her first release, pulled from her own channel, and the only song in the catalogue she has publicly said she has nightmares about.
the short answer
put your hearts up, released on 12 december 2011, was her first single and was intended as the lead single of her debut album. she has said publicly that it felt inauthentic and fake, that she has nightmares about it, and that she particularly disliked making the video. it was dropped as the lead single in favour of the way, and she asked for the video to be removed from her channel.
what it is
a bubblegum pop song with a doo-wop-adjacent arrangement and a lyric about making the world better, interpolating what's up? by 4 non blondes. it was released in december 2011, while she was on victorious, and it is exactly what a record label does with an eighteen-year-old nickelodeon actor who can sing.
what she has said about it
more than she has said about almost any other record in her catalogue, and none of it good. she has described it as inauthentic and fake, said she has nightmares about it, and been especially direct about the video — a bright, primary-coloured shoot she has said she hated making. she asked for it to be taken down from her own channel and it was.
what replaced it
the way, with mac miller, in march 2013. yours truly arrived that august with a completely different sound — doo-wop and nineties r&b rather than bubblegum — and put your hearts up is not on it.
the gap between the two singles is fifteen months, and what happened in it is the whole point of this page: an eighteen-month argument, largely invisible from outside, about what kind of record she was going to make. she won it, and the evidence that she won it is that her debut album does not contain her debut single.
where to hear it
it is still on streaming services — a label can remove a video from an artist's channel more easily than it can withdraw a released recording. it is not on the catalogue pages here, which follow the released albums.
it is worth two minutes if you have never heard it, purely as a control. play it against tattooed heart from eighteen months later and the difference is not that she got better at singing. she was always able to sing. the difference is that somebody stopped choosing the songs for her.
questions people ask
what was ariana grande's first single?
put your hearts up, released on 12 december 2011, before her debut album.
why did ariana grande disown put your hearts up?
she has said it felt inauthentic and fake, that she has nightmares about it, and that she especially disliked filming the video.
is put your hearts up on yours truly?
no. it was dropped as the lead single and does not appear on the album, which is led by the way instead.
can you still listen to put your hearts up?
yes, on streaming services. the video was removed from her own channel at her request.
what does put your hearts up sample?
it interpolates what's up? by 4 non blondes, from 1993.