate, Grande does not owe the world anything. She should be free to live her life, seeking the happiness she needs in what is no doubt a very difficult time.
But it is still hard not to feel this video is a let down.
