Welcome back to the Deep Dive. It is Monday,
February 2nd, 2026. Wow. February already. I
know, right? And if you are listening to this,
you've probably had your coffee, you've checked
the headlines, and you already know the news
that, uh... Basically broke the internet late
last night. It was everywhere this morning. We
are fresh off the heels of the Grammys. Yeah.
And I think we can officially say the Wicked
Era has reached its zenith. It really has. Defying
gravity, that duet with Cynthia Erivo took home
Best Pup Duo Group Performance. You know, it
feels less like a typical award win and, I don't
know, more like the final puzzle piece just locking
into place. That's a great way to put it. We've
been living in the grip of these films for, what,
two years now? Part one in late 2024, part two
just a few months ago in November 2025. Just
been a whole cultural moment. A huge moment.
And watching Ariana Grande be Butera, as she's
credited now, stand on that stage, it just, it
felt consequential. It really did. And look,
we could easily spend. an hour just talking about
the acceptance speech or the dress, but I want
to zoom out a little. Because seeing her up there
holding a Grammy for a musical theater standard,
it struck me that we aren't looking at a pop
star in the traditional sense anymore. We're
looking at a statistical anomaly. That's the
perfect way to frame it. It really is. If you
look at the data, and we have a mountain of it
today, from billboard charts to box office receipts
to actual vocal analysis. Her career path just
shouldn't have worked. It shouldn't have. Teen
idols don't usually become global pop titans.
It's a very rare thing. And pop titans don't
usually become critically acclaimed method actors.
That's another jump. Right. And yet she has navigated
every single one of those pivots and not just
navigated them, but like dominated each stage.
Exactly. And that is our mission today. We are
going to deconstruct the architect of pop. I'm
just going to list her hits, you know. No, this
is about the how. It's about the how. How did
she build this empire? We're talking about a
transition from a Nickelodeon sidekick to an
artist with 90 million records sold, a billion
dollar fragrance business, and now a serious
Hollywood foothold. And we have to talk about
the resilience required to do that. Because I
think beneath the ponytail and the, you know,
the diva rumors that the tabloids just love to
feed on. Oh, they love it. There is a level of
business strategy and, frankly, vocal engineering
that is honestly terrifying. Let's get into it.
And to understand the architect, I think we have
to look at the blueprints. We have to go back
to Boca Raton, Florida in the 90s. Right. Born
in 1993. Now, usually when we talk about pop
stars, we hear the rags to riches story. The
kid from nowhere who got a lucky break. This
is not that story. This is not that. This is
a story about nature and nurture colliding in
a very, very specific way. Her mother, Joan,
is the CEO of a marine communications firm. I
mean, this is high stakes corporate leadership.
Which is a crucial detail I think people miss.
It's so important. When you see Ariana negotiating
contracts later in life or managing her. brand
with such precision that isn't accidental no
it's learned behavior she grew up watching a
woman run a major company that boss mentality
was modeled for her at the dinner table every
single night absolutely and then you have her
father edward who is a graphic designer so you
get this intersection of like corporate shark
and visual artist right there in her dna this
is an art Exactly. She's of Italian -American
heritage, very proud of the Sicilian and Abruzzese
roots, but it's that blend of business and art
that I think truly defines her entire approach.
There's a story in the research that I love because
it sounds like a lie, like something from a biopic,
but it's completely documented. Oh, I think I
know what you're talking about. She's eight years
old on a cruise ship. The Gloria Estefan story?
Gloria Estefan, the Gloria Estefan is there,
hears her and literally stops to tell her you
were meant to do this. The validation of that
moment. Just imagine the validation. You're eight
years old. That plants a seed that no amount
of rejection later on is ever going to dig up.
No way. It becomes your origin story. It does.
Yeah. But what's so interesting is how quickly
she tried to capitalize on it. You found that
note about the meeting she took at 14. This is
my favorite what if moment in her entire story.
She's 14 years old. She gets a meeting with managers
in L .A., and they ask her what kind of music
she wants to make. Right, and this is 2007, 2008.
