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Lizzo Enlists Ariana Grande For 'Good As Hell' Remix

Lizzo performs onstage at the Hollywood Palladium on Oct. 18, 2019 in Los Angeles, California.
Emma McIntyre
/
Getty Images
Lizzo performs onstage at the Hollywood Palladium on Oct. 18, 2019 in Los Angeles, California.

Back in the before-times, a pop star would release a single and it'd climb the charts, hit a peak position and begin a slow descent into oblivion. The whole process might take a few months, and then it'd be on to the next single.

But Lizzo's "Truth Hurts" has experienced a different trajectory entirely: It bubbled up for about a year and a half before taking off earlier this year, and now it sits at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 for a seventh (nonconsecutive) week. So it only makes sense that, when it came time for something new, Lizzo — whose breakthrough album, Cuz I Love You, came out earlier this year — would opt to reinvigorate a single even older than "Truth Hurts."

That'd be 2016's unstoppable, wonderful "Good As Hell," which now has its very own 2019 remix thanks to an assist from another pop juggernaut: Ariana Grande, who joins the fun with her own demand to be treated right. ("He better know my worth," she sings, adding, "There's so much that I deserve.")

Don't be surprised to see Grande's presence inspire a much-deserved renaissance for "Good As Hell." And, hey, if that works, Lizzo's catalog doesn't end there: She's got two more albums (2013's Lizzobangers and 2015's Big Grrrl Small World), just waiting for their own overdue turn at the top of the charts.

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Stephen Thompson is a writer, editor and reviewer for NPR Music, where he speaks into any microphone that will have him and appears as a frequent panelist on All Songs Considered. Since 2010, Thompson has been a fixture on the NPR roundtable podcast Pop Culture Happy Hour, which he created and developed with NPR correspondent Linda Holmes. In 2008, he and Bob Boilen created the NPR Music video series Tiny Desk Concerts, in which musicians perform at Boilen's desk. (To be more specific, Thompson had the idea, which took seconds, while Boilen created the series, which took years. Thompson will insist upon equal billing until the day he dies.)