10 Interesting Facts That Will Change The Way You Think About Ariana Grande’s Musical Career
Her latest album, "Thank U, Next," makes it official: we’re all Arianators now. So here's what you need to know!
In case you haven’t heard, it’s Ariana Grande’s world now, and we’re just living in it: within six months of releasing her long-awaited fourth album, Sweetener, last August, our pop princess / BBQ tattoo queen has blessed us with Thank U, Next: a WHOLE EXTRA ALBUM for us to memorize and fall in love with before we gather to worship together at the Sweetener World Tour this year.
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And before we do, here’s 10 facts about Ariana Grande’s music that both new and old Arianators may not have known:
1. She first began her career at age 14, when she was cast in the original Broadway musical 13, back in 2008.
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One of Ari’s fellow teen castmates was Liz Gillies, who went on to star in the Nickelodeon shows “Victorious” and “Sam & Cat” with her.
2. But her theater kid/performer roots go even further back — as a kid, she performed in Annie, the Wizard of Oz, and Beauty and the Beast at her local community theater in Florida.
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And when she was 8, she sang at a karaoke lounge on a cruise ship...where Gloria Estefan discovered her!
3. It was during her Nickelodeon days when Ari started posting YouTube videos of herself singing covers of Adele, Whitney Houston, and Mariah Carey songs — and that's how Republic Records found her.
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By the time Republic signed her in 2011, she already had more than 10 million views on her YouTube videos.
4. Ariana's first ambition as a musical artist was to make an R&B album.
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"I remember when I first came to L.A. to meet with my managers, I was like, 'I want to make an R&B album,' " she recalled in a 2014 interview with Billboard. "They were like ... Um, that’s a helluva goal! Who is going to buy a 14-year-old’s R&B album?!'"
5. Her first hit single was "The Way," which she recorded with Mac Miller for her debut album in 2013.
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The lead single debuted at number ten on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100. And, FYI, it wasn't the first time she and Mac collaborated — just the year before, they'd released a holiday duet together.
6. She has an impressive four octave vocal range, which you can really see her use to hit that whistle register in "Imagine" and "The Way."
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For context: most people — even professionally trained singers — can do three octaves. (Mariah Carey can do five).
7. She's worked with the biggest songwriters and producers in the music industry, including Max Martin, Pharrell Williams, and Tommy Brown.
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And her musical collaborations with artists like Zedd, Jessie J, Nicki Minaj, and The Weeknd helped push her music into the mainstream after the release of her second album, My Everything in 2014.
8. After the release of Sweetener, Ariana decided to switch to a more spontaneous strategy for releasing music that was inspired by hip-hop artists.
In her Woman of the Year interview with Billboard, she said, “My dream has always been to be . . . obviously not a rapper, but, like, to put out music in the way that a rapper does ... It’s just like, ‘Bruh, I just want to fucking talk to my fans and sing and write music and drop it the way these boys do.’ ”
9. She's been nominated six times for a Grammy Award!
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In 2014, she was nominated for Best Pop Duo/Group Performance for "Bang Bang," and Best Pop Vocal Album for her second album, My Everything. In 2016, she was nominated for Best Pop Solo Performance and Best Pop Vocal Album for Dangerous Woman, and for 2018, she's been nominated for Best Pop Vocal Album for Sweetener and Best Pop Solo Performance for God Is A Woman. She was originally planning to perform at this year's Grammy's, but pulled out over differences with the Recording Academy.
10. And finally, this April, she'll be headlining the Coachella Music Festival as the youngest female artist to do so.
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The 25-year-old is also only the fourth female headliner for Coachella, ever — the others were literally hers being hers being Björk, Lady Gaga, and Beyoncé!