The peak of bubblegum pop. The world is obsessed
with Hannah Montana, Miley Cyrus, the Jonas Brothers.
Pure Disney Channel dominance. And this 14 -year
-old Ariana looks these executives in the eye
and says, I want to make an R &B album. And they
left her out of the room. I mean, literally left.
They ask her, who is going to buy a 14 -year
-old's R &B album? And honestly, commercially
speaking, for that specific year, they probably
weren't wrong. But it shows you that her sonic
identity, her musical soul, was already fully
formed. She didn't want to be a Disney princess.
She wanted to be India Aerie or Mariah. Her goal
was set. But since that R &B door was slammed
in her face. You found a window. A very different
kind of window. Theater. Specifically, Broadway.
She lands a role in the musical 13 at age 15.
She plays a character named Charlotte. It wasn't
the lead, right? She was a supporting character.
Yeah, right. But it got her to New York. It got
her professional discipline. You know, eight
shows a week. That's a grind. And that led directly
to the casting call that changed everything.
Nickelodeon's Victorious. Enter Cat Valentine.
The character that made her famous. And in some
ways, the character she spent the next decade
trying to kill. It's so interesting, though,
because Victorious was huge. It had the second
largest audience for a live action series on
Nickelodeon at the time. A massive hit. But she
wasn't the star. She wasn't. Victoria Justice
was the star. Ariana was the comedic relief,
the quirky sidekick. Which was probably a blessing
in disguise. How so? Well, being the funny sidekick
meant she didn't have to carry the pressure of
the show, but she stole every single scene she
was in. She was the breakout character. However,
we have to talk about the cost of that rule.
Let's talk about it. Specifically, the hair.
The red velvet cupcake hair. It was iconic. It
looks iconic in retrospect, but you have to understand,
she was required to bleach and dye her hair bright
red every other week. Every other week. For four
years straight. Wow. I read about this. By the
time the show wrapped, her natural hair was just
completely destroyed, like brittle and breaking
off. Exactly. It was fried. And this is where
the architect mindset kicks in. A normal person
would just wear a hat or cut it all off. She
didn't do that. No, she created a brand. She
started wearing extensions and pulling them into
that high, tight ponytail. It started as a necessity,
a way to hide the damage. But she turned it into
a silhouette. She turned it into a silhouette.
Think about how rare that is. You can identify
Ariana Grande just by her shadow. That ponytail
became her version of Mickey Mouse ears. It's
brand genius. It's brilliant branding born from
a complete hair disaster. But while she's filming
Victorious and then the spinoff Sam and Cat,
playing this dim -witted character. She's applauding
her escape. She's living a total double life.
She's doing the hustle. I mean, she's filming
all day, then going home, setting up a webcam
in her bedroom. And just belting out covers of
Adele and Mariah Carey. This was the golden age
of YouTube covers, remember? She wasn't waiting
for a label to give her permission. She was building
her own direct consumer fan base one video at
a time. And it worked. It actually worked. The
CEO of Republic Records, Monty Lipman, sees one
of the videos and suddenly the Nickelodeon girl
has a serious record deal. Which brings us to
2013 and her debut album, Yours Truly. And guess
what? She finally got to make that R &B album
she pitched when she was 14. It's such a fascinating
debut because it sounds nothing like what was
on the radio in 2013. The radio was just EDM,
Macklemore, blurred lines. Right. It was all
party music. And here comes Ariana. with a 1950s
doo -wop inspired R &B record. It sounded like
a lost Mariah Carey tape from 1991. It really
did. And that comparison, the new Mariah, was
the double -edged sword of her early career,
wasn't it? Absolutely. On one hand, it's the
highest compliment you can possibly pay a singer.
On the other hand, it kind of paints you as a
derivative act. Critics were basically saying,
OK, she has the range, she has the whistle notes,
but does she have her own identity? The way featuring
Mac Miller was the answer to that, I think. That
song was a hit, but it felt authentic. It didn't
feel like a Disney girl playing dress up. I agree.
It was a perfect blend of pop sensibility and
genuine R &B flavor. But if yours truly was the
introduction. The next album was The Takeover.
My everything in 2014. This is where she pivots
from R &B darling to global pop juggernaut. And
she did it by bringing in the heavy artillery.
She brought in Max Martin. For those who don't
know, maybe you can just explain the Max Martin
factor. Okay, so Max Martin is this Swedish producer
who is basically the secret architect behind
almost every number one pop hit since Britney's
Baby One More Time. He's a legend. He treats
music like math. It's all about formulas. Exactly.
Melody comes first every time. Lyrics are secondary.
It's about creating a sound that is chemically
addictive to the human brain. He engineered Ariana's
sound for maximum impact. And you hear it immediately.
This is the era of Problem, Break Free, Bang
Bang. Just monster hits, all of them. And the
statistics from that time are just ludicrous.
At one point, she had three singles in the top
ten of the Billboard Hot 100 simultaneously.
And the only other female lead artist to do that
up to that point. adele that's it that is the
rarefied air she stepped into at age 21. it's
insane but this is also where the image shifted
right yeah the floral dresses from the years
truly era were gone gone we got the knee -high
boots the cat ears the much sexier more adult
vibe it was a very deliberate distancing from
the teen idol persona she was signaling i am
an adult woman I am a sexual being and I am in
charge now. It's the classic pop star pivot,
but what's interesting is she did it without
the big rebellion phase. You know, she didn't
shave her head or get arrested. That's a great
point. No bangers era. No, she just put on higher
boots and sang louder. It was a transition based
on style, not scandal. And then came Dangerous
Woman in 2016. I always feel like this album
gets a little overlooked, but this was her earning
respect era. I agree. It was the maturation phase.
And the key moment here wasn't actually a song.
It was her hosting gig on Saturday Night Live.
Oh, the impression. She hosted in 2016, and she
did those musical impressions. Jennifer Lawrence,
Celine Dion, Shakira, Britney. That sketch went
viral instantly, like within minutes. Because
it revealed two very important things to the
general public. One, her voice is technically
limitless. She can mimic anyone, which means
she has total control of her instrument. And?
She is genuinely funny. She has great comedic
timing. It broke down that ice queen perception
that some people had of her. It humanized her.
Totally. And statistically, Dangerous Woman proved
she wasn't a flash in the pan. She became the
first artist in history to have the lead singles
from her first three albums all debut in the
top ten. That is just, it's pure consistency.
But then then, the narrative shatters. We reach
2017 and we have to talk about Manchester. May
22, 2017. The Dangerous Woman tour stops at Manchester
Arena. A suicide bomber attacks the venue as
people, mostly kids and teenagers, are leaving.
22 people killed, hundreds injured. It is. It's
unspeakable. There's no other word. It is the
kind of tragedy that ends careers. And not because
of any fault, but just because of the sheer emotional
weight of it. How do you go back on stage? After
your concert was the site of a massacre. Most
people wouldn't. They'd retreat. They'd disappear
for a year and nobody would blame them. But she
didn't hide. That's what astounds me. Two weeks
later, she's back in Manchester. The one love
Manchester benefit concert. And you have to understand,
this wasn't just a show. This was an incredible
logistical feat. Oh, the security alone must
have been a nightmare. Unbelievable security,
booking. She pulled together Coldplay, Justin
Bieber, Katy Perry, Miley Cyrus, all in two weeks.
And she raised $23 million for the families of
the victims. The city of Manchester named her
an honorary citizen. Yeah. Which I think is just
unprecedented for an American pop star. It showed
a level of leadership and grit that people honestly
just didn't know she had. But we also have to
acknowledge the personal cost. She has been very,
very open about the PTSD, the anxiety, the physical
toll that event took on her brain and her body.
And that trauma directly influenced the art that
came next, which leads us to Sweetener. In 2018.
Sweetener is such a fascinating album because
it's kind of anti -pop pop album. She linked
up with Pharrell Williams for a lot of it. And
if Max Martin does math. Pharrell is abstract
painting. Yes. The beats on Sweetener are weird.
They're stilted. They're minimal. They stop and
start. Exactly. The light is coming, has that
jittery, anxious energy built into the sample.
