The Way (Ariana Grande song)
"The Way" is a song by American singer Ariana Grande, featuring American rapper Mac Miller. It was released on March 26, 2013 by Republic Records as the lead single from her debut studio album Yours Truly (2013). The song was written by Amber Streeter, Al Sherrod Lambert, Jordin Sparks, Brenda Russell, Miller, and the producer Harmony Samuels. The song samples Big Pun's 1998 song "Still Not a Player", which itself samples Russell's 1979 song "A Little Bit of Love".[5][6]
"The Way"
- English
- Spanish
March 26, 2013
February 2013
- 3:46 (Original and Spanglish version)
- 3:10 (Solo version)
Harmony Samuels
"The Way" peaked at number nine on the US Billboard Hot 100, making it Grande and Miller's first top 10 song on the chart. "The Way" was eventually certified triple platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) for selling over three million units in the United States. An accompanying music video was directed by Jones Crow, and released on March 28, 2013. It depicts Grande and Miller dancing inside a room covered in balloons, as Miller takes several photographs of Grande.
Promotion and release[edit]
Grande created online buzz in the weeks leading up to her single's release through social media. She first tweeted about "The Way" on March 5, 2013, stating that the song would be released later that month.[12] On March 13, 2013, she announced the release date.[13] She posted a teaser trailer for both the song and the music video on her YouTube account on March 16, 2013,[14] then shared a second teaser on March 21, 2013.[15]
In the later half of March, Grande went on a radio tour across the United States, focusing on some of the most popular Top 40 stations in the country. She visited both Y-100 Miami and 93.3 FM on March 18, 2013, for interviews. The next day she went on Elvis Duran and the Morning Show[16][17] and attended a release party thrown by Z100, where she spoke to fans about her music.[18] On March 25, 2013, she visited KIIS-FM for an interview with JoJo Wright.[19] She visited 99-7 Now on March 29, 2013.[20] "The Way" debuted on On Air with Ryan Seacrest on March 25, 2013.[21]
An official R&B remix for "The Way" was released on July 11, 2013, which features American rapper Fabolous adding two verses.[22]
Commercial performance[edit]
Following its release, "The Way" sold over 120,000 digital downloads within the first 48 hours and 219,000 in its first week.[9][29] It debuted at number 10 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart for the week ending April 5, 2013, becoming Grande and Miller's first top-ten hit. This made Grande the first top-ten arrival for a lead female artist making her first Hot 100 appearance since Yael Naim, who launched with "New Soul" back in 2008.[29] The song dropped to number 22 during its second week on the chart, and then to number 37. As radio stations gave it more attention, the song gradually rebounded, eventually peaking at number 9 for two weeks.[30] "The Way" spent 26 weeks in the Billboard Hot 100 chart. The Spanglish version of "The Way" reached number 5 on Billboard's Latin Pop Songs chart on the week ending August 24, 2013.[4] On July 30, 2014, "The Way" was certified triple platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America for sales and streaming data in excess of three million units in the United States.[31] As of June 2020, the song has sold over 2.4 million copies in the United States.[32]
Copyright infringement lawsuit[edit]
On December 11, 2013, Minder Music filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against Grande, Sony/ATV, UMG Recording and other parties. It claimed that the line "What we gotta do right here is go back, back into time", which is spoken in the introduction to "The Way", infringes its copyright in the 1972 single "Troglodyte" by The Jimmy Castor Bunch, which contains the spoken lyric, "What we're gonna do right here is go back, way back, back into time".[33]
The suit argued that the songs' similarities include "nearly identical lyrics; similar enunciation speed with a fast and consistent pace for "What we gotta do right" and a slightly slower pace for "here is go back," and substantially similar placement" at the beginning of both songs.[33] Minder Music sought a permanent injunction, statutory damages of $150,000 per infringement, and legal fees.[33][34] The case was settled outside of court in 2015.[35]
Music video[edit]
The music video for "The Way" was filmed on February 10 and 11, 2013. On March 16, 2013, the first teaser for the song was released via her YouTube page.[36][37][38] The second teaser was released on Ryan Seacrest's website two days later, and later on Grande's page.[39] The video was released on March 28, 2013. Directed by Jones Crow, the video consists of Grande, Miller, and a group of dancers. Grande poses for pictures taken by Miller on various cameras, while dancing around a room filled with balloons and their images are projected on the wall. At the end of the video, Miller and Grande kiss, which Grande described as "quite a statement" of growing up.[9] The video was Vevo-certified on October 2, 2013, having reached 100 million views.[40] As of August 2020, the music video has over 400 million views on YouTube.[41]
Live performances[edit]
Grande debuted the live performance of "The Way" with "multi-octave pipes" on the May 29, 2013, episode of The Ellen DeGeneres Show. Miller was invited on stage before he snuggled on Grande and kissed her hand, as Rap-Up staff opined that the performance was "fun and flirty".[42] Grande and Miller also performed the song together on the June 15, 2013, episode of Late Night with Jimmy Fallon,[43][44] and on the morning show Today in Rockefeller Plaza on September 3, 2013,[45] as Miller name-dropped American rapper Lil B during his opening verse in the latter performance.[46] During the pre-show of the 2013 MTV Video Music Awards, Grande performed "The Way" in a medley alongside "Baby I" (2013). She wore a purple silk dress with "prom-style" jewels and high heels, while accompanied by two backup dancers sporting black.[47] Writing about the performance, Caitlin White of MTV News noted that Grande appeared "a little nervous" when singing the former song.[48] On October 16, 2013, she performed "The Way" on Jimmy Kimmel Live! while sporting a shimmery, strapless, sequined dress.[49]
Grande included "The Way" on the setlist of several concerts. During her debut concert titled The Listening Sessions, the song was included as the concert's encore performance, as she incorporated an a cappella in the introduction and utilized several vocal harmony lines in place of the backing vocalists.[50]
Grande performed "The Way" as a duet with Miller at One Love Manchester on June 4, 2017,[51] before providing vocals for a performance of Miller's 2016 song "Dang!".[52] From August 6 to 8, 2021, she performed "The Way" as a part of her 14-minute virtual concert setlist during the Rift Tour in the video game Fortnite Battle Royale.[53][54][55] During the song's performance, Grande's avatar climbs a white staircase to approach a bright light,[56] which Ilana Kaplan of NME described the singer's "enlarged" appearance as "a judge flexing her gavel outside of a courthouse".[3]
Credits adapted from the CD single liner notes.[58]