There are just two words on every pop fan’s lips today: Ariana Grande.
On Friday (20 April) she released the lead single from her upcoming fourth album, ‘No Tears Left To Cry’, with its accompanying music video, and we’re already completely hooked.
But while the song has captured everyone’s attention, it seems certain references in the music video may have passed certain fans by.
Here are just six things you might have missed...
Dave Meyers
The video opens with a twirling skyline, surrounding Ariana’s name and the title of the song. Following this, director Dave Meyers gets a shout-out, before the energetic video kicks off.
Dave Meyers is a much-celebrated music video director, responsible for lavish and elaborate clips including Justin Timberlake’s ‘Supplies’, SZA’s ‘Drew Barrymore’ and HuffPost’s video of 2017, Kendrick Lamar’s ‘HUMBLE.’.
Ariana has worked with Dave Meyers once before, on the video for her cover of the title song from ‘Beauty And The Beast’, which featured John Legend.
A throwback to her first ever music video
Intentional or not, the umbrella dance sequence in the ‘No Tears Left To Cry’ video has put a lot of fans in mind of Ariana’s first ever music video for ‘Put Your Hearts Up’, which followed her success on the Nickelodeon show, ‘Victorious’.
However, it would be a bit of a surprise if the reference were intentional, as Ariana has bemoaned the ‘Put Your Hearts Up’ video - recorded when she was still a teenager - on several occasions.
In 2014, she told Rolling Stone: “That was the worst moment of my life. For the video, they gave me a bad spray tan and put me in a princess dress and had me frolic around the street. The whole thing was straight out of hell. I still have nightmares about it, and I made them hide it on my Vevo page.”
Still, as she enters a new phase of her career and officially joins the top ranks of contemporary, what better time to throw back to her first ever video?
A mystery tracklisting
You may have been distracted by Ariana literally taking off her face and laying it on the floor, but at that point in the video, scraps of paper reveal a “tracklisting”, presumably for her upcoming fourth album.
While one tracklisting is scribbled out so it’s illegible - a hint at a cancelled album, perhaps? - other pages in the shot feature messages like “God is a woman” (which is also underlined three times), “sweetener” and “breathing”, alluding to potential future song titles.
The word “R.E.M.” is also written down, which could easily be the name of a new song about disturbed sleep, or a hint that a cover of ‘Everybody Hurts’ could be on the horizon.
Or, of course, the whole thing could be a red herring. Watch this space.
Toulouse
At the end of the video, Ariana - after going through the chaos of the three-minute video - is seen symbolically returning to normal, by throwing something for her dog, still technically on another plain, to catch.
As many fans have pointed out on social media, the dog in the clip is Ariana’s Beagle-Chihuahua mix, Toulouse, who she adopted in 2013.
The Manchester reference
The final shot of the ‘No Tears Left To Cry’ video features a bee, which became a symbol of solidarity in the wake of the Manchester bombing, which took the lives of 22 people at an Ariana Grande concert last year.
Ariana’s efforts in the wake of the terror attack were celebrated at the time, even earning her honorary citizenship from Manchester council, while she and the crew from her ‘Dangerous Woman’ tour all got tattoos of bees in memory of those who were killed in the bombing.
Watch the video in full below: