“No Tears Left to Cry”

Making something joyful out of tragedy is no easy feat, but Ariana Grande has done it before. After a homemade bomb killed 22 people during the Manchester stop of her Dangerous Woman tour last year, the singer organized a massive benefit concert for the victims in less than two weeks. Grande closed out her set that night with a cover of “Over the Rainbow”; by the end, she was crying, along with most of the audience. Almost a year later, a rainbow prism softly illuminates her face in the artwork for “No Tears Left to Cry,” her first single since the attack.

You might expect “No Tears” to be some kind of somber ballad, and that’s how it begins. But then, as Grande sings, “Ain’t got no tears left to cry/So I’m pickin’ it up, pickin’ it up,” the percussion shuffles into a UK garage-inspired beat, another little nod to Manchester. Suddenly, we’re right in Grande’s sweet spot: soaring diva house. It’s a natural step in the direction the more upbeat moments of her catalog have been heading, from the climactic EDM balladry of 2014’s “One Last Time” to 2016’s “Be Alright,” which saw Grande dipping her toes into slick, Disclosure-style two-step. But on “No Tears,” she takes it all the way there and the results are superb, evoking turn-of-the-millennium, vocal-led garage buoyed by the kind of gospel delivery that Grande pulls off better than any of her pop peers. It’s striking in its optimism: the soundtrack for the exact moment you decide to keep going.