The Popularity of Ariana Grande

She went from musical theater kid to Nickelodeon star to famous singer in the past 15 years, and now Ariana Grande has kind of gone full circle back to her musical theater beginnings because now she is starring in the 2024 film adaptation of Wicked and finally playing her dream role Glinda. While her first love was always singing and her recent mainstream popularity can be attributed to her music career, the young soprano with the whistle register would likely not have gotten this far in her career if not for her acting roles on screen.

Ariana Grande was born in Boca Raton, Florida in 1993. Not only did she sing from a very young age but she sang in front of a big audience from a very young age, belting out “The Star-Spangled Banner” at the Florida Panthers home game against the Chicago Blackhawks at the age of eight. She also acted from a young age, starring in stage productions of The Wizard of Oz, Beauty and the Beast and Annie, later reaching the Broadway stage when she played a cheerleader in the musical 13.

Even at this age Grande had a lot of ambition, eventually moving to L.A. to grow both her singing career and her acting career, and a year after she got cast in 13, she was discovered by Nickelodeon and got cast as ditzy airhead Cat Valentine in the teen sitcom Victorious (2010-13) which became a huge hit with young viewers. So much so that she and Jennette McCurdy reprised their roles in the spin-off series Sam & Cat (2013-14).

Although Grande’s main dream was still to be a singer, and after the first season of Victorious wrapped she continued to pursue that dream and eventually got signed by Republic Records after they discovered her YouTube videos. Technically the first album that featured her singing was the Victorious soundtrack, but her first actual single was “Put Your Hearts Up” (2011) which was a little too bubblegum poppy for her taste and she later distanced herself from that sound. This was followed two years later by her first solo album Yours Truly (2013) which had more of the R&B flavor that Grande desired and was influenced and inspired by a variety of genres and artists who Grande admires like Whitney Houston and Amy Whinehouse. Ariana Grande fans made that album a success and even serious music critics praised the album.

This was followed by a winning streak of both commercial success and positive reviews for her albums My Everything (2014), Dangerous Woman (2016), Sweetener (2018), Thank U, Next (2019), Positions (2020) and culminating in the release of Eternal Sunshine (2024), which was seen as the apex of her maturity and sophistication as a recording artist. All the while she is achieving huge success with hit singles like “Problem,” “Break Free,” “Bang Bang,” “Side to Side,” “God Is a Woman,” and “7 Rings” and even collaborating with fellow musicians like Babyface, Iggy Azalea, The Weeknd, Nicki Minaj, Lil Wayne, Future, Megan Thee Stallion and Mariah Carey. Younger singing sensations like Billie Eilish and Chappell Roan have even cited Grande as influential to their own careers in music.

One thing about Ariana Grande is that she is a very hands-on creator and collaborator to an almost perfectionist degree when it comes to her vocal performance as well as the presentation of her album, the visuals, the storytelling and even the sound engineering, which tells you everything about how passionate she is about her music. Although following the 2024 release of Eternal Sunshine, she revealed in a podcast that she would likely scale back on her pop music career to focus more on her acting career.