Ariana Grande got pipes for days! The pop star gave fans such a sweet surprise the day before Christmas 2024 when she dropped a live studio session of her song “Santa Tell Me.” Grande’s voice is so versatile, and she’s really firing on all cylinders with this live cut. The Florida star originally dropped the song back in 2014, and it’s clear that she’s grown so much as a vocalist in the decade since the original release.
In both the original music video and the studio session, Grande is having a lot of fun with the song, which really gives a warm and fuzzy feeling to watch. Fans clearly connected with Grande’s take on the lighthearted Christmas song, as they’ve already tuned in 2.1 million times in the three weeks since she uploaded the video. Grande is one of our favourite vocalists here on The Music Man, and a Christmas surprise from her is always welcome!
Grande trained with a vocal coach ahead of her role in the 2024 musical film Wicked, which some fans connected with her excellent vocal form in the studio session. Viewers loved to see the pop star do her thing live and added comments such as “10+ years in and not a note missed, not a key lowered. She’s the most consistent vocalist of all time and she’s only getting better!” and “She’s always been a phenomenal singer but I think the vocal training for Wicked has just brought her voice to a whole new level!”
Grande has a real soft spot for Christmas songs, and regularly tunes in with some holiday favorites as the big day nears each year. Her most popular Christmas live performance on YouTube is her duet with Kelly Clarkson on “Santa, Can’t You Hear Me.” It won’t surprise The Music Man readers to hear that the combination of Clarkson’s strident pop vocal and Grande’s smoother R&B vibe is just heavenly.
Grande released “Santa Tell Me” on November 24, 2014. She co-wrote the song with Savan Kotecha and Ilya Salmanzadeh, with the latter also handling production duties. It’s a tough job to get a modern Christmas song into regular rotation, but Grande nonetheless managed to make “Santa Tell Me” a Christmas standard.
“Santa Tell Me” peaked at number five on the Billboard Hot 100, and it hit the top 10 on numerous charts internationally. The song also went four times Platinum in the US, and went multi-Platinum in a number of international markets.