And a song like No Tears Left to Cry starts as
the soaring ballad. And then, bam, it flips into
a UK garage beat. It was her way of processing
the chaos in her head, right? The whole album
was about finding joy, the sweetener, in the
middle of a really bitter reality. And critics
loved it. It was a huge critical success. But
then something completely unprecedented happened.
This is where things get wild. Usually you tour
an album for a year, maybe two years. You milk
it for all it's worth. Ariana dropped Sweetener
in August 2018, and by February 2019, she had
already dropped an entirely new album. Thank
you. Next. The Imperial Phase. Okay, explain
that term for the listeners who might not have
heard it. The Imperial Phase is a term that was
coined by the musician Neil Tennant of the Pet
Shop Boys. It means that singular moment in an
artist's career where they have complete commercial
and creative dominance. They can do no wrong.
Everything they touch turns to platinum. Everything.
And the strategy for Thank U, Next was just,
it was wild. She told her team, I want to drop
music like a rapper. Which was a massive disruption
to the major label model. A huge disruption.
Usually you have a six -month rollout plan, radio
promo, magazine covers, press tours. She just
recorded songs and put them out. She was moving
at the speed of culture, not at the speed of
a marketing department. And the title track,
Thank You, Next. I remember exactly where I was
when that dropped. Everyone does. She literally
named her ex -boyfriends. Big Sean, Ricky Alvarez,
Pete Davidson, Mac Miller. In anyone else's hands,
that is a diss track. That is petty celebrity
drama. But she flipped the script completely.
She made it about gratitude. One taught me love.
One taught me patience. One taught me pain. It
wasn't look what you did to me. It was look what
I learned from you. It was a self -love anthem
disguised as celebrity gossip. It was genius.
And the commercial result was genuinely historic.
We have to be clear about this. February 2019.
The Billboard Hot 100. She held the number one,
the number two, and the number three spots simultaneously.
With seven rings, break up with your girlfriend
on board and thank you next. And the only other
act to ever do that in the history of the chart
was The Beatles in 1964. Let that sink in. The
Beatles. That's the company she's in. It's a
staggering comparison, but I want to point out
the difference in how it happened because it's
important. Okay. The Beatles did it with physical
singles and total radio dominance. Ariana did
it by basically hacking the streaming algorithm.
How so? Explain that. Look at a song like Seven
Rings. It starts with a hook from My Favorite
Things. which is instantly recognizable. It's
short under three minutes. The trap beat is repetitive
and hypnotic. It is engineered to be put on a
loop. So people weren't just listening to it
once? They were streaming it on repeat for hours.
It broke Spotify records for the fastest song
to hit 100 million streams because it was the
perfect streaming commodity. It was built for
the platform. That is such a key insight. She
wasn't just making good songs. She was making
content that fit the consumption model of the
era perfectly. She's the architect. Precisely.
So she ends the decade as arguably the biggest
pop star on the planet. But then 2020 hits. The
world shuts down the pandemic. Yeah. And we get...
Position. The quarantine album, and you can hear
the shift immediately. The world got smaller,
and so her music got more intimate. It's very
R &B, very string heavy. Very. It's about domestic
bliss. She was with Dalton Gomez at the time,
and the lyrics are all about being in the kitchen,
being in the bedroom. It wasn't about the club
anymore. The world had changed. But even in a
quiet, introspective era, she broke records.
Positions debuted at number one. making her the
first artist in history to have five number one
debuts on the Hot 100. She just keeps racking
up these first ever two svats. It's almost mundane
at this point. But I think the most important
thing about the Positions era was the vocal production.
This is where we need to get technical for a
second. Please, let's do it. Because I think
people hear her voice and just think, oh, natural
talent. But there's so much engineering involved.
Right. So Ariana Grande is a credited vocal producer
on her albums. That is a credit she fights for.
And she absolutely deserves it. She sits at the
computer with Pro Tools, you know, those huge
stacks of harmonies you hear in her songs where
it sounds like a literal choir of angels. The
choir of Arianas, yeah. She records those herself.
