Break Free

On July 2, 2014, Ariana Grande released "Break Free" with Zedd, a song that yanked her sound away from the R&B of her debut and threw it headfirst into EDM. The track, written by Savan Kotecha and produced by Zedd and Max Martin, rides a four-on-the-floor beat and a synth hook that explodes in the chorus. Grande's voice soars through melismatic runs, matching the electronic intensity. It was the second single from her album My Everything, out a month later via Republic Records.

The song became a commercial juggernaut. It peaked at number four on the Billboard Hot 100, joining "Problem" and "Bang Bang" in the top ten simultaneously. That made Grande the second female artist after Adele to pull off three concurrent top-ten hits. Internationally, it hit number three in Canada, number six in Australia, and cracked the top twenty in the UK, Germany, and Ireland. The RIAA certified it quintuple platinum; by 2020, it had sold over 1.9 million copies in the US alone.

Director Chris Marrs Piliero shot a music video that dropped on August 12, 2014. It's a campy sci-fi romp: Grande plays a space prisoner on an alien planet who fights a giant octopus, then breaks free with a dance crew. The video has racked up over 1.2 billion YouTube views. "Break Free" earned a Grammy nomination for Best Pop Duo/Group Performance and won Best Collaboration at the 2014 MTV Europe Music Awards. Its legacy endures through covers by Tori Kelly, Our Last Night, and Postmodern Jukebox, and its continued use in fitness routines and social media dances.[edit]