Feminist, philanthropist, and vegan. In 2019, Billboard named Ariana Grande the Most Perfect Female Artist who debuted in the 2010s, while Spotify named her the Most Popular Artist of the Decade. American singer Ariana Grande entered the top 100 of the highest-paid stars according to Forbes in 2020, she took third place among women. How did Grande manage to earn $ 72 million by the age of 27 and become one of the most popular pop singers?
Broadway and Nickelodeon: loyalty to the dream
Ariana Grande-Butera was born on June 26, 1993, in Florida, Boca Raton. Has Italian roots. Received the name in honor of Princess Oriana from the cartoon “Felix the Cat”. Ariana began singing and performing on stage from an early age, from the age of eight she participated in local theater productions, sports events, and schooldays. She has starred in the musicals The Wizard of Oz and Beauty and the Beast. The experience she gained eventually brought her to the big stage. At 15, Grande landed the role of Charlotte in the Broadway play 13, which won an award from the National Association of Youth Theaters. Thanks to the work in production, Ariana’s musical range has expanded. “What I like most about 13 is that Jason Robert Brown, who wrote the score, loved to push people to their limits in terms of vocals,” the singer later recalls.
A big breakthrough for the future star in childhood was her participation in the Victorious show on Nickelodeon in the role of a strange red cat Valentina. Her character turned out to be popular enough to get Sam & Cat spin-off, however, it lasted only a year on the air. For each episode of the first season of Victorious, Ariana received $ 9,000.
Finding yourself and taking off a career
Already at the age of 13, Ariana began to think about a pop music career. One day she told her managers that she wanted to record an R&B album. However, they were skeptical about her choice: who will buy the R&B album of a 14-year-old teenager? But Ariana did not give up her dream. “Music just happened, I never truly learned it. I played the French horn for several years, thanks to which I learned a lot about music and theory. I play the piano a little, but it’s mostly just singing, which I have never learned,” she says. While growing up, Grande listened a lot to Whitney Houston’s songs (she especially loved the soundtrack from The Bodyguard), Judy Garland, and old songs of other prima donnas.
In 2015, the singer embarked on her first world tour – The Honeymoon World Tour – in support of her second album. She traveled with concerts to North and South America, Europe, and Asia. In addition to her four-octave voice, the world also liked Grande’s retro image: she dressed like a teen idol of the 50s, taking her hair into a ponytail and trying on cat ears. “I do not feel confident about my style and sexuality. I think about the music first. I want people to listen, not watch and judge,” she shared with The Daily News.
Grammy and Beatles record
In May 2016, Grande’s third album, Dangerous Woman, was released, which debuted immediately in second place on the Billboard 200. Despite this, it is the only one of all the singer’s albums that did not reach the first line. But the album was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Pop Vocal Album, and its self-titled main track was nominated for Best Pop Solo Performance. If journalists designated the second album as the growth of a budding star with Nickelodeon, then the third one has already been recognized as “mature and confident” (BBC).
Grande received her first Grammy award with her fourth album, Sweetener, released in August 2018, which was voted Best Pop Album. In the same year, she announced the fifth album Thank U Next, which was released a year later. The song became Grande’s first single to top the Billboard Hot 100 for seven straight weeks.
Ariana Grande became the first solo artist, whose three singles – 7 Rings, I’m Bored and Thank U, Next – simultaneously took the first three places on the Billboard Hot 100. Before that, this was possible only by the Beatles he 1964 year.
Her albums, Sweetener and Thank U, Next, earned her $ 48 million in 2019. In the same year, she received $8 million, becoming the headliner (though the youngest in the history of the show) of the Coachella festival. Interestingly, usually, headliners earn almost half as much – $ 3-5 million. Ariana Grande’s Sweetener World Tour raised $ 146 million in 2019.
Positions
Positions became the first album by Ariana Grande in the past three years, the release of which was not overshadowed by some tragic event. On the eve of Sweetener in 2018, a terrorist attack took place at the singer’s concert at Manchester Arena, and five months before the release of Thank U, Next in 2019, Ariana’s ex-boyfriend Mac Miller died. Positions were released without incident. Ariana is doing well, the period of self-healing, to which almost the entire Thank U, Next is devoted, has passed. In Positions, the singer again swings at daring and intimate topics, continuing the stories of Sweetener and Thank U, Next and forming a kind of album trilogy. While has a happy ending.
All of these three tracks were written in collaboration with other musicians. The ubiquitous musical queen of TikTok Doja Cat looked at Motive, Ty Dolla $ ign at Safety Net, and Ariana recorded the “heaviest” composition on the Off The Table album together with the king of melancholy The Weeknd. The only problem with Positions is that when we hear the voices of these musicians, we see their names in the titles of the tracks, but they do not produce any effect. Positions album is above all Grande’s albums. Sugar pop and R&B with subtle angelic vocals and filler songs in two and two and a half minutes, which are convenient for jamming mood playlists.
