"The Boy Is Mine" is a song by American singer-songwriter Ariana Grande from her seventh studio album, Eternal Sunshine (2024). It was written by Grande, Max Martin, Shintaro Yasuda, and Davidior.

Background

An unreleased song by Grande entitled "Fantasize" by fans was leaked in full to Spotify in 2023. Recorded in 2021, Grande said that the song was a demo that was not intended to be released as a single by her and that she wrote it for a comedy sketch about a girl group that ultimately was not released. Upon learning of the leak, she commented under a TikTok video that she was disheartened and asked people to stop spreading the leaks. ^[2]

"Fantasize" received positive fan reception, inspiring Grande to include elements of the song in her seventh studio album, Eternal Sunshine (2024). During an interview about the album, Grande referred to "The Boy Is Mine" as her version of "Fantasize" and stated about her leaked songs "although you’ve heard them — because you stole them — they're very different now." ^{[3] [4]}

Music and lyrics

"The Boy Is Mine" is two minutes and 53 seconds long. ^[5] As intended by Grande when creating the parent's album tracklist, the song follows and plays off the same idea of the album's seventh track, "True Story", playing the role the media expects her to play. ^[6] The song is described as an R&B song ^[1] with bass-heavy instrumentation ^[7] echoing late 90's and early 2000's R&B music. ^[8]

Grande described "The Boy Is Mine" as a reimagining of the similarly titled 1998 single by Brandy and Monica, which was about two women fighting over the affection of one man. ^{[9] [10]} She was inspired by her fans' appreciation for "Fantasize" because of what she called its "bad bitch" energy, and she told Zane Lowe during an Apple Music 1 interview: "there is a large group of my fans that really do love a bad girl anthem, and this is an elevated version of that." ^[11] In the lyrics, Grande expresses her affection for a man with whom she believes she is destined to be in a romance. ^[11]

Critical reception

The song received positive reviews from music critics upon release of the parent album. In a ranking of tracks from the parent album, Kyle Denis of Billboard ranked the song at number four in a track ranking of the album. Denis received the song positively, noting its tongue-in-cheek nature and the '90s R&B sound similar to "Fantasize". ^[12] Rolling Stone called the song a "late Nineties, early Aughts, R&B-pop moment" also commenting on the fact that the song might bring controversy amongst rumors involving Grande and Ethan Slater. ^[13] Jem Aswad of Variety called the song "comparatively sprightly" and felt the song was an outlier amongst the rest of the album. ^[14] Laura Snappes of The Guardian referred to the song as " trap- Aaliyah hauteur", also calling it "possessive". ^[15] Poppie Platt of The Daily Telegraph claimed the song stands on its own against the  song of the same name, describing as a "silky ode to love and lust". ^[16] Lindsay Zoladz of The New York Times described it as "a lusty song about a forbidden crush" and likened its "stuttering" percussion to that of the boy-bands Max Martin has worked with before. ^[17]

Credits

Recording

• Mixed at Mixstar Studios ( Virginia Beach)
• Mastered at Sterling Sound (New York City)

Personnel

• Ariana Grande – vocals, lyrics, composition, production
• Max Martin – lyrics, production, composition, drums, keyboards, bass, programming, background vocals
• Ilya Salmanzadeh – production, composition, drums, keyboards, bass, programming, background vocals
• Shintaro Yasuda – production, keyboards, drums, programming
• Davidior – production, drums, programming
• Sam Holland – engineering
• Lou Carrao – engineering
• Eric Eylands – engineering assistance
• Rob Sellens – engineering assistance
• Randy Merrill – mastering
• Serban Ghenea – mixing
• Bryce Bordone – mixing assistance

Charts

References