Every single note, she will layer 30, 40, 50
tracks of her own voice, harmonizing with herself
in intricate ways. She cuts them. She aligns
them. She adds the reverb. And Mac Miller taught
her how to do that. All right. He taught her
how to use the software and she apparently became
obsessed with it. So when you listen to a song
like POV, that rich, complex vocal texture, that
is her engineering skills at work, not just her
singing chops. That's amazing. It's like she's
the architect of the entire soundscape, not just
the singer standing in the booth. That's exactly
what it is. So we move through the pandemic.
She gets married. She launches REM Beauty, which
we'll definitely get to. But then the music.
Yeah. It just stops. for three years which is
a lifetime in pop years a long time and when
she comes back in 2024 with eternal sunshine
it feels different again eternal sunshine which
has been out for about two years now was a critical
peak for her she pivoted again this time to house
and dance music songs like yes and channeled
that whole vogue era madonna energy and we can't
be friends That synth pop sound was huge. It
was mature. It was sophisticated. And she played
the charts again, too. She released a deluxe
edition, Brighter Days Ahead, in 2025, specifically
to push the album back to number one a full year
after its release. She knows how to game the
system. But the reason for the hiatus wasn't
burnout. It wasn't writer's block. It was a different
dream. It was wicked. The green girl. Or, well,
the pink girl. Glinda. And this wasn't just a
casting offer someone gave her. She fought for
this role. Oh, she fought hard. She auditioned
five times. She basically stalked the producers
for the part. And we have to talk about the risk
she took here. It was a huge risk. She was at
the absolute peak of her pop powers. The imperial
phase wasn't that far behind her. And she walked
away to go to what was essentially movie set
boot camp for two years. And she changed her
name in the credits. To Ariana Grande Butera.
That was such a lovely touch. She saw the original
Wicked on Broadway when she was 10 years old.
She used her birth name then. Putting Butera
back in the credits was her way of saying, this
is for the 10 -year -old girl in the audience,
not the pop star. A full circle moment. But let's
talk about the voice again. Because if you listen
to the Wicked soundtrack, she does not sound
like the girl who sang Seven Rings. It's a different
person. Not at all. She completely deconstructed
and rebuilt her vocal technique. What does that
mean exactly? Okay, so in pop music, she uses
a lot of breathiness, a lot of vocal fry, and
a lower, more relaxed placement in the throat.
It's contemporary, it's cool. For Wicked, for
musical theater, she had to learn legit soprano
technique. Which means? Higher placement, more
forward resonance in the mask of the face, a
clear, rounded vibrato, and this is the most
important part, impeccable. diction the dixon
people used to joke that they needed subtitles
for her pop songs because she slurred her words
so much and that slurring was a stylistic choice
it's part of the r &b sound yeah but glinda the
good witch cannot mumble no she can't she spent
months with vocal coaches retraining her muscle
memory to enunciate every single consonant it's
like a world -class sprinter training to run
a marathon you're using a completely different
set of muscles and the result was a cultural
juggernaut Wicked part one grossed $759 million
worldwide. The highest grossing musical adaptation
of all time. And part two just solidified it.
She got the Oscar nomination for supporting actress.
She got the Grammy we mentioned at the start.
She proved that she isn't just a singer who can
act. She is an actress who can sing. There's
a difference. And now she's saying on podcasts
that she might want to stick with acting. That
she's, and I'm quoting, tired. of the pop star
machine and frankly can you blame her she's conquered
it i mean what is left for her to prove on the
hot 100 before we look at the future though we
have to look at the other empire the money because
ariana grande is a business titan let's talk
about the perfume because this is a master class
in product positioning and market understanding
celebrity perfumes are usually Well, let's be
honest. They're usually cheap, sugary water sold
at drugstores, or they're vanity projects that
lose money and disappear in a year. Right. But
Ariana's fragrance line has generated over $1
billion in global retail sales. $1 billion. And
the key to that insane success is a single scent
called Cloud. I see this bottle everywhere, the
little blue cloud shape. Okay, so here is the
genius of Cloud. In the luxury perfume world,
there is a very famous, very expensive scent
called Baccarat Rouge 540. It costs about $325
a bottle. Okay. It is the rich person's smell.
