Song: ‘Yes, And?’
Artist: Ariana Grande
US chart peak: 1
Release date: January 12, 2024
Writers: Ariana Grande, Max Martin, Ilya
Producers: Ariana Grande, Max Martin, Ilya
Quintessential Max moment: The way it glides out of the middle eight into the final chorus flexes.
Video synopsis: Cynical journalist convention meets Pottery Throwdown meets Paula Abdul.

It’s been a funny old time ‘vis-a-vis’ Max Martin: hitmaker. His recent collaborations with previously surefire chart catnip – Pink and Ed Sheeran – both failed to take flight, while teaming up with Spinal Tap-esque Italian rockers Måneskin and beautifully coiffured newcomer-ish Conan Gray was never going to trouble the upper reaches of the Billboard Hot 100 (side note: the two Max x Conan songs are genuinely excellent and prove we live in an unjust world). There’s still a sense that post-& Juliet, which recently opened on Broadway, Max has been favouring work that feels slightly out of his comfort zone. Certainly working with Måneskin seems like a callback to his own rock roots, an itch that perhaps wasn’t fully scratched via his 2021 collaboration with notorious hellraisers Coldplay (he’s apparently involved in their next album too).

Speaking of Chris Martin ‘et al’, it was their BTS collaboration ‘My Universe‘ that last saw Max troubling the Hot 100 when it crashed in at number 1 in September 2021, a month after The Weeknd’s ‘Take My Breath‘ peaked at number 6 and his ‘Save Your Tears‘ x Ariana Grande remix also topped the chart. A big year in the Max household and no mistake. But since then there’s been chart tumbleweed. Pink’s saccharine 00s throwback ‘Never Gonna Not Dance Again‘ skated to, er, number 99, while even surefire Billboard resident Ed Sheeran only made number 19 with session leftover ‘Eyes Closed‘. There was a recent Emmy win for his work on Sheeran’s Ted Lasso soundtrack single, ‘A Beautiful Game’, but everyone outside of whichever academy makes up the Emmys seems to have forgotten it existed. With Taylor Swift returning to full cultural dominance, but without Max (let’s ignore the ‘1989 (Taylor’s Version)’ rereleases given they’re essentially covers produced by someone else), and with newer pop acts finding it harder to break through outside of TikTok viral flukes, these are unsettled times for both Max and Maxopedia.

BUT there is hope on the horizon in the shape of vocal gymnast and top tier pony tail practitioner, Ariana Grande. After ditching Max & co for her last album, 2020’s soft-focus bedroom soundtrack ‘Positions’, she returns to the mothership for this lead single from her forthcoming seventh album, ‘Eternal Sunshine’. The gayest thing Ariana’s done since ‘Break Free‘, ‘Yes, And?’ wraps a defiant lyric about owning who you are and moving on around a featherlight house confection that feels like its gently urging you onto the dancefloor but only if you’re comfortable with that. There are elements of 90s Madonna in there, and not just ‘Vogue’ (early rumours suggested there was a sample) but ‘Up Down Suite’ too. In fact, there is the sophisticated whiff of producer Shep Pettibone throughout, while of course it shares a sonic universe with Beyoncé’s 2022 hit, the equally defiant ‘Break My Soul’. Here’s a very good Spotify playlist made by the lovely Vasilis of songs that sit in ‘And, Yes”s ‘sonic world’.

Lyrically, the song shimmies from generalities to very specific reads. Things start gently, with the first verse keeping things universal – “In case you haven’t noticed / Well, everybody’s tired / And healing from somebody / Or something we don’t see just right” goes the painfully real opening lyric – before urging us all to put our lipstick on and carry on being exactly who we are, warts and all, thank you very much.

It’s in the second verse where Ariana switches to the first person (“I’m so done with caring”), before the excellent spoken word middle eight goes full Notes app statement by referencing her failed marriage, her apparent new beau and the recent faux concern/gossip about her body. It’s a a barbed statement delivered in such a sweet way that it’s almost disarming. Even hearing the phrase “say that shit with your chest” in the chorus delivered with the softness of a yoga instructor whispering in your ear makes your head feel a bit funny. But it works because it chimes so well with who Ariana seems to be now; gone are the haphazard Twitter Q&As poured over by gossips, or the Instagram side-eye, or the donut licking, replaced instead by a person removed from the drama (and there’s always drama with Ariana – yes, and?) in the hope of keeping an iota of sanity. ‘Yes, And?’ feels like a balm, both to those listening but most importantly for herself.

Musically, ‘Yes, And?’ doesn’t feel particularly Max. It’s certainly a step away from the 80s electro-pop of ‘Blinding Lights’ and the shadow that song has cast over pop ever since (side note: it recently passed 4bn streams on Spotify! FOUR. BILLION. STREAMS). He’s dabbled in dance before of course, but typically a little more turbo-charged, and there are elements of ‘Yes, And?’ that feel like they break the rules of melodic math. On first listen especially, the chorus is almost indiscernible from the verses; the song doesn’t build towards an apex as such, but rather it has little moments that pop throughout. On further listens it starts to show itself more. The pre-chorus reveals itself to be just as catchy as the chorus, which creates melodic hooks in the way it stops and starts – that gap between “yes” and “and” is delicious. My only gripe, and maybe this is just me, is that Ariana’s excellent ad-libs over the final chorus feel like they’ve been recorded using a potato. Or mixed using one. Is it just me? I want them to be clearer!

‘And, yes?’, thanks to a mixtape’s worth of remixes, crashed into the charts at number 1, becoming Ariana’s eighth and Max’s 26th (!) chart-topper in America. It also means Max now solely holds the record for producing the most US number 1 singles. Let’s see how many more ‘Eternal Sunshine’ singles Max etc are involved in, and if his tally of 77 top 10s can keep growing. The Weeknd should be back soo too, so after a few years of (relative) radio silence, 2024 could be a bumper year.