Happy Monday everyone! Let’s talk about some music.

Each Music Monday will be formatted as followed: an overview/ my opinion on their said career, followed by the ranking of their top 5 songs. No artist is without flaws, their worst three songs will also be judged and ripped to shreds.

As a reminder, this is not going to be a series where I list no-name songs off an artist’s shitty second album that’ll you’ll hear occasionally in an urban coffee shop. We only grade hits here. I’m not looking for songs that have the best underlying message. I’m not looking for songs that represent the artist’s struggle and triumph over something shitty that happened to them. I don’t care about any of that. We are only ranking the cream of the crop, the pinnacle of an artist’s success. Before you ask, I will not be ranking Beyonce’s songs, as I do not want to tarnish my blog with overrated garbage. If you have a problem with that, or my rankings, and want to make your criticisms known, you can email all of your concerns to VinnieWontCheckThis@gmail.com. Prior versions of this series can be found here.

So with that, let’s get started.

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Ariana Grande-Butera was born on June 26, 1993, in Boca Raton, Florida to Joan Grande and Edward Butera.

When I first started thinking of doing this series Ariana’s name was the first fifth name that came to mind as someone that I can really dig deep in the weeds about. She’s the biggest pop star in the game right now. As a man who watched her work on that pedophile Dan Schneider’s show, Victorious, I have really been invested in Ari’s career from the very beginning. Sure, she was forced to dye her hair red once a week because Schneider didn’t want all the females on the show to be brunette. She also had to play a supporting role/back up singer to the less talented Victoria Justice, but it gave her exposure. Victoria Justice had to walk so Ariana can sprint, it’s just something we all have to accept.For those who don’t believe I was an Ari fan day one, I was there when she released “Put Your Hearts Up” in the summer of 2011 which was so bad that Ariana herself would later disown. You can listen here but full disclosure, it is a full blown STINKER. Despite this, my confidence and fandom never wavered, and I was rewarded for staying by my girl over the next couple years. Her debut album, Yours Truly was fine, but if you listen to that now you would have never thought she’d be as big as she has. It wasn’t until her second album, My Everything that she really came into her own. She embraced pop music and created an identity for herself; she was a girl with a huge ponytail that had a vocal range not seen since Mariah Carey. It was at this point that her star became bright, and she took off like a rocket ship. Dangerous Woman, Sweetener, & thank u, next were all huge releases, and regardless of your thoughts on those albums, they had HITS. So with that said, let’s rank these hits, starting with the best.

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5. 7 rings: This song is different than your typical Ari song but it also shows you how powerful she is. She turned the Sound of Music into a hoe anthem. There are very few artists who can make white girls shopping at the clearance rack of Forever 21 feel like they are on top of the world. Ariana showed the world that she for sure wears AirPods.

4. Side to Side (ft. Nicki Minaj): Any song with a Nicki feature pretty much guarantees that the song will be a hit, and this song is no exception. This song is really enjoyable as long as your name isn’t Edward Butera. You think I’m going to omit this song after the iconic ‘dick bicycle’ line? Absolutely not.

3. Break Free (ft. Zedd): I’ve long been in the camp that Ariana needs to team up with more EDM artists. She has the talent and the range to take a good beat and turn it into a great song. This song gets the blood flowing, gets you hype. This song slaps.

2. God is a woman: I am a man and I am trash. I was going to use this time to talk about how powerful of a song this is, then I watched the song’s music video as I prepared this blog. I am suddenly lost for words. She legit fingered a hurricane in the video. It blew me away.

1. Into You: This is a pop masterpiece. It is a perfectly crafted song. I am so thankful to be alive for the birth of this spectacular song. It incorporates everything Ariana is as an artist. The chorus? Sweet mother of Jesus the chorus is fantastic. This song is GOES.

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While those songs all rock, Ari does have some stinkers, I’m a pretty positive guy, but these songs are going to bring out the worst in me.

3. thank u, next: Is this one of Ariana’s worst songs? No, but it is her most overrated by a mile. It shouldn’t have gotten all the praise and attention it did. Jesus did not die on the cross for you to put “Thank u, next” as your Instagram caption on a thirst trap you posted because Kyle went to do coke with the boys on his Phi Psi formal instead of hanging out with you. Get over yourself.

(the video is sweet though)

2. Everyday (ft. Future): The only reason this song was released as a single is because Future is on it and she probably wanted to get a different demographic to listen to her music. There are so many better songs off of Sweetener that she could have gone with as a single but she went with whatever this is. People wanted Bad Decisions to be the fourth single off the album, well, be careful what you wish for. (if you’re a big Ariana fan and understand that joke you should know I’m proud of it… BA. DA. BING)

1. The Light Is Coming (ft. Nicki Minaj): Everything I said about Side to Side goes out the window with this song. This song is a car wreck. Noise pollution at its finest. It’s even more depressing when you learn that Pharrell produced it.

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This ranking was tough; there were some difficult omissions that I had to make. She has quite a few songs that I can easily see sliding into the top 5 on any given day, really just depending on my mood. Dangerous Woman, Love Me Harder, No Tears Left to Cry all have a legit claim to a top 5 spot. I didn’t even consider Bang Bang for these rankings since it’s technically a feature but just know that song fucks as well.

Unpopular opinion, Ariana Grande makes great music. There I said it.