It's what every influencer and celebrity wears.
I got it. Ariana and her team created Cloud to
be a near identical dupe. a duplicate of Baccarat
Rouge 540, but they sold it at Ulta for $65.
Oh, that is smart. That is so smart. It is brilliant
value engineering. She didn't just sell her name.
She democratized a luxury product. People weren't
just buying it because they were her fans. They
were buying it because it smelled like a $300
product for a fraction of the price. So it had
value outside of her brand. Exactly. That is
why it was selling one bottle every 11 seconds
at its peak in 2022. That is the inside I was
looking for. It wasn't just fandom. It was a
market arbitrage. She found a gap and exploited
it. Precisely. And that success gave her the
leverage on the Capitol to launch R .E .M. Beauty
in 2021. And unlike some other celebrity brands
that just slap a logo on generic formulas, she
was very specific. What was her focus? She focused
on high margin, specific items like highlighters
and lip oils that fit her personal aesthetic.
She partnered with Ulta again, driving massive
foot traffic into their stores. It's a very well
-oiled machine. It really is. But looking at
her personal life, she's also made some very
deliberate moves to protect herself from that
machine. In 2021, she just deleted Twitter. Which
was a massive deal at the time. She was the queen
of Twitter interaction. Her fans lived for it.
But she called it toxic and she walked away.
And she was right. It was a mental health move.
She realized that that kind of direct access
to millions of people, to their opinions and
their criticisms, creates a feedback loop that
is impossible to manage emotionally. She set
a boundary, a very public one. She did. And she's
kept it. She uses Instagram and TikTok to broadcast,
but she doesn't engage in the weeds anymore.
It's a much safer, more controlled way to interact
with her fame. And she uses that massive platform
for advocacy, too. We can't ignore that part
of her story. No, absolutely not. Her support
for the LGBTQ plus community is foundational
to her brand and her personal life. Her brother
Frankie is gay. And she famously left the Catholic
Church because of their stance on it. And she
puts her money where her mouth is. She does.
She pledged to match $1 .5 million for a fund
protecting trans youth. She's politically active,
endorsing Biden and Harris. She uses her platform
for more than just selling products. So here
we are, February 2026. She's won the Grammy for
a Broadway song. Wicked is a historic success.
She has the billion dollar business empire. What
is next? Well, in the immediate future, she has
to go back to work. The Eternal Sunshine tour
kicks off in June. Her first tour since 2019.
That is going to be a very emotional moment for
fans who've been waiting for years. It will be
a victory lap, a celebration of the last three
albums and the entire Wicked era. The ticket
demand is going to be astronomical. It's going
to break records. But after the tour. You mentioned
she's filming a new season of American Horror
Story. Yes. Season 13, filming this spring, and
then the big one, the real pivot. She has signed
on to star in a revival of Sunday in the Park
with George on stage in London in 2027. Sondheim.
Sondheim. That is serious, serious musical theater.
That is not pop music. That's a whole other level
of difficulty and prestige. That is the move
of someone who wants a Tony Award to put next
to her Grammy. So let me pose this final question
to you then. We've watched Ariana Grande conquer
the teen sitcom. We've watched her conquer the
Billboard charts. We've watched her conquer the
beauty counter. And now she's conquered the cinema.
She has. With this clear shift towards Sondheim
and more serious acting, are we witnessing the
end of Ariana the pop star? Was the imperial
phase just a stepping stone to get here? Are
we looking at the beginning of Ariana the ego
pin contender? I think the answer is unequivocally
yes. She has the Grammys, she has the Oscar nomination,
and a win is very possible in her future. She's
heading to the London stage for the Tony. Finding
a strong Emmy project, maybe American Horror
Story, maybe something else, is well within her
reach. So the ponytail's retired. I think the
ponytail pop star is retired. The artist Ariana
Grande Butera is just getting started. I would
not bet against her. It's going to be fascinating
to watch. Thanks for unpacking all of this with
us. Always a pleasure. And thank you for listening.
We'll see you on the next deep dive.