Ariana Grande's debut album, Yours Truly, put her on the map as a whistle note powerhouse, taking her away from the ditzy characters on Nickelodeon and into music stardom, and now she is celebrating the 10th anniversary of that very album.
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Curating a weeks worth of events, Ariana has reissued Yours Truly with six new live versions of some of the album's tracks, merchandise, behind-the-scenes footage, two Q&A sessions via TikTok where she dove in and got candid about the making of this project.
The 30-year-old singer confessed that Yours Truly was almost named something else. “I couldn’t decide,” she revealed. “I really liked ‘Honeymoon Avenue’ as the title, and then I really liked ‘Daydreamin.’ I just wanted it to be sort of like a love letter, an introduction to the world. And how you sign a love letter type thing is ‘yours truly.’ It just felt like, ‘Here I am,'” she admitted.
If going back in time was possible, there are a few songs that she wishes she would have made singles in addition to “The Way” featuring Mac Miller, “Baby I” and “Right There” featuring Big Sean. She shared “‘Honeymoon Avenue’ and ‘You’ll Never Know,’ for sure, I think ‘You’ll Never Know’ would’ve been such a fun single.”
And speaking of her hit collab with Mac Miller, she revealed that her and Miller shot the music video without her record label knowing. “We had no budget, didn’t even tell the label we were gonna do it, made it ourselves,” she said. “We said, ‘Listen, we have a camera, we have a projector, we have music, we have balloons, we got dancers,'” and by the time the label was ready to shoot a video for it she had told them, "Oh, we already did it."
In the spirit of transparency, Ari shared some advice she'd give her 20-year-old self at the time she was working on Yours Truly: “Stay present, and don’t be afraid to say no when you are running on empty and they are sending you around. Don’t be afraid to say no when you need rest.”
If the roles were reversed, she said “I would want Yours Truly Ari to say to Positions Ari, ‘Don’t let go of me,‘" she added, "'Don’t let them make you apologetic or want to shrink yourself. You know what you’re doing. Don’t listen to anybody who you don’t trust or respect or know doesn’t love you.'”
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