Ariana Grande dropped her latest single and video, “Boyfriend,” in the very early hours of the weekend. And the song is—shocker—a completely undeniable bop.
The track features the duo Social House, who are currently opening for Grande on her Sweetner tour. They’ve got some major songwriting credits under their belt, including on Grande’s “Thank U, Next” and “7 Rings,” and “Boyfriend” marks their third single as performers.
Like many of her recent efforts, “Boyfriend” is an effortlessly hooky R&B-pop hybrid. Lyrically, the single captures that torturous liminal phase in relationships, before boundaries and definitions have been set in stone, but when feelings are still very much on the line. “You ain’t my boyfriend, and I ain’t your girlfriend,” sings Grande, “but you don’t want me to see nobody else, and I don’t want you to see nobody.”
It also marks a departure from the untouchably confident persona Grande cultivated on recent hits like “Thank U, Next,” and “Break Up with Your Girlfriend, I’m Bored,” making it a thoroughly relatable ode to petty jealousy. “I’m a motherfucking trainwreck,” she sings in the song’s blunt opening line.
“We wanted to make something uplifting that captures that feeling of being afraid to take the leap & trust, being afraid of being hurt or feeling like you won’t be enough for that person,” wrote Grande on Twitter when asked what inspired the song, “but also how it feels to have a crippling crush on someone.”
And the accompanying video, in which Foster plays Grande’s titular love interest, is almost as fun as the track. In it, Ariana daydreams about delivering bow-and-arrow wounds to potential competitors for his affections, and Foster envisions himself ripping the beating heart out of the chest of a dude Grande was flirting with, à la Dumb and Dumber.
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